The Atom Furnace: Pearl Harbor P40B at 1/72

Whoa - wait a minute, I thought this was to be a P40B from Wheeler Field on December 7, 1941. Instead I bought a P40B that we sold to the British??!!

Ah, that's better - George Welch and Ken Taylor got in the air and knocked down a few Val dive bombers and won the Distinguished Service Cross. Their exploits that day read more fantastic than what was very fictionally depicted by Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett in the movie Pearl Harbor, More about that later. The photo is from the side of the Airfix 1/48 scale P40B. I was at Hobby Lobby and they had a 1/72 Tomahawk, which is a P40B. I made the purchase knowing that I would have to find George Welch's or Ken Taylor's P40B markings.

To the kit. The Airfix molding looks good with fine detail, but.....

....a problem arose immediately. One of the wing top halves is warped. I have three choices. Ask for a replacement from Airfix (which will take who knows how long). Use it as is and hope for the best, or try heating and straightening. I experimented with a hair dryer (thanks for the suggestion Bro) and I think it holds some promise. When my "Mr. Cement" thin adhesive arrives I will make a final decision.

In the meantime we push on with small assemblies. I tried cutting small pieces of Tamiya masking tape at first.

Then I tried Scotch tape on the other half, since Bob wanted to know which I liked best. I ended up not really having a preference since, for me, results were similar. I do think the Tamiya tape is easier to remove. Note that I put a few drops of color in a water bottle cap. It sits a bit and thickens making it easier (for me) to apply over the clear styrene.

The kit has a respectable instrument panel decal.

George and Ken were at a Christmas Party and dance at a rooftop hotel in Waikiki ending in an all-night poker game. George didn't get to sleep until 6:30AM but they were awakened at 7:55AM with the sound of low flying aircraft, explosions and machine-gun fire. They telephoned the Haleiwa Fighter Strip on the Oahu North Shore to get two P40's ready. Ken Taylor hopped into his tuxedo pants from the night before, and they drove the 10 miles to Haleiwa in Taylor's Buick at times reaching almost 100MPH and being strafed! You probably won't be able to see it when the model is complete, but I had to put the pilot in tuxedo pants.

Tux shirt, pants, scarf and patent leather shoes, cuts a rather striking figure for a fighter pilot, don't you think? On to more fiddly bits.

I drilled out the ends of the exhaust manifold and......

.....put Black into the drilled out holes then painted gun metal gray in accordance with kit instructions. All colors are from the Humbrol color pallett as shown on the kit instructions. Back to some more "on the sprue" painting while I wait for my cement.

As noted above I was looking at a Hunbrol paint chart for 226, Interior Green flat that is indicated in the kit instructions. The Testors enamel flat Green was close to the chart color. Recall it is the color used earlier on the canopy.

Yippee, Mr. Cement arrived and I tried it right away on the very first assembly on the instruction sheet - the fuselage halves. I feel quite foolish now, this stuff is great for this! Im sure I don't have to tell you modelers out there about "Thin Glue", but like me, if you don't know then watch one of the many youtube videos out there.

Notice the white splotch smack in the middle of the canopy? That is where it was attached to the sprue - anywhere but there! The clear styrene is quite stiff and snipping off of the sprue this is the result. No amount of buffing will eliminate it. I have to cover it....

.....by adding some glue and painting (where paint is not really supposed to go). Oh well, there are worse things. I have moved on to painting other detail parts on the sprue such as wheels and landing gear and the propeller. The instructions call for the prop to be installed into the fuselage as the second step. I did paint the prop flat black as called for along with the yellow tips. The prop is attached to the sprue at the hub, which is good since no sanding or shaving is necessary. Back plate and spinner were painted on the sprue as much as possible, sniped off, trimmed, assembled and finished painted. I then went to the decal sheet.

I turned out well. The assembly is only dry fit at this point. There is painting to be done before it is attached permanently.

Ok, now we are at the point of assembly. First are the top wing halves followed by the cockpit assemblies in accordance with the instruction.

The next thing is to glue the fuselage to the wing assembly.

I flexed the wings upward to close up the seam and brushed on the Thin glue, held for about 60 seconds and now the seams are tight! Note the "down" gear in the foreground. I have not yet decided how to mount the gear as either up or down (the kit is static). I don't have to decide just yet as it is the last thing to do per the instructions. I will be spraying the underside and the sprue that has the wheel well covers so I keep my options open.

The underside has been "washed" with a thinner/black enamel in preparation for the spray booth. I hope it works as a slight weathering effect. Note that the cowl flaps have been added.

The installation of the tail plane/elevators and rudder was easy. Thin cement was used for the tail, but since the rudder was a three point of contact construct I reverted back to Cyanoacrylate gel (Loctite).

A little dry fit time - starting to look like a P40!

All masked for the spray booth. If I choose to also try and spray on the the matte green I will need to get out the Airbrush. The jury is out on that one. I have always been a hand paint guy and airbrushing is not something I have a lot of experience with on very small surfaces. The kit is so well "panelled" it is suited to hand painting. It is a longer process, but I feel more personal satisfaction when it goes well.

Well, I found my Pearl Harbor decals (finally) and they are ordered as of August 8th. It looks like my pilot will be Kenneth Taylor. If you recall from above it was Ken who put on the tux pants and drove the Buick to the Oahu North Shore. You might notice from the picture that the P40B has no radio wire mast, and all this time I have been so protective of the mast that is molded into the fuselage half of the "Tomahawk". Also, this picture shows the camo color more olive than the Hunbrol 226 "Interior Matte Green" which I am using, which is fine by me as this picture is too brown looking, in my opinion. BTW, although officially credited with downing 2 Val dive bombers (confirmed) it has been adjusted to 4 kills as consistent with late interviews with Taylor. As noted above Taylor and Welch both received the Distinguished Sevice Cross. They were nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor but it was denied based on the fact that they acted without orders-go figure!

Well, it has been a few days of little activity while she was drying in the spray booth, but it is now August 13th and I am back at the work table. The masking tape did it's job and the underside is done as well as completing the interior green of the wheel wells.

You will note that I have painted in the canopy indentations a mustardy color along with the red, yellow and blue dots in accordance with the above decal slide.

This was scary, because I have not tried it before. I bought saw blades for my xacto and cut the molded one piece canopy into the windscreen and slide back canopy. Why? to preserve as many options as possible for a diorama that I am contemplating (besides, with it open you can see more interior detail and even Ken's tuxedo!!!). Oh, and I have been experimenting with a multiple application process for the top side matte green. More on that as I progress.

Back to work on August 13 and I have brushed the entire top surface. My process was this: initial color followed by thinner, more color then a brown acrylic wash. It was an experiment but I am fairly satisfied with the result. Another view follows.

This shows better the brown wash settled into the aileron.

Besides the fun of a dry fit, this shows the exhaust installed and the wheel hubs (press fit-very tight!). Now I have to wait for USPS to deliver the decals - coming from CA. Supposedly they are to arrive Aug. 17-18 - we'll see!

In the meantime the cowl and propeller installed. I greased the front end of the fuselage and prop shaft with petroleum jelly so glue would not affect the rotation of the prop after gluing the retainer ring inside the engine compartment.

Opting for the down gear I have installed along with the wheel well covers. I made sure that the covers were positioned such that a tiny drop of Loctite would provide an extra secure point of attachment for the slender gear posts. (cutting down the L/D of a column increases the load capacity - it's my, almost, long forgotten structural class coming back to me!). Of course I will save the sprue with all of the components for a gear up model should those fragile, skinny gear legs collapse!

She stands on her own - YES!

SURPRISE! Decals arrived on Saturday, August 15, The major decals are put in place. Interesting that the Red dots are separate decals that have to be placed on the Star roundel. What I received is most likely a portion of a much larger "universal" set.

Bottoms Up! There several very tiny decals that are unreadable even under magnification - operating instructions, warnings etc. I will give placing these a try, but I am doubtful that at this scale I will be able to apply all of them - I know some will probably "blow away"! But I have to try before the final overall dullcoat application.

Well, the little decals were tricky but I got them down and you can barely see them - oh well that's 1/72 for ya! I got it in the spray booth, after which I attached the windscreen and seated my "Ken Taylor" in the cockpit.

Number 155 was the ship that the ground crew readied when Ken Taylor made the the call to Haleiwa on the Oahu North Shore (Number 160 for George Welch).

Canopy on.

Added the pitot tube (wing tip - right). This came off the sprue in two pieces. The attachment points do not allow for cutting or snipping without breaking this fragile, thin piece of plastic. Included is the pitot tube used by the RAF, but that will have the same issue if I try to remove it. The only thing left to do is add the radio wire, but I had to do a little research. The decal sheet does not show the mast that is molded to the kit fuselage. I now know that the mast came on later versions, but before removing it I want to be fairly sure where the wires go on the P40Bs of the 47th Pursuit Squadron. I reached out to Facebook Modelers groups and received solid answers.

Evening of August 18, 2020.

I went to the pin vise drill and made holes for insertion of monofilament (bending the end with a twizzers). The mono. is glued to the holes in wing tips and fuselage (at the point where I snipped off the mast). I threaded all three "wires" through the hole drilled in the front of the vertical stabilizer, pulled them all taut and put down a small drop of loctite.

There - wires are taut! Unfortunately in cutting the tails I slipped with the xacto and cut the port wing wire - Oooops! I would have said a bad word except that I was cheering Kyle Schwarbers home run (sorry all you St. Louis fans). Had to re-do that wire.

I checked my Tom's Model Works PE sprue from my 1/350 USS England build and found a piece that provided me with a gun sight that I was hoping for. Always save unused parts - you never know!