The Fisken P-40s: Hase and Italeri 1/48th

[general]

Greetings from the Central Plateau.
Well-overdue for an update, I feel. So here are some prelims of the dual-build to date. I won't swamp you with the 50+ pics at present.

Okay. The Hasegawa is the commission kit and I can see why it's lauded as one of the best on the market.
Love the cockpit and rivet detail. I did, however, file and sand back most of the flight control 'ribs', plus the underwing gun access panels. They were waytoo proud of the surface.
Client wants his in Fisken's earlier a/c, NZ3060 with RAF three-tone. That settled my indecision. I'd build both and my Italeri will be the Wildcat, in OD/NG.

Props are close enough to make no difference:


Hase above, Italeri below, to show difference in kit cockpit representation:


Hase kit had wheel-well inserts. I chose to cut the roof off and dress them to fit against the wing uppers. Much better depth.
Also added styrene for stringers in well, drilled out access holes in the front spar (both kis) w/ sprue rod for piping conduit, then a small elec. distribution box on the inner well wall with stretched sprue for cabling.


According to the Grand High Poobah of PTO RNZAF the client's scheme is a make-believe, for the warbird cicrcuit, wearing NZ3009. I shall have to amend the serial from the spares pile.

Here's the Italeri:


Anyhoo, some progress shots. The radiators I first shot with black, masked with punched discs and then the IG:


Spinners got some black Sharpie streaks for pre-shading the oil stains and wear.
Hase IP - drilled out inst. faces, filed the panel thin and put one of the decals on styrene card, fixed to the rear with Future.


More on the 'pit later:


Cheers

Ross

[general]

Here are more WIP.

Not that clear but a view of the Hase wing together, with wheel well done.



I went a similiar oute for the Italeri IP. The Hase kit comes with four layouts for the IP - two with black background to fix directly on the front, and two with only the faces that have a fine white surround.
The Italeri part dial layout was, natch, slightly wider.
I laid it face-down on clear acetate and shot a light coat of primer to give dial face locations.
Used my home-made punch-n-die set, removed individual dials and Future'd them to the clear side of the acetate, using the painted marks on the reverse as guides.
A very fiddly process, placing a dial, checking location with the IP for each. The lower switches are plain decals.
It's good enough. (The Photybucket pic doesn't want to load, regrettably.)



Italeri's seat was flat, square and merely fixed to the rear wall. modified the seat rear, w/ Hase part as template, adding a curved back and copper wire frame to the bulkhead.


The Hasegawa, in contrast:





Seatbelts are a change from my old practice of masking tape. This time I cut strips of lead foil, from an old auto-polish tube. Wrapped thin copper wire round tweezers to form latches, etc.
It resists the wire better when I wrap wire round it, and it holds the end latches simply by folding it over. Good enough for drill purposes.

The sanding and priming continues . . .

Cheers