Hasegawa 1/48 P-40E
Kit 09086 JT86:09086
The markings are for a P-40E-1 flown in the defense of Darwin by RAAF F/L
Les Jackson. Schuftie is Arabic for "have a closer look".
I have made it a habit to make two sliding
canopy sections, one vacuform for
posing with an open cockpit and the other the kit canopy for closed cockpit
photos. The kit canopy seldom rests right in the open position.
The
masks required are quite different. On the Squadron canopy the left and
right sides are also different, and there was no upper longitudinal framing at
all. These masks
were made by photographing the canopies, tracing over
them in Autocad, and cutting them with a Silhouette Cameo vinyl cutter.
There are always adjustments to be made
so paper patterns are printed and tried
until everything is happy. The decals came from the ProModeler P-40E kit
and look nice when done but took very careful handling
to keep them from
breaking up. A few required touch up. The bead sight is made of
fine music wire, I despaired of ever holding on to the plastic part long enough
to clean
up the sprue gate remains, and it immediately flung itself into space
anyway. Easier anyway to super glue in the wire and cut it to length when
the glue is cured.