Sword Models Curtis P40 Kittyhawk III - Part I

After six Airfix models in a row, I wanted to try a different manufacturer. As luck would have it, I remembered that one of my purchases during my initial shopping spree of last year was a Kittyhawk kit from a Sword Models, a company I never encountered before. Since I bought it during one of my trips, I had to ditch the box due to limited space, but here's the link to manufacturer's own homepage for this model.

Once I looked into the plastic bag, I remembered why I bought this kit in the first place. It was dirt cheap and the single plastic sprue gives the impression of the model being simple build. The detail is quite decent and you get two kits for the price of one. In other words, excellent value for the money!

For no particular reason, I made a bit of investigation about Sword Models and this kit in particular. The company is from Czech Republic and they seem to be a small operator, but with rather impressive range of products, some of them quite unusual. The actual kit is of so called "limited run" variety, a term previously unknown to me, but which I assume means that only limited number  of each kit is produced and once they are sold, they are gone from the market.

Once I started putting the kit together, it quickly became obvious that it is a peculiar blend of some parts having surprisingly high detail (or at least higher than what I was used to from Airfix) and basic, almost crude renditions of other parts of the airplane. During first stages of building the model, I was impressed by the detail of cockpit area, especially the instrument panel. Wheel wells on the other hand, while nicely detailed, are a true pain in the butt to work with. They consist of four pieces of plastic that need to be fitted together rather precisely for good result, but the model lacks any guides or supports that could be of any help in the fitting process. Instruction manual isn't of much help neither. In the end, I had to more or less guess what the right position was for individual walls of the wheel wells, with less than optimal results.

As it turns out, it was my first encounter with what in my opinion is a main problem with this kit - almost complete lack of guides and positioning pins makes this model a bit more challenging than your 'run of the mill' Airfix kit. Apparently, that's one of the common characteristics of those so called "limited run" kits - definitely something to keep in mind when thinking about getting one of those birds.

You get two of these sprues for the price of one.
Decent deal, if you ask me!

Cockpit sides have a bit of detail straight out of the box,

but the wheel wells are a pain to put together.

Instrument panel - I allowed myself a bit of artistic license
when painting it, so don't send any angry messages on the account
of altimeter being in wrong position.

My first clumsy attempt at detailing - head support made of "green stuff"
and seat belts cut out of thin metal foil, which in its previous life functioned as seal for
a jar of dry food for my fishes.