1/48 Revell P-51D vs. ProModeler P-51B tandem build COMPLETED !!!

Nice work!

That looks great Brandon.  I'm digging the wood floors.  You can't go wrong with True Details seats.  They're cheap and usually very well done.  I always use one in my Tamiya P-51D builds.  

I'm glad some of those tricks worked out for you...

Joe

Well, today I noticed that the PM B model does not have any guns; just holes in the wings. So, I set out to rectify that by making my own. Taking note of photos I set them back in the wing a tad, filed to fit and elevated as needed. Now when you look at the wing head on you can see guns plugging the hole.

Then I decided it was time to start building these with flaps down rather than flat so I started on the Revell D kit; which already has the wings attached. This would definitely have been easier to do BEFORE I put the wings on. Point noted for future. I will do the same on the B model as well, but this time I will do it before attaching them to the fuselage. Learning along the way.

Ok, well I am making progress. Note to those who have NOT performed a flap drop before like this: Do it BEFORE you mount the wings. It is doable when they are mounted but much more difficult than it needs to be. 

At this point I am dry fitting the new flaps, checking clearances and gaps. Basically, I am making sure that when I am ready to final mount them that they look correct.

When the D model flaps are done I will do the same to the B model, but this time I left them off the plane so I have more room to work. See, I learned something.

Update: I primed the -D model with Alclad primer and microfiller and was very pleased with its ability to fill some minor errors in the body and once sanded with micromesh it was very smooth. But, being me I didn't want to spray Alclad Aluminum over a flat base due to wanting a shiny look to the skin. So, I shot a gloss black over the Alclad Base and.............................................well, something went horribly wrong and the paint just wont lay down. I have spent the last 3 days sanding, with micromesh 6000-8000 to get the paint flat again and now it is smooth with a light shine. Success, right? NOPE. In the process I lost nearly all of the surface raised detail. So, today I begin the task of rescribing the entire plane. Patience be with me now as this one is only one bobble away for the garbage can.

Looking sweet Brandon.  I like the wing gun work.  Albion alloy brass tubing make great "fifties" too.  Sprue Brothers carries it.

Joe

OMW  Brandon I had a similar thing happen to me.  Close to ditching the model..instead, I shelved it for  while.  I recently brought it back to the bench and dreading to rescribe I jumped in.  I never been any good at rescribing lost detail, due to filling seams etc. but now that I was forced to do the whole plane I got  good at it by the experience.   You know what they say, "what doesn't kill you,makes you stronger. "  Now I'm not afraid of messing up by having to rescribe lost panel lines anyway.

Well, so far the fuselage is now rescribed and I am pleased with my efforts. I think it looks good. I will complete the wings today and begin sanding again to remove all the edges that scribing leaves. I will also begin adding rivet detail back in. I'm just not sure whether to only put in what the kit began with or go all out and add in a much more complete rivet detail. I'm leaning somewhere in the middle at the moment but, we will see how that goes. I will get some pics up later today.

The -B version has been put aside until I get passed this phase with the -D repairs.

UPDATE:

Ok, I'm back at it now. I need to bring everyone up to date and give a bit of back story here. With regard to the Revel -D version I painted the plane in an enamel gloss black in prep for Alcald and the enamel reacted poorly and really looked very very bad.

I was left with the idea of tossing it or sanding it out. I decided to attempt sanding. In doing so I lost ALL  the surface detail of panel lines, access doors, rivets, you name it. It was gone. So, using my Tamiya -D kit in my stash as a reference I re-scribed all the panel lines and also added some in that the Revel kit did not have. I also relocated some of the access doors and rivets to more correctly reflect the aircraft and I also added a great deal of rivet detail that the kit was lacking from the beginning.

I was forced to wet sand the kit as the gloss black never did fully cure and remained soft and plugged up the sanding sticks, papers, etc. Very frustrating. BUT, I persevered and the plane is now fully re-scribed and riveted. I have completed, I hope, the final wet sanding before I attempt to spray a coat of Alclad gloss black later today. I will then, if I have no issues, wet sand with micro mess 12000 in prep for the Alclad Alum. Fingers crossed for sure.

I have at LEAST 30 hours of work just in re-scribing, riveting, and sanding so far. The surface looks terrible but it is a smooth as a babies bottom and the detail is really nice. It is very hard to see with the photos but I think this will turn out to be a very nice plane when it's done. I took these photos to give everyone an idea of how much work has been done thus far. I am one stubborn SOB for not giving up on this long ago. 

I also dropped the flaps and elevators and re-positioned the rudder to give it a more "parked" look. This has been an incredible amount of work thus far. I hope it will be worth it. 

I hate to break it to ya Brandon because for all the work you've put in it all seems very clean and well done, (I always seem to find a way to make that one scratch!!) but the P-51Ds had wings where the gaps between the panels were puttied up.  Rivets too.  Now of course this would wear off after some use but it was done in the attempt of making a better laminar flow surface for the Mustang.  Sooo...as far as the surface detail on the wings go I wouldn't be so worried if you lost some detail.  To bring it out at all isn't wrong either...the lines were there, but how you go about it would depend on the plane.  And of course what you felt like looking at. =D

If you're prepping the surface in a Gloss Black for a NMF paint, then I would point you in the direction of Alclad's Gloss Black.  I'm pretty sure it's a lacquer based paint.  I've heard some have had some issues with it but I never have.  I think it comes down to more user error sometimes.  But give it a shot.  I love it!  And glad to see you back at it.  Keep it coming. =]

I just finished shooting it with Alclad Gloss Black and it turned out pretty nice. I am rather happy. It did, as I wanted it to, point out some areas that need further attention, but considering where its been I think the NMF will look half way decent on this one. I didn't use the Alclad black before as I was attempting something different and it bit me big time. Oh well, looks like I may have saved this one.

Well, after letting this sit for some time as I am getting pretty tired of working on the -C due to self inflicted issues. I have managed to sand down the Alclad gloss black and repair a few scratches that I found. I then re-sprayed the whole thing in Alclad black primer and micro-filler. I then sanded this with 6000 and 8000 grit pads until the surface was smooth. 

I then applied 2 coats of Alclad aqua gloss and let it sit a bit. I then applied 2 coats of Alclad air-frame aluminum to the entire plane. At this point I can see some issues, as others said would happen but it's really too late now and it's not that bad really. I then painted the gun bay panels with Alclad chrome to set them off a bit. I also made sure I paint all the Alclad in the direction of airflow. This gives a very slight streaking affect of panel staining from condensation. 

I then masked off the cowl and painted it olive drab (Tamiya decanted) and the tail is painted gloss black Tamiya X-1. The grill in the front is also painted gloss red, but hard to see in the photo; this makes it look like it has lips. LOL.  

I plan to micro polish a few spots to change the look of a few panels and reattach the aerial, as I keep knocking it off. I should be done with the major decals this weekend. I am really pushing to get this one off the table and get going on the -B in this thread. I had hoped to be done with this long ago but my paint issues really, really slowed things down. Keep in mind that ALL the panel lines, rivets and other surface details have been redone and that is a TON of work. This build has taught me so much about different skills and tricks it's just crazy. 

Enjoy the latest pics of progress.

Here it is primed and waiting for a micro polishing.

And here is how she sits now. Waiting for things to dry a bit so I can clean up a few blems I see. But, at least it is starting to look like "Big Beautiful Doll".

Dayum!  It's looking really great Brandon; all your hard work has sure paid off man.  I love those streaks and that painted cowl looks perfect.  I'd say you're on your way now to a super Mustang!

Gary

Thanks for all the positive feedback. I've been looking it over all day and added the black stripes at the wing roots like the restored bird had. I think it breaks up the wings a bit and makes them look more scaled, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I've been looking over the decals on this piece and it looks like a lot of complex curves to deal with. I'm not so worried about the nose, I think I can work that out. But the wing tips look like they might give me fits to lay decals over the edges and make them lay down and match. I am thinking hard about trying to paint the wing tips in the checker board. That might make them come out better. I'm not sure. I guess I'll figure it out some how.

I did something similar on a Tamiya P-51D, I thought the decal red was too dark (and figured I'd completely hose up the decal for the cowl while also failing to match the red and yellow on the spinner to the red and yellow cowl decal).  It was actually really easy to take a strip of Tamiya masking tape and put it flat on a cutting surface (plexiglass for me), mark it with a small carpenter's square, and cut it with an X-Acto to make little squares.  Then you just have to carefully place the square masks.

I've heard Alclad will pull up with masking tape (not sure if it does that if it's sealed with aqua gloss), but you could easily do the same with the sticky portion of some post-it notes which are supposed to be safe.

Your Alclad finish looks great, I can't wait to see this one finished.

Groot

What brand of black enamel paint did you use? I use Testors in the small bottle and works like a charm every time. I thin it about 50/50 to get a glass smooth finish.

My buddy used the Alclad gloss black and it did not dry at all. He apparently used one of the bad ones that keep surfacing now and then.

Your work looks really good so far.

Brandon, I just finished a checkeboard pattern on my 1/48  P-47.   I sprayed a clear decal sheet with Tamiya Gloss black, then 2 coats of clear, and let it dry for a couple of days, cut it up in little scale squares and  decaled the yellow painted cowling.    I did this because the black paint bled under the masked tape squares and ruined the paint job...twice.  Even though I used Tamiya tape and burnished the heck out of it, the black paint still bled under the tiny square masks and looked awful. The decaled squares came out very crisp over the yellow cowling and looks excellent.  I'll decal my checkerboard patterns every time from now on.

Hey Brandon!

I really like what you're doing with these P-51's!  Your recovery on the D with the re-scribe lookes really nice!  I have built this kit as Big Beautiful Doll and had didn' like the way the wing tip checkers came out when I used the decals - they wrinkled and didn't work well over the curves.  I ended up painting them.  Blocking them out with Tamiya tape isn't difficult and the results look better than the decals.  I just started the Tamiya P-51D and am considering Big Beautiful Doll and trying to paint the nose checkers this time.  

Steve

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all the support and ideas. I slept on it and decided to go ahead and airbrush all the checker board on the whole nose and wing tips. I just don't think it would look good to do both decals and paint. So, I'll take my time and with some luck make it look good. Wish me luck, here we go. 

As soon as I figure out how to use my new camera , I'll show you pics of my checkered cowling.  I'm 66 and rather low tech LOL

Holy cow! That was no small amount of work. It took my a day and a half to mask off the checker board and get the paint down. It turned out, not too bad. I have a few blems to deal with and two spots where paint lifted, but all in all, given that was not easy, I am pleased. Now I don't have to deal with the complex curves and the decals to the nose or wing tips. Just need to add the red stripes, but that should be easy by comparison to this.

Well worth the effort. Looks like an excellent masking pattern. If the lifting occurred on the checkers you can use it as chipping. Looks great.

Nice work so far!  I agree that the wood floor looks very convincing!

The enamel paint I used the first time that reacted badly was a Krylon rattle can, decanted. It was a technique I read about and tried. But, it failed miserably and I've been on a longer journey ever since. But, it has made me challenge myself at every turn and I have learned more than I could have imagined through the process. I am starting to see all the work shine through and she is starting to turn out far better than I could have imagined.

Very nice checkering !  Nevermind about my decaling technique.  I just couldn't stop the paint from leaching under the Tamiya tape on mine.

Gorgeous work Brandon.  Checkers came out great.  I did the same on my 357th FG Mustangs and an FW 190 that called for checkers.  The extra work is worth it.  Its easier to get a wash in there later.  I look forward to the rest of the build.

Joe

Wow, Brandon, the checkers came out really well!  I hope that when I try to do them they come out half as good.

Steve

Yes, definitely a great job on that checker pattern.  I used the kit-supplied decal and didn't have any issues.  I cut slits along the demarcation lines between the black squares and the white squares using a sharp Xacto blade.  I did that for both the nose and wingtip decals and that was able to prevent any sort of wrinkling around the complex curve.

I wonder why the bad experience with the Krylon.  I used it on my last Alclad job and it worked flawlessly.  I just used it straight from the rattle can.  Maybe I got lucky.  I was scared as heck because you don't have the control an airbrush gives you but I managed to do a good job in spite of myself.  Did you let the decanted paint gas out for a while first before running it through your airbrush?

Jay Jay, just out of curiosity, did you apply the paint in very light coats when you used the masking tape method?  I'll tell ya one thing...I hate the thought of paint bleeding under as much as the next guy.  It's happened to me more than I care to remember.  However, nowadays after I mask anything with masking tape, I always spray the edges of the masked off area first using two or three light coats.  This slowly seals up the masking edge first.  It's only after I've done that when I feel I can continue with the rest of the painting as usual.  I've never had any bleed-under issues ever since.

Hope that all helps!

Eric

Well, I gotta say, I am more than ready to be done with this one. I just won't give up on it. I'm gonna beat this thing into completion if it kills me. I think the next few birds I build will seem pretty easy by comparison to the trials this one has put me through.