Well, so far so good.  I have many pieces prepped and ready.  I'm waiting for my 132015 HGW seatbelts to come in before I can finalize the cockpit and get the fuselage glued together.  I have my wing prepped to spray some Mr. Surfacer 1200 to cover up the rivets for the puttied wing look.  Decided to go Alclad Duraluminum for the slightly dull gray look and NMF for the remainder of the wing.  Here are several links to some great similar builds from others that I use as references. http://www.scalespot.com/onthebench/p51tamiya/build.htm

http://www.scalespot.com/onthebench/p51d/build.htm

The second link is a Dragon model but further down, he talks about some great Alclad techniques for the different shades of aluminum on varied panels.  Great stuff here for those that are in the dark like me.  To my dismay, my front windscreen had a scratch running right across the middle pane.  I had to order some Novus 2 plastic polish so that and my micro mesh polishing pads will have to be put to good use.  Bummer.  I will be dipping the canopy in Future to help after polishing the scratch out.

I have heard from several reports I read from actual pilots that the wings were puttied to include panel lines.  After hard flying, sometimes some of this putty would work out and may/may not be refilled.  Wingtips are also a gray area.  Some wingtips were puttied, others not.  I have also decided to leave the gun bay panels NMF to add contrast to the wing.  My NMF will be using Alclad paint of the shades of Airframe Aluminum, White Alum., Dark Alum, Duraluminum, Polished Aluminum.  I'll also be priming the model using Alclad gray primer followed by gloss black and then the Alclad.  I can't wait to get started.  More to follow and I am hoping I am posting this correctly.  Should I have replied to the Header Post or just Add New Post.  Hope I'm not stepping on any toes here.

Happy modeling y'all!