1-48 RAF Curtis Mohawk IV from HobbyCraft

[Boldman]

You may remember a couple of months ago I posted about my researches into my father's RAF service and my plans to build a model of the aircraft he worked on. ([thread=16881]Link here[/thread])

This build will act as a preliminary to that project as it involves a plane that was used by 5 Squadron in India/Burma in the end of 1941 until it was replaced by Hurricane IIc and IId in June 43 after which in Nov 43 my father was posted there from his time with 81 Sqn in North Africa and Sicily (more on that time period later).

The Curtiss Mohawk IV (also designated Curtiss P-36 Model 75) was considered a formidable fighter in close dogfighting by the Japanese air forces. The RAF's Mohawk IVs came from at least three different sources. The majority of them were part of a French order for 795 Hawk H75A-4s. These were powered by a 1,200hp Wright R-1820-G205A Cyclone engine, replacing the Pratt & Whitney engines of the earlier French aircraft and the Mohawk I, II and III. They were armed with six 7.5mm guns, two in the nose and four in the wings.

The source kit is an old one from HobbyCraft:

and here is the sprue shot:

As you can see, its not a complicated kit! The cockpit is a bit basic and I can't really find any further information about it, so looks like I'll have to make do with a decent paint job and keep additional details to the obvious (seatbelts predominantly), althogh there does seem to be a deliberate gap between the back of the instrument panel and the top of the canopy which looks like it would reveal the back of some of the dials and so some wires ought to be in order!

The kit details a colour scheme that simply says Burma, but it just so happens to corrspond to the markings for a 5 Sqn machine, so thats a happy coincidence!

Needless to say I'll be putting it on a small base with groundwork to hopefully represent an airstrip in Burma.

 

[Dave W]

Haven't seen one of these done on here before.So I will be watching with interest.By the way,i saw your Stingray at Telford.Looked even better up close in the plastic so to speak.Wish I could say the same about my builds!.

 

[Boldman]

Thanks Dave - I think it was the most photographed model on the Farnborough stand and it was endlessly entertaining to see people come past, suddenly spot it and go "Oh look Stingray, Stingray da da da da da Stingray!"

 

[Boldman]

Smooth progress -its a relatively simply kit.

Here is the cockpit pre-fuselage assembly

and here is a close up of the instrument panel:

After this was taken, some WWII instrument panel decals arrived from airscale and were added. You'll see the result further down - it looks pretty good I reckon. In the background you'll also see the scratch building I've done to put behind the engine piece to fill up the engine cowling a bit. When I driy fitted everything, it was pretty obvious that there was a huge gaping space behind the small engine piston casing piece, so I just filled up the space with some bits of plastic and wire. you won't really be able to see much, but at lest there will be something and not a load of empty space! You can see it better in this close up:

So as you can see the seat is a bit plain - thankfully I've got an old PE fret with RAF-style seatbelts so I used them. I'm making as assumption that these aircraft had the american-style seatbelts replace by RAF ones, like they did with the Mustangs. I've no real evidence either way:

The fuselage went together without drama, a few small spots of filler and some sanding in front of the cockpit and underneath, but otherwise not too much trouble. So this is what the cockpit looks like inside. I haven't put the seat in yet:

You can see the dial decals here and if you look carefully in the gap behidn the instrument panel, you can see the wires I added that connect to the upper dials. Side views - these details were moulded into the sides of the fuselage and was very neat.

and finally this evening I attached the wings to the fuselage. With the wings, I had to drill out the 4 holes for the machine guns and slots in the underside for the shell ejects. This is where I encountered the first poorly fitting parts - the front of the wing and fuselage joint had a large gap, so I've filled it with Mr Dissolved Putty and when that dries I'll sand it smooth

So there is is for now, the engine, cowling and propeller have been primed ready for painting.

 

[Dave W]

Looking good Andrew.Im using Airscale instrument decals on my Anson.They certainly improve the look of most kit instrument panels.

 

[treyzx10r]

Nice office Andrew

 

[papa 695]

Looking very nice Andrew will watch this as iv'e got the 1/32 scale one to do

 

[mossiepilot]

Great office Andrew, cracking work so far.

Tony.

 

[Boldman]

Thanks guys

One thing I only realised yesterday is I had sourced the Aeromaster decals for Mohawks over South-East Asia for this build!

This was very fortunate as the kit instructions are very lacking in specific colour call outs! I will be building the 3rd one down in this set - it has a little "saint" on the cowling and represents the 5 Sqn Mohawks near to when my father joined the squadron.

So main assembly has been complete - the engine went together and was attached to the main fuselage and so it came down to painting...

I cheated a bit on this as its likely that the colours used on this plane were the American versions of RAF Green and Dark Earth, but I'm going to be weathering the colours down so as a base I used the Tamiya RAF Dark Green and Medium Sea Grey from their rattle can range (AS-30 and AS-32 respectively) simply because I had some left over from previous builds. I used a 50/50 mix of XF-52 Flat Earth and XF-64 Red Brown for the Dark Earth colour. The yellow is plain XF-3 Yellow.

Here you can see into the engine space:

which works as I wanted it to - you can see there are things behind the engine but you can't see in details whats there, however its not an empty space! In this view you can see the wire I added around the inside to represent the engine mounting frame:

I've masked the canopies, so the next job is to get the undercarriage assembled and ready to fit. I will give this a coat of Klear now in preparation for the weathering. I want to fade the colours down to represent an aircraft thats been out in the sun and through a monsoon season...

 

[mobear]

very very nice indeed mate,doing a grand job

mobear

 

[treyzx10r]

Andrew nice looking cammo and I like the added background engine detail . Nice how something simple like that can add so much depth to a build. Keep up the great work and post more pics! cheers Trey

 

[mossiepilot]

Coming along in spades mate, Great job on the paint work and the detailing.

Tony.

 

[Boldman]

So now we skip ahead to completion. I haven't posted any more work in progress as - to be honest - I forgot to take photos during the latter painting stages, being more concerned with fixing my cock-ups

This is the Curtiss Hohawk IV,AR690 flown by F/Sgt Derek Wicks in late 1942 when 5 Sqn were based in Agartala, India. The kit is the Hobbycraft one with decals from the AeroMaster Mohawks over South East Asia set. Instrument dials were decals from airscale. Painted with Tamiya acrylics and using Mig Filters, Florymodels washes and an oil pin wash for panel lines.

I can't truthfully say its one of my best builds - several things went wrong or didn't turn out as I intended. For a start, the base didn't work as well as I expected. Its made up of a layer of claycrete (aka papier mache) which when it dried shrank much more than I expected, so pulled away from the edges and also lifted the base card up at the corners!

The major thing that went wrong however is I attempted to fade the paintwork using a new technique which didn't turn out at all well (as you can see!) It was a useful experiment in that it told me NOT to try this again!

To add some interest, I broke out the Aber toolbox PE I picked up a coupel of years ago and spent a headache inducing afternoon working with microscopic sized PE pieces to assemble the tools - each spanner came in two parts and the handles on the screwdrivers, files and hacksaw were also two extra pieces. The pliers and scissors were also two pieces. The toolbox should have been a 3 layer cantilever thing, but It was waaay too small and complicated! The steplader was robbed from my old Battle of Britain diorama and comes from the ICM RAF ground crew set.

Okay enough talking, here are some photos!

(this photo showed me that some of the machine guns are a bit crooked!)

Toolbox:

 

[mobear]

you the paint fade thing looks ok to me,looks more natural the way its done,and the whole build looks good also,as for the tool box.......ur a madman doing that,micro surgeon next on the list,i really like it

mobear

 

[Dave W]

Nice build.Makes me want to build one mysels.

 

[papa 695]

A cracking build Andrew Hope mine looks as good when i do it

 

[Boldman]

Thanks guys - the fading looks good on the photos because you can't see it up close

Yes the toolbox is a bit mad - I've also got a 1:32 Aber PE toolbox - I think that might be a little LESS insane :lala:

 

[flyjoe180]

Great diorama, Andrew, the paint looks really good.