Sword Models Curtis P40 Kittyhawk III - Part II

Well, I'm starting to believe that "limited run" is hobby's shorthand for "Just so you know, this puppy will fight you every step of the way and be general pain in the arse". At least that's what I was pretty convinced of as I've got through the dreaded step of putting the cockpit together and closing the fuselage.

Why dreaded, you ask? Well, I don't know how other model builders think about this step, but for me this stage is always a bit unnerving - not only is everything (ideally) supposed to fit perfectly together (which it never does), but correction of any mistakes or misalignments can be a bit of a problem. Thus, this is always this stage of building process that requires for me take a deeeep breath before I get on with it.

In this particular case, as soon as I was dry-fitting the instrument panel, I knew there would be problems. I don't know how the designer imagined for it to work, but in my opinion there wasn't enough surface to glue together. There is about one square millimeter on each side of the panel and on the sides of the cockpit to work with. I know, super-glue is the obvious answer. But only the normal plastic glue was an option here, as I felt I needed time to adjust position of the panel, if I didn't get it right from the start. That in itself provided a problem of its own - as everyone knows, plastic glue actually melts plastic... which, in this case were the minuscule sections I tried to fuse together.

Needless to say, things went rather badly on first try and every attempt to get the panel into place only made the situation even worse. In the end, I 'spot-welded' the part to the cockpit in a rather crooked position. Only couple of days later I came to think of proper solution for the problem - all I had to do was to glue small extensions out of scrap plastic to the sides of the cockpit! Oh well, chalk this one up as part of learning process. :(

Rest of building process went surprisingly smoothly. Fuselage of the model fits together rather snugly, although care needs to be taken to align the parts together. Wing assembly was a bit more demanding, with upper parts of the wings not fitting with the lower part. The cause - surprise, surprise - the imprecise assembly of wheel wells. Well sides had to be filed down rather significantly before I achieved proper fit.

I don't feel I'm the right person to judge whether the fit between the fuselage and the wings is 'bad' or just 'demanding'. In any case, some additional work with filler and sanding sticks had to be done before I found the fit to my satisfaction.

Once past that last hurdle and having all main components in their intended places, I did have in my hands an lump of plastic that really did resemble a tiny Kittyhawk. It was time to bring out painting equipment.

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.

Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero - Part V

Final steps in this project were done 'by the book'. First, a gloss coat of acrylic gloss varnish sealed the paint job and prepared the model for decals. Then, decals (which by the way are excellent) were applied and allowed to set over the night. Second layer of gloss varnish sealed the decals and provided the smooth surface for washes and pigments.

After less than satisfactory experience with Flory Models' clay-based washes in previous build, I reverted back to water soluble oils as my 'weapon of choice' for washes and accents. One has to be a tad quicker when working with them, but for some reason I feel that I have better control with them. I prepared a thin wash of Burned Umber and Black and used it to outline all panel engravings. After allowing the wash to dry for a couple of hours, I cleaned up the excess wash with damp cotton wad. The fun thing about this technique is that the cleanup step also doubles as a subtle shading process - you just wipe the wash at the right angle from the panel engraving and leave a shade of discoloration on the airplane body. Instant filter, thank you very much.

Next, burnt umber and black pigments was applied very sparingly with a soft brush to all of the model. I tried to create subtle and irregular streaks of dirt and dust, concentrating on areas near the ground.

With pigments in place, the final step was to seal everything with two light coats of Testor's DullCoat. Usually, two coats are more than enough to bring down the model to 'dead matte' finish I like on my models. Not this time though. Maybe the weather was a bit damp or perhaps because the can was just about to be empty - for whatever the reason, after two coats of varnish, the model still has a slight satin shine. Funnily enough, it actually looked right on this model, so I let it be.

While waiting for the coats of varnish to cure, I started working on the cockpit. It quickly turned out to be the trickiest part of the entire build. Cockpit frame is very softly defined and just to make things a bit more trickier, many of  the corners in Zero cockpit are rounded. Those two factors put together made cutting of the masks out of the tape pretty much impossible. Plan B was to use Vallejo's masking fluid instead. Problem is that I don't like that stuff and never had much success with it. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try. Once the mask dried, I airbrushed the cockpit, first with the internal cockpit color, next with airplane color. Next day I tried to peal off the mask and it became almost immediately evident that I had no more luck with it than all those years ago when I struggled with similar product from Humbrol. I think I've managed to scrape of as much paint as mask and I was actually afraid that I now would have to scrap the entire cockpit. Luckily, acrylics are so very easy to wash of with plain water and detergent and I was able to save it.

In the end, I resorted to good old fashioned hand-painting with a brush and toothpick for cleanup of any mistakes. I came up with this technique while still in my teens, at the time when the only paint widely available for modelers in Sweden were Humbrol enamels. Scraping off enamels with a toothpick doesn't work that well, but guess what... it works like a charm with acrylics. Using brush to paint with Vallejo Air paints is on the other hand a real pain - they're so damn thin! Nonetheless, with a bit of patience I've actually ended up with acceptably painted cockpit.

End product of this project can be seen below. I've got to say say that I love this little kit and along with the Spitfire it has become an instant favorite of mine. Good job, Airfix!

Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero - Part IV

With airplane body assembled and painted, I was past the halfway point with this project. Now it was time to get all those small bits and pieces into place.

Work on engine sub-assembly is pretty straightforward. Engine consists of two parts that need to be glued together, painted and plugged into a hole in front of fuselage. Once the cowling is in place, you won't see much of it, but nevertheless, I've decided to go the extra mile with the paint job. I've started with the base coat of flat black, followed by Vallejo Gunmetal Grey and highlights of Chainmail Silver. As a final touch I accentuated the shadows with Games Workshop Black wash. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure whether all this "effort" (everything took about 10 minutes) was worth the bother or was especially realistic looking, but I was pleased with the final result.

Cowling is supposed to be painted with a 50/50 mix of Humbrol Black and Midnight Blue, but since I forgot to buy the second, I mixed Humbrol's Black with Vallejo's Model Color Dark Prussian Blue. Guess what, it worked without any problems and I was able to put it through my airbrush without any problems.

Finally, it was time to mount undercarriage components. Don't know why, but it's always my least favorite part of assembly process. All those small, fiddly and fragile pieces - something always breaks in two. This model was no exception; as I cut away the wheel covers, one of them broke cleanly in two at the most fragile point. I was able to glue the broken component back together, but I wasn't able to restore its proper curved shape. Word of advice - be very careful when getting those tiny components out of their frames.

Undercarriage of a Zero is surprisingly complex, also in the rather rudimentary rendition of Airfix. Ensure especially that the wheel legs (or whatever they'r called) are inserted all the way in, because the fit is rather snug. I discovered only after the glue dried that one of them didn't go all the way in, with the model being permanently slightly lopsided. The tilt isn't all that visible, but I know it's there and that knowledge alone is enough to bug me.

Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero - Part III

With main components of the model having been assembled and primed, it was now time to have some fun with the airbrush. As usual, as the first step in painting process, I did my best to preshade the model by outlining all panel lines with black. As images below are showing, my control of the airbrush still leaves a lot to be desired, but the end result was adequate. I can also add that I find preshading to be excellent and stress-free airbrushing exercise - it doesn't really matter what mistakes I'll make, since everything will mostly be covered by other colors anyway.

Next, it was time to paint the yellow strips at the leading edges of the wings. Airfix provides the decals for those details, but it's very simple to paint them and then mask them of. The only suitable acrylic yellow I had available was Humbrol 154 and it was half-dry (damn it, Humbrol, one could almost suspect a conspiracy on your part here - first those annoying tin cans for your enamels and now plastic jars that can't keep paints in shape more than a couple of months after 'breaking the seal'). I managed to revitalize the stringy mass in the jar with some acrylic thinner, but at first the results weren't satisfactory. Nonetheless, wanting to proceed, I continued applying thin layers of paint and after a while I deemed the coverage to be adequate. I left the paint job to dry for a day before masking of the areas supposed to be yellow, allowing it to cure properly.

To be fair, I have to point out that yellow paints are in my opinion very frustrating to use in general, so maybe it's a bit harsh to blame Humbrol for 'low performance' of its 154 Insignia Yellow.

With yellow leading edge stripes masked off, it was now time for the 'main event'. I'm not sure if my reasoning was correct, but for this part of the project I've decided to use Tamiya's paints instead of Airfix's Humbrol recommendations. After all, Tamiya being a Japanese company should know what Japanese Navy Grey and Green looks like. Right?

Regardless of the correctness of my choice, I must say this - airbrushing with Tamiya's paints is pure joy. I have my now used acrylics from Humbrol, LifeColor and Vallejo Air and I was a bit amazed over the difference in behavior of Tamiya's paints. Perfect finish and great control over paint flow! For the first time I was able to retain the preshading effect and also adding the highlights without having to struggle. Furthermore, Tamiya's paints seem a bit tougher once dry. This characteristic unfortunately makes also cleaning of the airbrush into a bit of a challenge, but that's a small price to pay.

One of the advantages with airbrushing -
if you mess up,  you get a 'redo' since the paint layers are so thin.

Paint job of the aircraft body.

Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero - Part II

Alright, let's get on with the build then. First stage, is as always with airplane kits, the cockpit. In this respect, the Zero is a very nice surprise - while sparse in detail, it still manages to provide a very nice rendition of pilot's 'home away from home'.
I had a bit of a problem with selection of paint for the cockpit. Quick research session on the net told me that different paints were used by Mitsubishi and Nakajima, but the best info I could find about the color of the paint used by Mitsubishi was that it was almost identical with american Olive Drab. Considering the variety of 'Olive Drab', this tidbit of info was less than useful. In the end, I decided to use artistic license and loaded the airbrush with Vallejo Air Interior Green slightly lightened by Dark Yellow. Once the paint was dry, I applied a light oil wash to the recesses to bring out the detail.

Instrument panel is re-created with help of three decals. All of them fit pretty well. The main panel decal is slightly oversized, but nothing a dab of DecalSet can't fix.

Pretty decent detail of cockpit walls.

Cockpit itself after assembly and painting

Cockpit fits snugly into the fuselage, so putting it in and closing the fuselage was done without any problems. Fit between the fuselage and the wing section isn't as precise and one needs to be rather careful when putting those two sub-assemblies together. I didn't pay sufficient attention and had to do some filing and filling with putty to correct a rather visible misalignment between right wing and its wing root. I do however believe that this problem can be avoided with some dry-fitting and filing before the glue is brought into play.

All major components minus the engine section are in place.
Considerable amount of work went into fixing misalignment between
the fuselage and right wing. 

Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zero - Part I

It's been awfully quiet here for a while, hasn't it? Well, let's change it and unpack one of those new Airfix Mitsubishi A6M2b Zeros. Quick review is enough to realize that it's yet another of those basic, but functional   kits that are bread and butter of Airfix.

Another thing worth observing is that Airfix seems to be getting better in getting the most out of their new molds. Cockpit has some pretty decent detailing, vertical tail control surface area is adjustable and perhaps most important - the depth and width of panel engravings seem just right.