I
recall my excitement as a 9-year-old back in 1967 as I carried home a copy of
Monogram’s brand-new-tool P-36 from the local drug store. I’d paid the
princely sum of 60 cents, and could hardly wait to see what treasure lay inside
that beautiful box. Armed with nothing more than a tube of “airplane glue,”
a battered jack knife, and a passion for all-things miniature, I slapped the kit
together, without paint or decals, in less than forty-five minutes. Jony
Quest and The Jetsons were going to be on, and I wanted to get the
thing done beforehand so I could concentrate.
Even back then, I can remember being impressed at how well everything
seemed to fit together, in spite of my ham-handed technique that left the
surface smeared with glue. Those were the days, weren’t they?
Fast
forward to 2010. We’re not exactly living like The Jetsons (and, for
the record, I’m still waiting for my flying car).
On the other hand, we have a wide range of resources for model
building—tools, adhesives, and paints—that Elroy would envy.
We’ve also got a little thing called Ebay, where copies of this
now-classic kit are fairly plentiful and relatively cheap. I picked up four,
with plans to do a couple of them, and “get ‘em right this time around.”
I
started by giving all the parts a warm bath in Palmolive dish detergent, rinsing
them with cold water, and allowing them to air dry. It’s absolutely essential
in dealing with kits of this vintage to clean things up at the beginning, as
forty years of un-removed mold release agent, dust and moisture can potentially
wreak havoc on even the most carefully applied paint job. (Fellow “Boomers”
may remember the strong “fruity” smell that hit you as you opened up a
brand-new Monogram kit back then. I’d guess this was from the mold release
agent.) Also, some of the styrene
used in the ‘60s has had a tendency to become brittle over the decades, and
one must take care not to damage fragile parts—though I have to say, the
copies I obtained of this kit, including two original issues from 1967, were all
in excellent shape.
Molded
in a dullish toy-like silver color with discreetly raised panel lines, the
Monogram P-36 is incredibly easy to re-scribe. I laid strips of Dymo tape along
the raised lines to serve as straight edges for my Bare Metal Foil Corp.
scribing tool. In order to achieve consistency, I would scribe a line on the
port fuselage half or wing section, and then immediately go to the corresponding
line on the starboard component, always keeping the Dymo tape straight-edge on
the same side of the line. Once scribing was complete, I sanded down the old
raised lines, as well as the exaggerated simulated fabric patterns on the
control surfaces.
Click on
images below to see larger images
There is no cockpit to speak
of in this kit; just a pilot figure and something that looks like a seat from a
late-model T-6 Texan, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the pre-war Curtiss
seat. Fortunately, the P-36 pit is nearly identical to an early P-40;
unfortunately, after-market manufacturers have paid very little attention to
either subject in 1/72 scale. Starfighter Decals has announced a resin
cockpit/wheel well update set specifically for this kit, but it remains as yet
unavailable. I decided on a compromise, taking components from the True Details
P-40E/M resin cockpit along with Pavla’s P-36/early P-40 resin seat, and a
scratch-built floor. After removing the molded-in locator pins for the kit seat,
I re-shaped the True Details instrument panel with a rifler file, and cut the TD
side-walls to size, attaching them into the fuselage halves with CA, spraying a
light coat of Tamiya TS 17 Gloss Aluminum directly from the rattle can. Recessed
details were highlighted with a wash of The Detailer, black. A floor was
fashioned from .010 styrene sheet to which I attached the stick and seat—all
sprayed Gloss Aluminum.
It should be noted that as it
comes in the box, Monogram’s so-called “P-36A” is actually a fairly
accurate –D. Main differences involve wing-mounted machine gun configurations,
and the cartridge ejector boxes under each wing, which weren’t present on the
–A model. Since the kit-supplied decals were pretty much useless after
40-some-odd years, and considering that 90 per cent of my catastrophic screw-ups
involve decal malfunctions or mis-application, I opted to use a set of
Starfighter decals to represent an –A. Accordingly, I removed the molded-in
machine guns and spine-mounted antenna, and omitted the cartridge boxes (kit
part 21) before starting construction. With the exception of one conspicuous gap
at the starboard wing root, everything fit together like a dream—just as I
remember.
Once
the wheel wells, cockpit, and engine bay were masked off with wet paper towels,
I began the painting process by airbrushing a couple coats of decanted Tamiya TS
16 Yellow on the cowl, masking it, when dry, with Tamiya tape.
This
was my first aircraft build using Alclad II. I’ve employed it before, mostly
to simulate chrome on vintage 1/32 scale car kits, and had been looking for a
suitable—and interesting—airplane project to try some of the other metallic
shades. For the P-36, I chose Alclad Airframe Aluminum, one of their
higher-sheen colors, appropriate for an American inter-war bird. I first
airbrushed two light coats of Tamiya TS 14 Gloss Black, decanted from the rattle
can. Once the black was cured, I sealed with a brushed-on coat of Future. I
built up the Alclad in a series of three light, ghosted coats, sprayed at
relatively low pressure through my Badger 360. I buffed out the Alclad with SNJ
Aluminum Powder, and applied Bare Metal Foil Matte Aluminum to the leading
edges. Fabric control surfaces were hand-brushed with Tamiya Flat Aluminum for
contrast. Undercarriage components, engine front-piece, and prop were sprayed
with
Tamiya
AS
and TS metallics from the rattle can, and a few hand-brushed highlights with
Citadel Mithril Silver and Tamiya (acrylic) Metallic Gray. Canopy and windscreen
framing were painted separately with Tamiya Gloss Aluminum.
For
the markings, I used Starfighter Decals excellent set # #72-111, representing a
plane from the 21st Pursuit Squadron of the 35th Pursuit
Group, Moffett Field, California. 1940. For once, I encountered no glitches in
the decaling process.
As
a final touch, to bring the model more fully to life, I scratch-built a little
display base using various widths of styrene sheet and strip. I airbrushed Polly
Scale Concrete and Clear Flat for the tarmac, and hand-brushed PS Sand for the
chocks.
I
had fun building this, and not just because of the nostalgia factor. I look
forward to doing an even better one in the near future, taking what I’ve
learned here into the next project, with more advanced scratch-building and more
extensive use of resin parts. If you enjoyed it, if it brought back a few fond
memories, if it inspires you to try one of your own, then, as they say in Singin’
in the Rain, all my hard work ain’t been in vain for nothin’!
Jerry
Hawhee (Old Blind Dog)
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