Hasegawa 1/32 P-40N 15th FG 45FS Gilbert Islands
By John Bardwell
This was a really enjoyable build and I'm happy with the finished model. I hope y'all like it too. The kit, of course, is the Hasegawa 1/32 "N". I added cockpit sidewalls from a True Details/Avionics set and seat belts from Fine Molds. Otherwise the cockpit is stock and was painted with Xtracolor and White Ensign Interior Green. The prop blades are from Eclipse/Grey Matter. Uppers were painted using White Ensign Gulf Pink/Sand and the undersides are a mix of MM White and Azure Blue. I made my own decals for the serial number on the tail and the "Geronimo" figure on the nose. I scanned those items on the 1/48 Hasegawa sheet, re-scaled 'em and printed 'em up on my laser printer. Very handy piece of equipment I must say. The national insignia and data blocks are from the "N" kit. As the data blocks on the real a/c were painted black on the original OD a/c color I had to do some improvising. (Apparently the data blocks on the real a/c had been masked over when the a/c was re-painted sand.) I sprayed a couple of small pieces of waste decal sheet with Testor's Olive Drab and then laid the black data on that. I then had a "combo" decal that I cut to size and applied like any other decal.
© John Bardwell 2015
This article was published on Wednesday, December 23 2015; Last modified on Friday, December 25 2015