A Bare Metal P-40E; Part One by Rodney Williams

A Bare Metal P-40E; Part One
by Rodney Williams

A few months ago I decided to build my 1/48 scale Hasegawa P-40E Warhawk right out-of-the-box. I wanted to apply an unusual paint job on the model, so I started to surf the model web sites and look at all the P-40's out there. I forget who the modeler was, but his closing statement on his P-40 story was: "I will have to do a "bare-metal" P-40 one of these days."

This rang my "bell," so I got on Brad Hagen's P-40 website where he posted my "Super-Detailed" 1/32 P-40E model several years ago. Brad has lot's of P-40 data, so I started looking at the photos he had on the site of real P-40's. Alas, to my amazement, there's a P-40N with Aussie markings on it and it is fairly clean and is "all bare metal," except for the "anti-glare" panel in front of the wind screen.

That's it..........I'm done surfing and that is the airplane I'm going to build. Well this real bird is a P-40N and I have a P-40E kit.

What is the difference between the two aircraft...I don't have a clue.

I email my model friend Mark Davies down in Auckland, New Zealand. Mark sent me some data on the P-40's. Mark put me onto Peter Mossong who has a big web site down in New Zealand. Pete put me onto Ventura Publication's which is located in Wellington, NZ. Malcolm at Ventura sold me the correct style of stenciled decals for "A29-480".

NOW...........I see that the tail plane is different, but I am not going to change it on my model, nor am I going to go out and buy a P-40N kit, if there is one on the market.

My 1st two photos show a full length right side view of the real Aussie P40N, (A29-480) and my finished model. Take a good look at both photos, then you can see the difference.

"Building the Oil-Water Intake Parts"

There are only four parts to this building segment, which has raised detailed engraving for both sides of the round oil and water coolers. Once my super glue was dry, I file and sand the parts smooth, then paint them. They were attached to the right side of the fuselage.

"Some other construction photos"

The next few photos show the finished sidewalls attached to the cockpit area and a nice close-up of the painted instrument panel. The rest of the cockpit was finished and painted, then installed on the front right fuselage section.

The IPMS/USA "out-of-the-box" rules let me drill out the exhaust stacks, so they look more realistic.

My next operation is getting the side windows, canopy and wind screen ready for painting, including all of the other cockpit parts. The clear side window parts will be attached on final assemble, including the windscreen with ordinary white glue. The canopy sit's in the open/closed position nicely, so I'll attach it later with some white glue.

Part 2