A few pics

It's been hard to get time at the bench for a while now.
Final details being done, then I'll take some photos.
Here's a teaser:

Last clear coat is on now.
It's been delayed by a lot of distractions from the workbench.
All that is left is some touch up on the canopy and final assembly.
Hope to have some photos soon after that...

many thanks!

Almost ready for final clear coat:

Thanks!  I did a couple things wrong.  I was using a craft acrylic paint for the blue.  Craft store acrylic can be airbrushed but this particular brand is a little "rubbery" for several hours after laying it down.  Also, my airbrush was out of alignment and I was having issues just getting paint down...so it ended up too heavy.  When I removed the masks, it was still in a rubber like state.  Oh, the masking tape I used was meant for sensitive surfaces, which is good...except that it was like 15 years old and was extra sticky.  Thus, some of the olive drab got lifted...
Lots of lessons learned and time lost.  This project should have been done months ago.

So bought a decal sheet for the RAAF roundels off of eBay.  I think I paid too much but that was all I could find.  They went down okay but some of the white flaked off...so I had to touch them up. 
The microscale decals I  used for this plane are 40 years old...but they went down perfectly!  Go MicroScale!!!

I have done a light clear coat over the decals followed by dark grey Tamiya panel line accent product.  You have to acrylic clear because removing the excess Tamiya requires an enamel thinner.

Here are some pics of the landing gear alignment.  This is the second attempt.  The first attempt they were raked too far forward...so I ripped them out last night.  Little bad luck but not too bad.

Work has been progressing.  I'm having some issue with my Iwata Neo airbrush.  Getting a smooth paint job has been difficult.
I was a bit too much in a rush when I tried to paint my own RAAF roundels.  I used a circle cutter to make precise masks.
However, the paint I used was not good and I had some disasters with tape pulling up olive drab.
Since these were taken, I have been able to:
1. repaint the affected areas
2. obtain a decal sheet with RAAF roundels
3. finish decal application

I'm back to work on it...life got in the way for a while.

Masking the forward canopy.  This job is for the birds... especially in 1/72 scale.
I'm using a combination of Tamiya tape, painter's tape, bare metal foil, and MicroMask to fill in gaps.

Well... The model show is a few days away.  Looks like it won't be finished.  I'm just too much of a perfectionist.
No problem.  I won't compromise doing it right.

I did a crash molded fabrication for the sliding canopy.

Here is the kit canopy used as a mold:



And the resulting canopy...



I do love this kit.  It is really well made and accurate to the P-40.  It's just too small for my old eyes.  Really wish I had this kit decades ago.
I'll get through it but it will make 1/48 and 1/32 seem like a cinch!

This is the Eduard wheel, now painted.
Eduard has impressed me with the amount of detail on such a small scale.
I've used Testors metalizer on the hub and an old bottle of Polly Scale "scale black" for the tire.
Finally dry brushed with Model Master Light Ghost Gray on the treads.

Small update.
This is the pilot seat from the old Eduard Photoetch.
It might not be exactly right for P-40N but it has a square back so that was good enough.
The belts are from the old Reheat photo etch sheet.

My eyes are struggling with 1/72.  I love the kit tho.

Here is the decal sheet I'm using.  This was the first decal sheet I ever bought...about 40 years ago.
I've already done four planes from this sheet so I'd say I got my money's worth eh?

Thanks!
I painted the bullets black and then sanded the protruding detail to expose the brass.  It worked perfectly.
Bare metal foil was used to represent the other portions with my carefully cutting out the bullet detail on the feed chutes.
I was worried about the two different metals corroding each other so I painted the brass with a layer of Future floor gloss.
Hope that does it...

Hi all,
Today I installed some ammo bay detail I got from that Eduard photoetch sheet (from the early 90s).
I used black paint and bare metal foil to detail it before gluing it in here:

Nice!
I have not gotten mine yet but soon will. 
Gents it looks like after all these years we finally have a top notch Tomahawk in 1/32 scale!!!

Now, can get convince Airfix to do a Tomahawk in 1/24?   or a P-36?