Absolutely gorgeous.  This is how it ought to be done.

Jay Jay

Absolutely gorgeous.  This is how it ought to be done.

 

Jay Jay is correct, that is a beautiful job.

Three words from me, My T Fine. Thanks for the post and photos.

Patrick

Well done BD. The NMF and weathering look great. I have this scheme on my 60" RC P-51D.

Worth saying again, fantastic Blue Nose. 

BK

Beautiful, the NM is flawless! 

Great job BD. Isn't Alclad just the best.  =]

Very nice,my first build ever.The extras dress it up nicely.

Hi BrandonD,

     Great looking finish!  I haven't built a P-51 since I was eleven.  My LHS has a Tamiya bird like yours on the shelf that catches my eye.  Yours is more Inspiring than the box art, so I'll have to buy it soon.

Best Wishes,

Gary

*looks at Brandon's P-51... looks at his icon... looks at Brandon's P-51...*

Oooohhh!  I like! 

Very nice and authentic P-51 build.  How did you tape up the front to paint in the blue color?  There's no 90 degree cuts, they tend to be at a 45 degree angle.  How do you make the tape round out like that?  

Overall, it's a very cool plane for a GB, I'm just glad you took the time to share it here with us.

Toshi

Wow. The combination of the Mustang shape and your metallic finish amplifies the sexy in this plane. My dear old friend Bert (bless his soul), ever the Stang fan, would drool if he saw this.

That is a fantastic job on the Mustang. The nice thing about the Tamia model is that the flaps are seperate and can be displayed correctly for an aircraft on the ground. When the engine is shut down on the P-51 the hydrolic pressure bleeds down and the inner main gear doors drop and so do the flaps. The Hasagawa kit in the same scale has the flaps molded into the wings in the up possition, as does several other P-51 kits of the same scale. As a note and not a criticism, Testors Model Masters has the correct Federal Standard Number blue color for this and other "blue nosed" Mustangs of the same group. Again that is a great build job. Very realistic.

That's a stunning job.

One of my fav kits to do.

Very nice

Rick

BD, you did an outstanding job on your P-51. It is one beautiful model, especially as a blue nose Mustang. One criticism that I could make is that the panel lines on the wings are rather sharp for the puttied lines that are painted over with aluminum lacquer that makes the laminar-flow wing. But then that putty and lacquer would tend to ware off of a well used warbird. The Duraluminum Alclad on the wings actually does a good job of representing the lacquer. Great work!

Thanks for the comments, all. I really appreciate them!

Bish - I love the blue-nosed ... uh ... buggers(?) too ;)

Plasticjunkie - I was out flying my RC plane today. It's just a little Cub. I have a P-51 (Horizon bird, pretty small), but I need to improve my flying a bit before I trust myself with the Mustang.

Bvallot - It sure is. I went out and bought an F-86 today so I could play with Alclad some more.

Gazza - You won't be disappointed. This kit goes together so well. It has a couple of shortcomings, but nothing that stops it from being amazing out of the box.

Gaf - Haha, it mightbe time to change that. It's from when I signed up and didn't have a completed build I felt was worth posting.

Toshi - I initially used the 6mm Tamiya tape to outline the blue nose (masking the part that wouldn't be blue). At the curved joins, I initially had them angled, and just used a sharp X-acto blade to trim the curves by hand (only at the corners). I kept the parts I trimmed off, and once I had painted the blue and it was ready for masking while I painted the airframe, I used those trimmed pieces for the corners, since they were a perfect fit.

Ranger - I didn't know they had an FS number. I spent far too long guessing at the shade in the hobby shop. I'll have to look that up if I do another Blue Nose. Thanks!

Shipwreck - thanks for the suggestion. I Thought about puttying it, but in the end I chickened out. This being my first real attempt at an NMF, I didn't trust myself with putty and sanding, since I didn't want it to show (even though I ended up having to putty the fuselage seam). Next time, I'll smooth out those panel lines.

Thanks again, everyone!

-BD-

That's one fine build you did there.

Mike

I cannot remember where I found the FS number for that blue but IIR it is FS 15102 True Blue and Model Masters by Testors has it in their paint line.

VERY nice work, BrandonD!  I like it! I particularly like the panel line treatment and weathering; very realistic. I hope my Tamiya P-51D turns out as nice as this one!

TF