How shall I finish my P-51D?

I donbt that you are going to find Alclad at any retail stores unless they have a pretty well stocked hobby section. It is pretty specialized and I've never seen it anywhere except hobby stores. Online shopping would be the awy to go. Any of the good sites will carry it.

Thanks for the advice guys. I guess I'll go pick up some Krylon primer and the Al-Clad finish...however, are there any retail stores where I can buy them? My local hobby shop, well, sucks, and they don't even carry tweezers. Maybe I should look for it online?

Thanks, Chris. I was just coming back to edit my post and include the link to Swanny's site when I saw that you had posted it.

alclad is definetly the way to go when trying to achieve the natural metal finish. here is swanny's method and it works well. http://www.swannysmodels.com/Alclad.html

You can use metalizers. They are laquer paints that dry to a true metal-looking finish. There are "Buffing" and "Non-Buffing" metalizers. The buffing kind must be buffed after it dries to get a good shine.

I don't use a lot of it, and the brand that I have used is Testors in rattle cans so I can spray it outside. They are laquers so the fumes can be pretty bad. I'd recommend the use of a respirator while painting with them.

Alclad is supposed to be much better than Testors but I have never used it. Reportedly the shine will rub off and the surface is subject to turning black because of fingerprints, but I haven't had that problem with the rattle can Testors paints yet. Search the forum for metalizers and you'll find a lot of info about using them. Done right they will give a fantastic finish.