The Details:
Kit: 1/32 Hasegawa P-40E
Aftermarket: CMK Instrument Panel, Montex Paint Masks
Kit at a glance:
This is a fairly straightforward kit with no real issues to worry about. A couple of things are worth mentioning though. First, in the early stages test fitting the fuselage halves and the wings is a little scary. The assembly is a little “loose” and a bit flimsy, so it won’t snap-fit like a Tamiya kit, for example would.
As you can see there is fairly substantial gap. I solved this easily enough by gluing a piece of sprue as a spacer to the inside of the fuselage. This brought things together nicely and didn’t present any issues later in the build.
The real annoyance with this kit was the clear plastic part used to represent the rear canopy glazing. Unlike the 1/48 offering (thankfully) the clear piece is a larger outgrowth. this means you have significant framing around the parts that need to be clear. This means using a solvent glue is much safer. The problem is that the joins do not fall on natural panel lines. This leaves some cleaning up to do. I think I was just having bad luck here. Instead of the usual couple of applications of putty I had to bust out the CA to handle this. It took a couple of nights bench time to get it to where I liked it. Again, I think it was just the modeling gods being testy. The fit wasn’t bad…the seams just didn’t want to go away. NOT something that would stop me from building this kit again. In fact, a tropical Kittyhawk is on the short list of subjects that may find their way onto my desk.
On the Flight Line:
Shark Tank Plastic Works 