Completed: Monogram 1/72 F-82G Twin Mustang

Lucky guy. Off to a nice start. One of the guys did this kit in the 46 GB, looks really nice.

Nice secret Santa gift!  Great start!

Toshi

Only 20% of parts were common to the P-51 and the P/F-82.  The first 20 and the 2 prototypes were equipped with Packard Merlins, but the USAF didn't want to pay the licensing fees to Rolls-Royce, so Allison V-1710's were substituted for the rest of production.  The first 20 were relegated to trainers, so this was a rare case where the trainers were faster than production/combat models.

Hello again all,

Some progress to report on the F-82 Twin Mustang.

The Fuselages (Fuselagi ?) are buttoned up and added to the wings.  Most everything is assembled except for the fiddley bits that will come after painting.  

As always, dry fitting is a good idea before assembly,  but on this kit it really is required.  I had a few issues with the locating pins on both the fuselagi and the wings.  In some cases the pins had to be cut a bit shorter to allow the pieces to fully come together.  And in at least one case (the starboard fuselage near the tail) the pin had to be cut off clean in order to keep the parts from being offset.  These fixes were no big deal - they're easy - but they could just make things difficult for for the unsuspecting beginner.

The kit goes together fairly well, but there will be some work ahead . . . 

I haven't decided on what scheme to use.  I'm not really keen on either of the two options that come with the kit.  Thinking about trying a what-iffer.

Chris

Chris I did a whiffer P-82 last year.  I think it looks better then the kit options. I think you should do it.

Very nice twin mustang Johnny - I was thinking along the same lines - a blend of NMF and Olive . . . 

Something like this:

With the drop tanks - I'm thinkin' these are bomber escorts - which as I understand was the original intention of the F-82 development.

Chris

An update . . . 

I decided to go through with the What-If scheme of Olive Drab over a natural metal finish.  For the NMF I decided to try something new: Rub-n-Buff paste.   I've heard that it can be done - but never heard of anyone actually going through with it.

It's a silvery paste with a viscosity a bit less than toothpaste.  You just rub it in and then polish it up with a cloth.  I tried it on a spare piece of clean styrene and it seemed to partially rub off - not good - so I figured I needed to do something to give the surface some "tooth" as they say.   I remembered using RnB in the past for drybrushing the detail on raised detail instrument panels.  It worked great.  It also seemed to stick well to dried puddles of the flat MM acrylic paint on my workbench.  So I just put a light coat of flat grey on the surfaces that I wanted to coat with RnB and set it aside to dry.  I diluted the MM acrylic down with water to reduce the chance of brush strokes.  About an hour later I was ready to apply the "Rub and Buff".

These phone camera photos are pretty bad - but they'll do for now.  The acrylic paint idea worked well enuf to grab the silver pigment.  It polished up fairly well.  It's not quite as nice as the spray cans of MM metallizer that I have used in the past - but it's OK.  

This is not a great kit for applying a natural metal finish, the seams are a bit rough and there has been alot of sanding.  Every little defect shows up bright and shiny with the NMF.  "Help me Olive Drab - You're my only hope !"

I'll provide better quality pictures in the future.

Chris

February update . . .

At about the 90% completion point with mostly just painting left.

Finished painting the Olive drab.  I wish that I darkened it a bit to give more contrast as is seen in the P-51 photo above - but this F-82 scheme is totally fictional anyway.

I varied the code numbers a bit by cutting up the decals and rearranging the order.

Used a lightened yellow for the cowl (with about ~50% white) as the photo seemed to show more of a lemon-yellow than a deeper insignia yellow.  This still needs some work. I have to figure out how I'm gonna finish the outline of the yellow area so that it blends well with yellow on the canopy frame.

Chris

That is really looking amazing, Chris. I think you've done this kit some justice, and then some!

Thanks Mike and Johnny !

Chris

Here are the final glamour shots of my Monogram F-82G Twin Mustang . . .

The natural metal finished parts are Rub and Buff compound rubbed over a light grey flat MM acrylic base. (a first try for me - I will probably go back to using a rattle can of MM buffing mtallizer if I do another NMF bird)  The other colors are brush painted with MM acrylics.  The kit is a bit old - so there was some flash trimming required.  Fit was pretty good, requiring additional trimming in places.  Surface detail is a mixture of mostly raised rivets and panel lines with some recessed lines as well.  I used some decals from the kit and others from my spare decal pile to make this fictional scheme.

All in all - a nice little kit - thanks Secret Santa !

Hope you like it !

On to the next !

Chris

I like it...a lot!

That scheme fits it perfectly!

Thanks Fermis,

It was a fun build.

Chris