1/48 P-40 Kittyhawk

Gallery Article by Dan McWilliams on Oct 12 2009

 

This is the Hasegawa kit, using decals from Sweating Beaver (apparently associated somehow with IPMS Canada).  The reason I don't know for sure is that the decals were a gift from James Knaus, who was a frequent contributor here on ARC.  He was given an ultimatum from his wife to clean out some of his stash, and I received a HUGE box with lots of goodies.  His only stipulation was to put them to good use.  Here's to you, James!

The aircraft pictured here is from 111 Squadron RCAF, stationed in Patricia Bay (near Vancouver, BC) in 1942.  They were deployed to the Aleutians shortly afterward, according to the great little historical spiel included with the decals. 

The kit itself was a quick and easy build, a nice break after that big F-16 I finished recently.  I had forgotten just how small fighters from WW II are in 1:48.  I used Tamiya acrylics (earth and NATO green looked close enough to me) for the upper camo, and a rattle can of grey primer that I bought for peanuts at a hardware store to approximate the sky grey bottom.  You can see I don't get excited about colour authenticity on all my builds...

Click on images below to see larger images

  

I weathered it very slightly with dry-brushed silver (Humbrol 11).  The decals were easy to apply but have minor register problems and the roundels end up being thick in the middle (3 layers to go on with the concentric differing colours, especially on the fuselage sides).  I also chose to paint the navigation lights silver then colour them red/green with permanent markers (the kit gives an option of carving out the lights and replacing them with clear parts, but it looked like WAY too much work).

I'm happy with this cute little fighter.  It reminds me of an old control-line P-40 I used to fly ages ago with a .049 engine.  I had 3 fuselages and 2 wings, and used to glue it all together regularly after crashes (deliberate and accidental).  This one will sit quietly on my shelf - it will not be asked to fly!

Dan McWilliams

Photos and text © by Dan McWilliams