Here is the latest project on my work bench, It's the Academy 1/72 Curtiss P-40B of Charles Older. Its on its first paint stage, got to get the patterns right, need some tweeking. Hoping to weather this model with some acrilic paints to make it look battle worn.
Hey GI... you have any problems with the P-40B wing dihedral? My son did that one and the wing fit should have been tweaked some. He didn't know that their should be some dihedral and ended up with none.
Ah, upward tilt, sadly they are flat, had not noticed that, well and truely glued in now, my later P40N which I think was Italeri has the dihedral angle ok. Yet another example of a poor model then.
Is that the 1/72 in your pic? The other thing I have noticed is the nose cones in most ref pics look brown not red as illustrated on the box. The camo pattern on the box instructions is not spot on either, what can you do!
Academy screwed that one up. In the pic of my son's P-40B, you can see he did the same thing. But the wing join lines are perfect. Academy just got the dihedral wrong. No worries. Still makes for a good looking model and if you don't learn something from every build, that takes the fun out of it. Now you just need to buy another one!
I think the solution for the Academy build would be to remove stock on the fuselage where the upper wing joins. This would allow for the wing to flex into a normal dihedral. Another option (for attempting to correct a built kit) would be to cut a slit longitudinally in the lower wing, insert a spacer to force dihedral, putty, sand and paint. Better to catch it before hand.
The main problem with the P-40 wing are the upper wing halves.There are two ways of correction the dihedral.The first way is to remove some plastic from these upper halves at the wingroot areas.The second one is to glue the lower half of the wing to the fuselage firstly and then try to fit and fix these upper ones.The second way seems to be better taking the incorrect wingspan of the model into consideration.
Some good advice there, Matt and Wojtek. Pitty a manufacturer gets such a basic thing wrong though.
BTW, thanks you other guys for the compliments on the Sabre. Have to say I'm not too keen on the Sabre Dog myself, but I DO like the Fiat, especially in the 'New Luftwaffe' colours; been meaning to do a 1.48th one for years.
Sadly you are right Terry.But the kit is quite old one.So no wonder it is of poor quality.My one got a serious surgery and is still waiting for being born again as Curtiss Havk 75 in Vichy camouflage.
Sorted the wings by removing stock on F with stanly knife, I seem to have a propeller that looks like it was in a crash, anyone got a spare 1/72 3 blade propeller spare?
I'd love to see your Vichy hawk, Wojtek, sounds interesting, and different.
Chris, I might have a prop off a Halifax, if you can adapt it and fit the P40 spinner over the top? Sorry, but I don't do 1/72nd scale much, so not much in the spares box! Can you repair yours by immersing in hot (not boiling) water, and gently bending back into shape?