Vertical Stabalizer

Will be spraying the plane with a transparent sealer soon so I have installed the vertical stabilizer. This plane is now starting to take shape!

Adding Color to the Cockpit

Painted the cockpit interior green and added a black joystick with a red button. I decided to use the kits dashboard cutout instead of painting one to save time and I figure that for the most part it will barely be visible once the cockpit glass frame has been painted.

Masking the Windows

Spent a good hour masking the cockpit in preparations of painting the model. Was a bit nervous using an Exacto on clear plastic but the grooves for the window panels guided the blade fairly well.

Have a Seat...

The plans show how to create a seat but was not satisfied with the head piece so I glued three thin pieces of balsa wood together and sanded it to get a nice rounded part.

Rear Cockpit

The rear cockpit of the P-40 is odd, contains two curved panels which I suspect are used to deflect wind if the window is open. In any case I had to take thin sheets of balsa which I cut using the plans as a template and with the aid of Gorilla Super Glue held them in place until it dried. Then with an Exacto I trimmed the wood to place a flush finish with the air frame.

Installing the Horizontal Stabalizer

Tonight I installed the horizontal stabilizer, was debating when I should attach it to the fuselage as I worry that I may damage it while handling the model but I feel now is a good tie to merge these parts together.

Parts Not Included!

I have started to learn that not all the parts are included, in this particular case the part that transitions from the wing to the body of the aircraft. The instructions state to take some cardboard such as that from a cereal box and using a template on the plan cut it out and shape it to fit the air frame. White the first bit is easy and straightforward, making it round was to say the least a challenge. While the cardboard needed to be trimmed to fit the wing, just finding the right position took a lot of time and testing. I ended up using a round piece of wood to curve the cardboard and after over an hours work got the left side done.

It looked really nice but I was discouraged as I knew I had to do the right side the next night! Well another night and another hour later I had something to be proud of.

Plastic Parts

Finished trimming and gluing the plastic parts with Gorilla Super Glue. The underbelly rear part as seen in the photo near the bottom was tricky as I did not want to touch the tissue. Later I ended up gluing overlapping tissue so that there would be no gap between the underlying tissue and the plastic. For other parts that lined up next to the wooden frame I used white glue to fill in the gaps.

Installing the Skin

Been busy over the past few weeks applying the tissue to the frame. Has been a bit of a challenge with several sections that had to be redone. Also found an error in the underbelly section that needed to be corrected as some of the parts did not align properly and was fairly tricky to correct.

Once I finished gluing the tissue to the frame with "LePage" stick glue I sprayed the model with a light mist of water. When the tissue dried it stretched and became much more rigid.

Installing the Custom Wheel Wells

Yesterday I installed the custom wheel wells into the wings after trimming the wing ribs. Tonight I glued them securely in place with plenty of white glue. Everything is looking good and I am pleased with the results.

While it is a heavy modification of the original kit it will sure make it look a lot nicer.