1/48 Hobbycraft P-35

[handiabled]

Your printed decals look outstanding John!

[jeaton01]

Thanks, Brent. The Aqua Gloss went on well, next is a spiderweb of antennas.

[stikpusher]

Looking great there John! The pre war colors do look sharp!

[jeaton01]

Thanks, Carlos!

A few touch ups to do that are apparent in the photos as usual, but it is complete bar those. There are a few things apparent to me, the most notable being a major discrepancy between the size of the engine in this model compared to those in the Tamiya F4F or the P-43 by Dora Wings, which are all Pratt and Whitney R-1830's. I it is a lot smaller. I don't usually take a ruler to my models, but I did check the wingspan on this one and it is about 3/16 inch short of 1/48 of full scale span, but the engine is at least 3/16 inch smaller in diameter than those in the other two kits. Whatever, it fills the spot in my collection for a P-36A, and it wasn't too hard to care for the other issues I took corrected such as the cowl to fuselage gap and the too rounded spine.

[lyle]

Beautifully done!

[keavdog]

Well done John. I see what you're saying re: the cowl. You have a lot of patience to get all that antenna rigging done with that thread!

[kyledehart5]

Great work on such a unique subject John. I really like what you did with the spine to get it more to the shape it needed to be. Really like the paint scheme too. Great work.

[handiabled]

Great looking build John! I really like the finish on this one

[stikpusher]

Excellent finish John! Nice to see it posed with a P-47 as well in the family photo. If you had a late war 5th Air Force P-47D, that would be a great Phillipines 1941/1945 pairing, particularly since 5th AF brought back the pre war red, white, & blue rudder striping on NMF fighters in 1945.

[jeaton01]

Thanks for the nice comments, everyone!

John, I have worked out a fairly painless method of rigging, the hardest part of this one was putting the post on the tail, I should have done that much earlier in the build. Handling the Uschi fine is made less painful by prior to cutting always wrapping masking tape around what will be free ends after cutting. Then cut lengths that are longer than you need, and attach one end by laying it through a dot of Formula 560 canopy glue, it is amazing how small of a dot is necessary. After that has dried to the point of transparency attach the other end, always using the tabs of masking tape to handle the antenna and tape to hold the antenna while the glue cures. Sometimes the geometry requires that the free end has to be held by an Exacto weighted clamp. The best result will be had by using the absolute minimum tension, especially on the lead in wires coming from the left side of the fuselage to the mid point of the left tail to wing wire on the P-35. Another advantage of minimum tension is there is less potential for damage should a wire be accidentally "twanged" by such as an errant finger, a frequent occurrence on my bench.

Carlos, that is a fine idea, I will put a man on it.

[stikpusher]

Jul 13, 2024 19:58:20 GMT -5 jeaton01 said:

Carlos, that is a fine idea, I will put a man on it.