WIP: P-40E in Brazilian Air Force service circa 1943 (Academy 1/72)

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Looks good so far. For those concerned with the wing root gaps and who elect to not glue the wing uppers to the bottoms before attaching to the fuselage, it's common to attach the uppers first to ensure a solid fit and then glue the bottom on. I'm with Wojtek and tend to assemble the wings fully and then deal with the gap by dry fitting to get the right dihedral.
 

The wings are not in place yet. I usually glue the upper halves first and than the bottom piece, this way I can make sure there are no gaps in the joints to the fuselage.

Cheers
 
Looking good. I've seen builds where the top halves are glued to the fuselage first and it worked very well. However, for me personally, my biggest fear would be controlling the dihedral.

Geo
 
ArmouredSprue said:
I usually glue the upper halves first and than the bottom piece, this way I can make sure there are no gaps in the joints to the fuselage.

Cheers
Click to expand...

It's OK. The way is used by modellers often. There is nothing wrong with attaching these top halves to the fuselage firstly. But I would like to ask you ... are you ready to bet your life that panel lines, aileron, flap edges and bays at both the top halves and the bottom part of a wing aren't moved and go together properly? Also are you always sure the wing dihedral is set correctly for the wing roots of both the top halves and the fuselage? My experience says that the bottom wing part is responsible for the proper wing dihedral mostly. Just curious of your opinion.
 

I hadn't had any problems with this before, but I'll look closely from now on.
 
The seams sanding was very short and it wasn't required to use putty at all. Just in case I did spray some interior green (that I was using to paint the head plate behind the seat) to check the seams. All looked good!



I also started to glue the wings by attaching the upper wing halves to the fuselage. I usually do that as a way to prevent gaps (and using putty+sanding) on the wings roots meeting the fuselage.

 
Wurger said:
OK. Thank you for the replay. Also the joint at the wing root seen in the pic posted above is looking good. But it seems that the fitting there isn't the best one.
Click to expand...

It's not the best fit, that's why this methods helps to minimize sanding and putty in that place (and lost of engraved details).
Cheers
 
Continuing with this build I've glued the under side of the wings. All good and aligned properly. Little to sand on the edges but some putty/sanding required on the front wing roots and belly but nothing to be scared of.



I also installed the PE cooling slats. It really adds to the model.

 
A small but important step in my building process. I finally did mask the canopy. It is a tedious task and I was avoiding it, but it was also slowing me down since I could not progress with the building.

I started by giving the clear parts a bath into Future=Pledge and set aside to dry (usually overnight but it was more than one week before I begin to mask it). The Future helps to improve the clear parts.

Next step was to mask using small stripes of Tamiya masking tape. This canopy has very soft edges for the frames and required a lot of attention to finish.

Here are a couple of photos:





The fit was excellent and no extra filling or adjust was required.
 
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