I've wanted to do a Curtiss Mohawk build for a number of years. The only Mohawk kit in 1/48 scale that I know of is the Academy/ Hobbycraft RAF Mohawk which is not suitable because of a very inaccurate cowling. I had also wanted to do a fixed gear Hawk 75 in Thai markings and I used Hobbycraft's Hawk 75 kit as a basis for that model. It had the same completely wrong shaped cowling. For that model, I modified a Monogram B-17G cowling and adapted it up to the Hobbycraft fuselage. This was before Clear Prop had released their beautiful Hawk 75 kit.

This worked out okay, but it was a lot of work and not as nice as I would have liked.

When I found out about the Clear Prop Hawk 75, I thought I might be able to use the fuselage of that with the wing of the Hobbycraft P-36 kit to get the MOhawk conversion. So I purchased the two kits. The Hobbycraft molding has been re-released by Wolfpack productions with additional PE and new decals. This is the kit I got. ANd of course I aqcquired a Clear Prop Hawk 75.

Once I opened these kits up, I realized that the Clear Prop kit was much nicer all over than the Wolfpack kit and I would actually only need the landing gear wells from the Wolfpack kit. So that's my plan. I will graft the retractable wheel wells from the Wolfpack kit onto the Clear Prop wings and use the Clear Prop kit for the main body parts. I am sure there are other things I will have to do, but I will tackle those when I get started on this.

I am actually in the middle of four other builds, but I kind of like the idea of having multiple kits going at the same time so that I can get to painting and weathering more often. So this project will be started very soon.

Excellent job on using the B-17 cowling on the Hobbycraft kit, my friend @clipper! The Clear Prop kit looks very nice! Good idea to work on multiple kits!

Thanks for stopping by George (@gblair), Spiros (@fiveten), and John (@johnb).

SO to be clear on a few things I wasn't clear enough on in the first post. The photos of the partially built Hawk are from a few years ago when I converted the Hobbycraft Hawk 75 kit to have a more accurate cowling.That kit has been built and resides in my display case. The current project is to use the Clear Prop Hawk 75 (fixed gear) kit as the basis for the RAF Mohawk. The Mohawk has the same engine and cowling as the Hawk 75 but has retractable gear.So I will use the gear wells from the Wolfpack boxing of the Academy kit (and whatever else might be useful) to modify the Clear Prop kit so that it has retractable landing gear.

I knew that the Wolfpack P-36A kit was a reboxing of the Hobbycraft / Academy model and would have preferred to buy the Hobbycraft P-36A kit for this conversion (as it is cheaper),. However, at the time, I could not locate one , so I ended up purchasing this. I tried to justify the extra cost to myself by telling myself that I could use the entire wing from the Wolfpack kit. But really, I just spent too much on it and should have kept looking for the HC kit.

And as I mentioned, the Clear Prop kit is so nice that I will use most of it for this project, only cutting the wheel wells from the WP kit wings and grafting them into the Clear Prop wing to get the retractable gear. This avoids having to do a more difficult conversion on the WP kit to change the cowling like I did previously.

Anyway, if that was already clear to you guys before, I apologize for the wordiness and repeat explanation.

As an aside, I also use Scalemates for research before buying a model, but sometimes I let my emotions (desire to have something) overrule my logic (wait until I can find something cheaper to use). 🙂

@clipper, all clear now, Carl.

Excellent research, my friend @clipper! Your conclusions are solid.

I love the name "Joe Soap", Carl (@clipper). I was just going through some models I have in storage and I found a 1/32 Special Hobby Mohawk. Your build is making me want to start slapping glue on it.

I spent some more research time today determining what I need to do to get the Mohawk IV from the Clear Prop Hawk 75. In addition to the landing gear modification, there are some vents on the upper fuselage just aft of the cowling on the Mohawk that are not on the Clear Prop kit. However, I know there is something like that on the Academy kit and I may be able to graft that onto the clear prop fuselage. I am also considering making these louvered vents from thin sheet styrene. We'll see when I get to that point.

One concern I had was a reference from Japan where the author has spent considerable effort making drawings of the P-36 and P-40 line of aircraft.He seems to think that the Hawk 75 cowling is slightly shorter in vertical height than the Mohawk cowling, even though they both housed the same engine (Write Cyclone). I spent a bunch of time comparing photos of the two aircraft from the same angles trying to judge if there was this difference.

Some of the Mohawk photos do appear to be slightly bigger, but I am not convinced because this could easily be the difference in viewing angles. I tried comparing distances of various parts of the cowlings in both set of photos and I could see no significant differences. It's difficult to tell with some photos because of clarity issues and different viewing angles. It doesn't make any sense to me that Curtiss-Wright would have different cowlings for the same engined aircraft.

I finally decided that regardless of any difference, it would be more trouble than it's worth to attempt any changes, and most likely wouldn't be any better. When it comes right down to it, no one but me will ever concern themselves with any potential difference, and as I said, I am not convinced that there is any difference.

8 attached images. Click to enlarge.

A wise decision to stay out of trouble, Carl @clipper
The differences, if any, would be barely visible.