Curtiss Hawk III, '2503', 25 Pursuit Squadron, Nationalist Chi

[Old Man]

The Hawk III was the predominant fighter of the Chinese Nationalist air force when hostilities broke out netween Imperial Japan and the Nanking Government of Gen. Chiang Kai-shek in July of 1937 at Peking.

The subject of the build will be '2503', a machine of the 25th Pursuit Squadron, flown by Lt. Mu Fei. On 12 September, 1937, during a bombing attack on a Japanese barraks in Shanghai by six Hawk IIIs of the squadron, this machine was badly hit by ground fire, and crash-landed in the Shaghai race-track.

The kit is the 'up-grade' version of the MPM kit. It is one of the first items I bought when I took up the hobby again: I took one look at it and figured I had best get in some practice before trying it. Ever since I first came upon a sketch drawing of the Hawk III, amid the empurpled prose of Mr. Caiden's 'Ragged, Rugged Warriors', it has been a favorite plane of mine. There is something special about its unique lines in profile.

The kit needs some correcting to produce a Chinese Hawk III. It is clearly modeled on the Hawk III preserved in the Thai Air Force Museum, and would build up out of the box as an acceptable Thai example, but the Chinese version was a little different. I will be using Sierra Scale decals for the national markings, as those included in the kit are much too pale a blue.

Edited September 24, 2008 by Old Man

[Old Man]

I have done a good deal of prep work on the kit, cleaned up pieces and thinned down trailing edges and that sort of thing, none of which is worth photographing. Fit looks to be pretty good, and I do not expect any major problems. Surface detail is excellent on the major components: rib-work on the wings is very good, and the panel lines on the fuselage excellent. I have deepened the lines a little, so that they will stand up to brush painting.

This shows the major correction for a Chinese Hawk III: removal of the large 'blister' on the starboard nose, and its replacement with a very small 'blister' of tear-drop shape. It was necessary to do some new panel-line scribing in that area, and restore some rivet detail. I have also done some knife-tip work to emphasize the louvers on both fuselage halves, and cut through the proper openings in the wheel wells.

Edited August 5, 2008 by Old Man

[achook-achook]

Interesting subject. Looking forward to more progresss pics!

Cheers,

[Jack-Swiss]

Uhhh another masterpiece coming off the hands of a mater builder!!!!!!

lookin this thread with great interest!

Cheers oldman

Edited August 6, 2008 by Jack-Swiss

[Aggressor Supporter]

Interesting choice of subject. Watching with interest.

[VG 33]

Hi Old Man

The choice is nice but I should have prefered in Thai colors to put her next my MS406 :P

Patrick

[marine4 ever]

ahhhh! An old man build. I'll watch this one.

Semper fi

Dan

[El pibe vitina]

Nice subject!

I have the MPM kit too, but mine will be dressed with Argentine scheme. I dont know if Chinese version is the same. I have a Curtiss Hawk III book about Argentinean planes.

Of course I will follow your build with much interest.

Cya!

[Old Man]

Thank you very much, Gentlemen!

I will be putting in a good deal of work on this this weekend. It is possible wife will be too busy to do the photography, so the next report may be verbal only. But I hope at least to get the cockpit and motor squared away. I have done a few more surface adjustments, and cleaned up the main landing gear struts. As is to be expected with a limited-run kit, pieces like that are not too sharp in their detail.

[Old Man]

ahhhh! An old man build. I'll watch this one.

Semper fi

Dan

Well, my friend, at least you will get to see me butcher a kit: there are many reasons why I took up scratch-building....

But I hope my seam-work has improved in the last couple of years, anyway.

Great to see you here, Sir!

[Old Man]

Hi Old Man

The choice is nice but I should have prefered in Thai colors to put her next my MS406 :blink:

Patrick

That thought crossed my mind when I saw your topic, Sir. It would make an interesting pair. But I have an abiding interest in Chinese history going well beyond the aviation of this period, and given a choice between a Chinese livery and just about anything else, I will take the Chinese every time.

[Old Man]

Nice subject!

I have the MPM kit too, but mine will be dressed with Argentine scheme. I dont know if Chinese version is the same. I have a Curtiss Hawk III book about Argentinean planes.

Of course I will follow your build with much interest.

Cya!

I have no pictures of the Argentine version, Sir, and so cannot compare.

Does your book have any pictures of the cockpit arrangements, or the ventral tunnel and rack for the fuel tank?

Here is a link to an excellent series of photographs of the Thai survivor you might find helpful. You may need to do screen captures to get the pictures onto your computer:

http://www.plastikowe.pl/galerie/lotnictwo/curtiss-hawk-iii

As I said, the kit does seem to have pretty good fit in its major parts.

[El pibe vitina]

Thanks!

I followed your previous post searching data about Hawks III and I found that link very useful.

Glad to know the MPM fits well.

I sent you a PM about Argentine Hawks pics.

Cya!

[Old Man]

Actual progress is somewhat in advance of the pictures here, Gentlemen: wife was quite busy, as I had feared. The pictures show the early stages of constructing the 'lined' cockpit, and the cockpit floor. Since they were taken, all side-wall detail has been completed, and the interior painted. I have begun on the instrument panel, and the rudder pedal assembly and seat-belts remain to be done. Once this is completed, there will be some internal landing gear works that show through the slots, and then the fuselage can be closed.

I used the plastic floor of the kit, and the back plate of the resin floor piece, as a template for making my own pieces. I do not think the floor piece is accurate, and wanted something thinner then the blank plastic piece of the kit. However, very little adjustment was needed once I had duplicated the supplied shapes. The seat is the plastic kit piece, filed down considerably.

Putting in the 'lining' was odd, as the usual instinct is to thin out the walls of a kit piece, these always being well over-scale, to the point of cramping actual interior dimensions in 1/72. This time even the basic wall had to be thickened with fifteen thousandths sheet (ten thousandths would have been better, but I have none, and scraped down my addition somewhat). The structural members were encased in fairings. The lining steps in in front of the cockpit opening, leaving a space very little wider then the pilot's legs. There is a perceptible 'shelf' sloping inwards from the rim of the cockpit to the fairing of the upper longeron.

These demonstrate the fit, with the fuselage pieces taped together. The depression visible in the upright side in the forward portion of the side-wall accommodates the charger handle for the machine-guns.

[Touvdal]

It is very interesting to follow your builds, you take some very good during build photoe

This lookes like one of the early MPM kits, witch require a lot of work.

cheers

Jes

[Old Man]

It is very interesting to follow your builds, you take some very good during build photoe

This lookes like one of the early MPM kits, witch require a lot of work.

cheers

Jes

Thank you, Sir!

This is certainly a limited-run kit, but I have had kits which gave me much more difficulties than this is presenting so far.

[Old Man]

Cockpit work is completed, Gentlemen, and tonight I expect to do internal landing gear members and then close the fuselage.

Here is the sidewall detail. This picture has been inverted from its original state, so that despite appearances, the upper piece is the port half and the lower piece the starboard half. The port side carries the throttle, and the port side carries the wheel for retracting the landing gear.

Here are some views of the cockpit floor assembly. I have used the standard Curtiss rudder pedal assembly, though the pictures available of the Thai survivor seem to show something different. Some of the Thai pictures suggest elements of internal equipment may be missing, and so I thought it best to go with the usual fitting here.

This is the instrument panel, greatly magnified. The instrument bezels are rings of hair-fine copper wire, from the guts of electronic game my oldest grandson found more pleasure in taking apart than in playing: the wire is wrapped around styrene rod of 1mm, .9mm, and .8mm sizes, the coil produced by the wrapping is cut with a razor knife (against a steel ruler), and the resulting rings flattened in a plier's jaws and glued in place with tiny dabs of CA gel.

Here is a look in the cockpit with the fuselage pieces taped together: I am pretty sure the rudder pedals will be visible when the instrument panel has been installed.

Once have the fuselage closed, I will be attaching the lower wings, which I have discovered do have some fit issues: their chord at the root is a bit, but a noticeable bit, wider than the fillets moulded into the fuselage pieces where they butt together. Not positive how I will deal with it, but have a couple of ideas, from which I will certainly choose the one that strikes me as easiest....

[Old Man]

Fuselage is closed, and lower wings attached, Gentlemen.

I attached the ventral piece to the starboard fuselage half before closing and after some final fit adjustments with the fuselage halves taped closed. I glued the fuselage halves together in portions: first, all areas behind the cockpit opening, second, the upper seam in front of the cockpit, and third, the join of the ventral peice to the port side, in this last instance taking care to push the ventral piece down and in a bit. Things went pretty well, and the nearest thing to a problem was self inflicted: I did not get the ventral piece attached initially to the starboard quite propely, but rather a little high, and left myself with a hair's worth of 'step' at its joints with the fuselage sides. I would correct one comment in my earlier posts: the asymmetric width of the ventral piece is on the port side, not the starboard. I did all the test fitting upside down, obviously, and got the identities swapped around in my fuddled brain. The ventral piece remained a bit wide, as can be seen from the joint on the firewall in front, but I do not consider this a problem, and would rather the peice were a bit wide than a bit too thin. There is a sort of concavity to the mating surfaces on the fuselage halves here, and thinning out the ventral piece further would have required fitting it to this, which is just too much trouble.

The lower wing problem turned out to be different than I thought, and much easier to correct. I recently was given a photograph that clearly shows the underside of an export Hawk III, and while the kit pieces for the lower wing continue the line of the trailing edge to the root, in fact there was a small 'scallop' taken out of the trailing edge at the root. So I simply lined up the leading edges at the front of the fillet, and cut in the scallop. I put two locating pins and recieving holes in each wing root to strengthen the joint.

Here are two profile shots, that give a glimpse of the interior laning gear work, as well as some final touch-ups on surface detail. The interior landing gear elements consist of short lengths (about 5mm) of 1.3mm rod to continue the main strut at its angle inside, each flanked by two lengths of .5mm rod, and enclosed by strips of 2mm wide strip fore and aft. Another short piece of 1.3mm rod rises vertically from the inside end of the gear strut continuations, to represent the retraction screw.

The final surface detail operations are: scraping fown to level with the fabric the access panel representations, and correcting the shape of the large one on the port side above the wing root; adding a rearward extention to the rails for the 'half canopy' at the rear of the cocpt, and cutting out more deeply the slots in which the leading 'spar' of the adjustable horizontal stabilizer moves, and piecing a hole in their center to accept a representation of this when the horzontal stabilizers are attached. Next weekend I expect to get the tail surfaces attached, get most of the painting and some decaling done, and begin work in earnest on the motor and cowling.

[johnsan]

Fine progress you're making there, OM.

I have this kit back home in storage. Your build is making me wish I had it here to build now.

[Old Man]

Fine progress you're making there, OM.

I have this kit back home in storage. Your build is making me wish I had it here to build now.

Thank you, Sir!

It is a good little kit, all things considered, and you would have a pleasant time with it.

[Old Man]

Pretty good progress, Gentlemen, though I did not get quite to the point I had hoped: there were a couple of speed bumps encountered. I have not got all the detailing on the tail assembly completed, and so have made no progress yet on the motor and cowling, which I had hoped to be under way with by yesterday. I have, however, gotten a great deal done.

The upper surface color is a mixture of equal parts Pollyscale U.S. Quartermaster Olive Drab (towards the brown end of the olive drab scale), and the oddly named Pollyscale color French Fok. Green, which is sort of a greyed forest green. A bit of black was added for the metal paneled areas, and a bit of yellow for the upper wing and horiziontal tail pieces. The undersurface color is Pollyscale U.S. Neutral Gray, with a bit of white added for fabric areas. The rudder stripes and 'suns' are from the Sierra scale sheet, the tactical number is pieced together from the kit decals (which are for '2403' and '2405'). Profiles of '2503' show a third column of characters at the front of the 'blister' and over the louvres, but photographs of the crashed machine showing that area clearly reveal no trace of this. They also show two columns of characters on the starboard side as well. The 'characters' are painted on with a 20x0 brush, and they are gibberish, being at best, shall we say, approximations of the actual Chinese characters. But there are limits to what I can manage. Note that at the extreme rear, the fuselage has been carved hollow, and the slot at the back filled with a length of 1/3mm rod to represent the shock absorber. This was one of the 'speed bumps': the tail wheel arrangements are semi-exposed (at least they were on a machine shot down about the time '2503' was), and I had not originally thought I would have to do so much in this area. The vertical tail surface also needed some trimming towards the front, as it put the hingeline of the rudder tipping backwards, and correcting this necessitated adding a small wedge to the front of the bottom forward edge of the rudder. A little brush touch-up had to be done here to extend the stripes.

[Old Man]

Here is the other major 'speed bump'....

Note the lumps protruding from the 'suns'....

The ailerons on the Hawk III were worked by a rod that passed along the lower wing and moved a rod that went from the lower wing to the aileron in the upper wing. The actuating linkage between these rods was below the surface of the lower wing, and enclosed in a metal fairing. I had naively assumed the national markings would clear this. Imagine my surprise, and then dismay when looking again at photographs showing the undersurface of Hawk III wing-tips, which make clear that this fairing was in fact well within the circumference of the national marking. As the things are over three millimeters long, almost two millimeters wide, and nearly a millimeter and a half high, they are hardly the sort of thing you can simply snuggle a decal down over successfully. I finally decided the only thing to do was to make new fairings, remove those on the kit's wings, place the decal, glue down my fairings over it, and touch up with a brush and Insignia Blue and white paint. I put the basic shape of the fairings in on the end of a length of 3.2mm x 2.5mm rod, trimmed the results off, and glued them onto some heavy scrap sheet for final shaping. I then removed the fairings from the kit pieces, and drove the hole for the rod to the upper wing aileron through to have a marker for where the new pieces should go, and to serve as the gluing point. The decals went down on the now flat surface, I glued the new fairings down, and did the brush work. That the stock styrene is white was some help.

[Old Man]

Here are a few more pictures....

[VG 33]

Hello Old Man

Very nice prrogress.

Patrick

[RKic]

Hello Old Man,

Watching you work is like seeing; well I don't want to call it Yankee ingenuity, because I don't know where you're writing from, but it is certainly seeing ingenuity (of whatever flavor) in action!

This has been a most informative thread. If I ever drum up the courage to build a biplane, I'll have to go through all of your work and save it as a general guide.

Great work!