This all started when a 1/72 Buzco/Heller Curtiss Hawk 75A showed up in the mail sent by a very good friend (thanks a million, hamsterman!). While the box art may not be much...
...and what's inside is pretty basic...
it can still be built up as a credible Hawk-75/P-36 if you know the pitfalls and proceed carefully.
The main weak point in this kit is the cowling. This is the second time I've built this kit and it always ends up with a saw-tooth gap up front. Thank goodness for Mr Tamiya's miracle putty smoothed out with nail polish remover! This trick truly saved the day. I have no idea how this kit could be built decently back before such things as modelling putty existed.
The first thing I did was shoot the canopy off into oblivion (it's still MIA) so it was replaced with one from an Airfix P-40. I decided with that nice, broad cowling this kit was perfect to morph into one of the more esoteric versions with fully enclosed nose guns and short, painted exhaust stacks like the NEI ones in this photo:
I also added an RDF football made from the ammo drum of a tail gun from an Airfix Stuka and tacked on those terribly intimidating Hotchkiss wing cannons cut from sprue. More sprue was replaced the kit's upper gear doors and bits of this great plastic tubing Mr Fontaine (thanks, amigo!) sent me were used for the short exhaust stacks.
The model was brush-painted by hand in acrylics, Model Masters Light Sea Gray and Euro 1 Dark green mostly with a custom red and Polly Scale Prussian Blue on the rudder. The engine was painted Flat Black and dry-brushed with Aluminum to pick out the details and the guns were given a custom gunmetal mix. The canopy was tinted on the inside with Model Masters Gold.
Markings were cobbled together from spares. Swedish crests cut in two became the crown on the rudder and squadron badge. Rudder stripes from an Airfix HP-0/400 were used for the national insignia on the wings and the codes were from a Penn Central railroad sheet.
Before I forget, here's the "money shots", good ol' U.S. penny for scale.
It took me four days to put this together and I had a blast the entire time. I just love Curtiss Hawks!
Many thanks to Bill for his kindness in sending me the kit and Jeff for that cool tubing. I couldn't have done it without them!
Brian da Basher