Sword Models Curtis P40 Kittyhawk III - Part V

As previous post probably indicated, there was very little left to do before the Kittyhawk was done. Flory's mud wash was wiped off before I brought out my box with powdered pigments. Previous misadventures taught me that when working with those, usually less is more. This time I've limited myself to areas around the engine exhausts - the pipes were first dirtied down and then a slight hint of rust was added in a final layer. Airframe below the exhausts was treated with black and brown pigments in an attempt to reproduce smoke residue. Finally, I applied irregular, very faint streaks of black, burnt sienna and raw umber pigments  all over the airframe, with upper wing surfaces and lower airframe gettin a little more attention than the rest of the model.

Then it was time to literally wipe out all those subtle visual effects. I love Testor's Dullcoat for its ability to bring everything to an absolutely matté finish, but I hate the side-effect of it wiping out 90 percent of those subtle effects that are achievable with pigments. This case was no exception - two coats of Dullcoat and most of the pigments were 'eradicated'.

Well, that's the end of yet another fighter project. Was it worth it? I think in this case it's a 'split decidion'. When finished, the model certainly looks very nice and the price of this kit should make it into a very attractive alternative. It was a rather frustrating build, but I was never at the brink of tossing it into the bin. I really didn't appreciate the fact that the decal sheet is partially unusable. Make whatever you want out of those observations and pictures below.

Sword Models Curtis P40 Kittyhawk III - Part IV

Final step of the paint job started in previous post consisted of dark brown disruptive pattern painted freehand with Lifecolor Dark Earth UA092. It was finished just before my vacation (thus a month without any updates). Freehand airbrushing is a bit unnerving at first, but once I've relaxed a bit, it turned out to be quite fun. Having now tried it, I'm absolutely looking forward to doing it again.

Once I've got back from my trip, work on the Kittyhawk continued according to what is slowly becoming my standard operating procedure - once painting step is finished, it's time a coat of gloss varnish and then the decals. Sword provides one set of standard stencils and three different decal options. Considering the fact that there are two model kits in the box, it is a little "ungenerous". On the other hand, maybe the fact that there is only single set of stencil decals it doesn't matter all that much, since as it turns out, the small decals are extremly fragile and pretty much fall apart at slightest touch once wet. After having all three stencils intended for the propeller blades disintegrate before my eyes, I've had enough and didn't even bother with the rest of the stencil decals. Application of larger decals proceeded almost without incidents - only one decal tore apart in the middle. Fortunately I was able to join the halves back together and the tear is now almost impossible to spot.

Done with struggling with what was hopefully the final act of resistance from this frustrating model, I was glad to seal the decals with a final coat of gloss varnish and let it cure for two days. Now I am at the final stage - the weathering. As first step I applied a dark wash of water-solvable oils to all panel engravings. However, the engravings on this model are quite shallow and didn't absorb much of the pigment, so I decided to wipe it of the model and see if I wouldn't get better results with Flory Model's wash instead.

The 'wipe-off' of the oil wash became an impromptu weathering step in itself, as I decided to have some fun and see what effects I would be able to achieve by smearing it over the wings and lower parts of the fuselage. The end effect was quite interesting discoloration, especially on the blue-colored underside of the airplane. I liked it so much that I've decided to leave it there for now.

Upper surfaces covered with the 'goo' from Flory Models

Belly of the Kittyhawk after treatment with oils.

Sword Models Curtis P40 Kittyhawk III - Part III

Alright... once again, it was time for some fun with the airbrush. First step - couple of thin layers of Vallejo's grey primer straight out of the can. Next, preshading stage, where all panel lines are outlined with thinned down black paint. Once these steps were completed, proper paint job could begin.

In case of the Kittyhawk, I had a bit of a problem with paint selection. Sword Miniatures doesn't provide references to specific paint manufacturers, only generic paint names such as Azure Blue or Mid Stone. Luckily, when it comes to Allied airplanes in North Africa, it's pretty easy to figure out what colors are historically correct. After a short online research session, all that remained was the decision front is what brand of colors to use. Based on ease of availability and previous experience, I choose to go yet again with Lifecolor acrylics - UA098 Azure Blue for the underside and UA097 Middle Stone / UA092 Dark Earth for camouflage scheme of upper surfaces.

For the sake of personal challenge, I decided to paint the cammo scheme without any masks. Not sure if it's historically correct, but I wanted to paint a soft-edged cammo pattern for the longest of times and this opportunity was to good to be allowed to pass by. Also, this way I would get the opportunity to train my handling of the airbrush. Also, I wanted for this model to have a camouflage with feathered edges. To get better control of spraying pattern, I switched to 0.3 mm needle in my Badger 150. A short training session on a piece of paper revealed noticeable difference in handling - on positive side, the spray pattern was (as expected) much thinner. On the negative side, the airbrush showed much higher tendency for clogging. Thinning the paint a bit more normally did alleviate this problem a bit. Increasing the air pressure did not - the only result of that action was much higher tendency for unintentional spatter and spidering patterns.

Once I've gotten a bit of a grasp of new characteristics of my airbrush, painting freehand actually turned out to be a rather enjoyable experience. I'm happy to say that I managed to get most of camouflage right on  first try. Places where I messed up were easily corrected with a second pass with the airbrush. I also discovered that minor spatter spots can be corrected with a normal brush, without noticeable blemishes on the finish.

Middle Stone cammo pattern applied. Once again, I managed to pretty much eradicate the shade effect I tried to create with black lines outlining the panel edges.

How to make life difficult for oneself - initially I decided not to mount the drop tank on this model.
I then changed my mind... but not before being done with all the painting of the airplane body. Once the drop tank was in place, it had to be painted and I was pretty sure that this would result in unintentional oversprays  on already painted areas. In the end, common kitchen plastic foil turned out to be perfect as masking material for already painted areas.

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.