Glad the links were of help; just remember any time you use acetone as a solvent on anything “putty-like”, the fumes are not so nice, so ventilate the area.

 Vetteman – great tip about the Bondo glazing putty.. I HATE how the squadron stuff flakes, I keep ‘cutting it” with nail polish remover to keep it moist during application.

 Soulcrusher – the P-35 came out a beauty; excellent job on the NMF, looks great! You really did the Talon paints justice, the finish is magazine-quality. Once I have several more kits under my belt I will try out something besides MM metalizers. Maybe on NMF III ;)

 Raptordriver – congrats on the finish. Very well done! Great bird, always one of my favs when I visit the A&S museum in DC. Great finish!

 NiceFit- I tried the “simple” acrylic wash on my first Revell P-51D with very mixed results; ended up looking very dirty. I had enamels base, future coat (wait days to fully cure/dry) then the wash. I got couple bottles of “Pro-modellers” wash that I will try in my current builds, will let you all know how it works.

 Owl – I have read several threads on pro/cons of priming before base coats. I use testors/MM enamels almost exclusively. I “prime” with Testors Flat Grey primer from the rattle can, but mostly to look for seam imperfections or other faults, or when I have mixed media (PE + plastic). Not sure about acrylics… one thing I do is to actually decant the rattle can into a small bottle and use the AB to spray the primer. At least on my (very newbie and clumsy hands), the paint comes too thick out of the rattle can, so I decant into a bottle first, thin just a tad and use my AB.  

I would like to try the 1/48 Monogram p-47D I just got in the mail. Unsure of markings at this time, possibly post-war ANG theme.

Hello everyone,

Raptodriver-very nicely done- beautiful finish.

I have a couple of WIP pics. Things have been going very slow- lots of error correction as I go. The most recent is a large area of paint that the masking peeled off  the fuselage of the P-51 after I painted the D-Day stripes on the wings, and had to be repainted. I just coated the P-47 with Future after I took this pic, and as I was finishing, I noticed a milky white appearance of the coating in several spots. Hopefully this will disappear when it dries, but if not, I will toss the ###ing thing in the trash! The P-51 will be mostly olive drab when it is done. Still have to do the fuselage stripes.

Rob

maxfax

Hello everyone,

Raptodriver-very nicely done- beautiful finish.

I have a couple of WIP pics. Things have been going very slow- lots of error correction as I go. The most recent is a large area of paint that the masking peeled off  the fuselage of the P-51 after I painted the D-Day stripes on the wings, and had to be repainted. I just coated the P-47 with Future after I took this pic, and as I was finishing, I noticed a milky white appearance of the coating in several spots. Hopefully this will disappear when it dries, but if not, I will toss the ###ing thing in the trash! The P-51 will be mostly olive drab when it is done. Still have to do the fuselage stripes.

Rob

maxfax

Hello everyone,

Raptodriver-very nicely done- beautiful finish.

I have a couple of WIP pics. Things have been going very slow- lots of error correction as I go. The most recent is a large area of paint that the masking peeled off  the fuselage of the P-51 after I painted the D-Day stripes on the wings, and had to be repainted. I just coated the P-47 with Future after I took this pic, and as I was finishing, I noticed a milky white appearance of the coating in several spots. Hopefully this will disappear when it dries, but if not, I will toss the ###ing thing in the trash! The P-51 will be mostly olive drab when it is done. Still have to do the fuselage stripes.

Rob

No don't trash it!!!! It is not difficult to strip it back to plastic and just start over. I use to think that also if I goofed the paint that the model was trashed. Till I had a clear coat go bad on a really nice build and I gave stripping it a try. It was fast and easy and I got a new set of decals and repainted it. What paints did you spray it with. That will determin what you need to strip it back down to plastic.

Soulcrusher

Pen the spots off to 'oxidation' and keep going!! Or strip it but keep going anyways!!!

jmabx - Thank you, sir. I appreciate your feedback. It was a lot of work. I figured it was about 3-4 kits worth of work - lol. Glad to have it done and now be working on something different.

vetteman - I found the Bondo putty at an auto parts store and will be putting it to use fairly soon. Thank you for the photo - I knew exactly what to buy.

soulcrusher - Thanks for your opinions on washes for an NMF finish. I'd like to try something new. I've been using sludge washes since the get-go. I've got an old test fuselage to practice on.

owl - I can't say what is the best undercoat for metal shades in MM Acrylics, but Kalmbach's How To Use An Airbrush book (p. 72) describes the process of applying an MM Metalizer finish. (I've never used the MM Metalizers.) The article's author simply applied the metalizers directly to the grey polished plastic. No priming (or basecoat) was done.

jmart - I'll watch for your assessment of the Pro-Modeller's  wash. Like I said to soulcrusher, I'm ready to start experimenting with other washes.

maxfax - I feel your pain, buddy. Troubles aside, I like your NMF. It's got a nicer shine than the NMF on my P-51. More realistic looking. Your invasion stripes, green and yellow look very uniform and crisp. It would be a shame to trash the plane. If you are unable to correct the problems to your satisfaction, then I agree with soulcrusher - consider stripping the plane. (I used Mr. Color Leveling Thinner many times on my P-51. It works wonders.) Yes, it's frustrating to have to repaint everything, but IMO it's better than re-starting the same kit, what with re-doing the cockpit, seam work, etc. Yikes. Hang in there...  

thanks guys, I think I have my plan of attack figured out now!

OWL

I checked the P-47 this morning, and luckily all is well. I am not sure why the future started to look like I was spraying milk.

I do have one question for everyone, is the colour of the (?) supercharger/turbocharger exaust outlet on the bottom fuselage behind the wings different from the overall NMF? The reason I am asking is that the Lifecolour decals I am going to place have a coloured drawing showing this to be almost a dark brown- either burnt iron or rust. I had lost a bit of paint here anyways after masking for the black D-Day stripes, and will have to repaint it-perhps I will spray some burnt iron on it.

Rob

Soulcrusher: she's a winner, great finish! Even if the decals weren't the best they look good to me.

Raptordriver: Love the St. Louis! Yeah even with a few small wrinkles the cowling decals look great!

MaxFax: Sorry to hear about your problems since the rest of your fighters finish look great. Is there anyway to mask off the good paint areas and repaint the problem places?

I apologize fellas, but Im going to have to pull the B-47 out of the GB. The Guy I was building it for ran into some housing uncertainty, and wont have room for such a large model at this time.

but never fear, Im still doggedly slogging away on the Mustang build!

OWL

Maxfax the P-51 is coming along I see, hang in there you will Git-R-Dun

Glad the P-47 is ok too ya scared the heck outta me with that one. I am not sure what I did with my P-47 exhaust is right but I first painted it with silver as I do most of the time then I use highly thinned flat black ( thinned to the point of being a wash ) then I like to dry brush them with flat redbrown Tamiya paint. After that I applied some heavy exhaust staining with thinned Tamiya smoke. I think it looks good anyway for one of my first builds.

CallSignOwl awwww bummer I was looking forward to that build However one never knows what the future will bring, you may still get the chance to build it. The build group goes for a year ya know Looking forward to the P-51.

Oh did you want me to go ahead and pull the B-47 from the list ?

xradio81

I would like to try the 1/48 Monogram p-47D I just got in the mail. Unsure of markings at this time, possibly post-war ANG theme.

Xradio81 my apologies for almost missing your post Your build is in and on the roster and to the shiny side.

hmm, you are right. you never know.....alright keep the B-47 up there. I might be able to work on it here and there

anywho, here are some Mustang pics!

the kit I am using. an oldie but a goodie:

and the built in sidewall details

OWL

hey owl, that revell box looks soooo familiar.... lol. nice work on the cockpit so far. do post a photo of the rest of the "front office" when you get a chance.  what paint scheme/markings are you planning to do?

Owl that's a great start on a classic kit!!! I had one of those once never finished it sadly, the office was at the time a masterpiece for me. Scratched oxy hose, IP, throttle quadrant, under dash panel lights with wires etc. sigh, thanks for bringing back memories!!

Maxfax – I find that in the summer (I live in Southern CT), I have to wait 2-3 days for my enamel coats or Future coats to fully dry/cure before I attempt masking, or paint will lift. Not sure if this applies to your case, but throwing it there just in case.

Owl – Great choice! I think we have now three old Revell P-51Ds in this GB… are we all using the same 50% off Michaels coupons? ;) lol  Sidewall details look good! I am about the spray some paint on my subassemblies. One part of that kit that always gives me fits (pun intended!) is the external fuel tanks… hard to line them up properly, and impossible to sand the imperfections without losing some of the corrugated detail.  Look forward to your build!

  I think I actually did buy this kit with a Michaels coupon....

I plan on doing a Blue-Nosed bird for my Mustang. Here are some more pics!

OWL

Nice work!. Either you got that together pretty fast, or I'm just really really slow!

Rob

JMart - Yeah - those pesky external fuel tanks! I sanded a bit too much off one of mine and decided to omit them from my build. How does one fill seams on fuel tanks and still preserve the raised detail? Would one of you pros chime in? Please! :-) P.S. My P-51D was a coupon buy as well.

Owl - Excellent job on the front office. I'm diggin' that instrument panel, the red and white details on the various black boxes, and the drybrushing. Did you stuff some extra goodies into the landing bays? They look great!

WIP photos of my 1/48 Revell AT-6 Texan. The cockpit is finished and ready to be installed in the fuselage. The cockpit is OOB except for some masking tape seatbelts. I used the provided instrument panel decals because the instrument panel gauges were not of sufficient depth for good drybrushing. I'm pleased with how the cockpit turned out, but the cage makes it hard to photograph the detail. Note - The outside of the cage is not detailed/drybrushed because it mounts against the side of the fuselage. Any painting would not be seen.

thank you for the comments! I do tend to chug along on my builds, so they do go by fairly quickly. Im still learning how to slow down and add more details!  oh and this build is completely out of the box. all the detail you see is found already supplied in the kit.

I got more things glued together now, pix in the morning!

Nicefit: that cockpit detail is outstanding. is that all kit-supplied detail?

OWL

CallSignOWL

Nicefit: that cockpit detail is outstanding. is that all kit-supplied detail?

Yes, all kit-supplied detail!

Hey all, I'll soon be moving on to the fuselage and wings. I've read an article on how to dry fit, clamp, then glue the halves together. An xacto blade is inserted to open the clamped seam a hairline amount then glue is applied using a precision tip. What liquid glue do you use and what kind of precision tip? Hopefully it's something I can find at my LHS.

CallSignOwl oh but your 51 is looking good Nice work on the office too. I have to tell ya that  is my all time favorite P-51D kit I always have at least 3 of them in the closet waiting to be built

Nicefit as I said I am watching your build with great interest as I am thinking of using the same kit as a test bed for the Talon paints I ordered. Your build is coming along great as I can see from the pictures. I saw that same article and have used that method with Tamiya extra thin liquid glue, it works great. The bottle comes with a built in brush, just touch it to the joint and it will wick in perfectly for ya.

The Tamiya thin cement is an excelent product. It works very well especially along long thin seams. I use this tecnique often of installing the part first then running the cement along the seams to secure it.

Soulcrusher

Nicefit and Owl, Great looking offices gents!!!!

I still use Testors liquid cement, call me a die hard and yes i use the brush in the cap.

not meaning to rain on your parade...but I'm not a Gent. i am a girl      but it is easy to assume gender here, most of you are guys!  im not upset, dont worry! 

anyway--I got some gluing and sanding done.  I almost didnt catch the stamp on the horizontal stabilizer...

now, off to the paint booth!

OWL

Hi gents (and gals or so it seems lol),

First of all: AMAZING work you all! Being up in the mountains on dial up during my holiday in the evergreen state i had a very hard time looking at the WIP pics but now that i am back here in the netherlands that is no problem anymore. Had a lot of catching up to do and it would be hard to comment on all of you and what has been achieved for Randy's group these last six weeks. I will just say: hats off to everyone and attaboys all around LOL Really enjoyed the catching up part.

As soon as i get settled in again you guys can expect me to post updates again on my P51 and B17 that have been waiting for my return...

Also couldn't help myself on a visit to the HobbyTown USA in Kennewick Wa. and picked up the revell 1/48 P51D kit. Eversince i played the Combat Flight Simulator 1 game online i wanted to do a model of the P51 that was inthere and with Miss Marilynn i can make that dream come true somewhere along the line

Great work everyone and glad to be back.

Richard

That's some great looking work Owl and NF!

And welcome back Kermit.

I am becoming disgruntled with my constant problems with orange peel and pitting using gloss black as an undercoat. I tried some mixing a little gloss into some matte black hoping the resulting semi-gloss would spray better. Oddly after spraying the Alclad on top on the matte I was using as a control it didn't look half bad. Just wondering if anyone has used matte or semi-gloss for an undercoat?

CallSignOwl wow but you build fast, and your attention to detail is second to none,cant wait to see what  happens in the paint booth

Kermit glad to see you back buddy !!! Been missing you around here ya know. I bet letting you lose in the Washington Hobby Town shop was like letting the kid lose in a candy store. BTW a great choice in kits you made there Richard