Mighty 8th GB 1-Nov-2010 - 31-Oct-2011

Bish,

Thanks for the comment!

Funny you should mention the floor as it was a bit of a first for me too. Like i said i painted an acrylic base coat. After that dried i used burnt umber oil paint straight out of the tube and dotted/ smeared it on the floor with a fine brush in a random fashion.

I then dipped the brush in mineral spirit, dotted that on the floor so that it was wet, not soaked. Next step was to streak the brush up and down the part, cleaning and drying it after a few streaks so the oil paint came off in a controlled fashion. Simple as that. If i can do it.... It took me two attempts to be honest as the first time over i tried to use a bigger stiff brush. It made the floor too wet so the oil paint came off after two streaks

Richard

See what you mean about that interiour and seat. That IP decal may not be for the P-51, but it makes it look a hell of alot better. I do like what you have done with the wooden floor. I tried doing that on the desk and ammo boxed in the front of my B-17, but i used an oil wash and it didn't look right. Did you use a wash or straight oil paint. Thats the sort of look i am looking for.

Well, i have made a start last night and am just popping by to show my progress.

This is what i got for an IP:

Also the seat wasn't to my liking. In the next pic you see the seat as provided on the right side. Also this kit does not provide for a control column... Going through the spares box i found some replacements as seen to the left:

Doing some painting and gluing i came up with this. Unfortunately i did not have a correct P51 IP decal but i did have one for a P40... Will have to do. The pit floor was painted in acrylic ochre and i have tried to give it a bit of a wood grain effect with a bit of artists oilpaint:

Next i am doing some sidewall painting and the whole lot can come together

Richard

Thanks for those sources, i think i will have to expand my libary a bit more.

Roger Freeman's series of Mighty Eighth books used to be considered the standard, at least some thirty years ago.  The first, The Mighty Eighth, has loads of color profiles in the back, followed by a narrative paragraph describing the markings for each BG and FG in the 8th.  It's very useful for determing how wide various bands and i.d. stripes were. 

Eventually, Mr. F. put out The Mighty Eighth War Diary, The Mighty Eighth War Manual, The Mighty Eighty in Colour (all colour photographs), The Mighty Eighth:  Warpaint and Heraldry, and The Mighty Eighth in Art (paintings).  They've been an invaluable source over the years.

Despite the colorful nature of the 8th's markings, I think the RAF A and B schemes (especially for Battle of Britain era Spitfires and Hurricanes) are about the classiest around yet.  

Thanks checkmate. Think i need to do some more reading on US aircraft. It seem that the US, like the Germans, had systems that changed a few times and were not always straight forward. And certainly more interesting than the RAF.

This is according to Roger Freeman, The Mighty Eighth: 359 Fighter Group carried the swept-back green nose on P-51's from late 1944.  Before that, P-51's carried a green spinner and a 12 inch band behind it on the engine cowl. 

When they were earlier equipped with P-47's, they used a green band (24 inches) around the front of the engine cowling, from late March 1944.

Rudder colors (colours) further specified the squadrons from November 1944:  368 FS=yellow; 369 FS=red; 370 FS=dark blue.  Flight leaders received stripes on fin filet in flight colors, winter 44/45.

By V-E day, some 368 FS craft added a yellow spiral on the green spinner 

does seem to be some variety between Groups as to how they were marked. I know the Bodney Stangs had different coloured tails for each FS. Most of these colour schemes seem to only have been applied to P-51's and from what i can tell they didn't seem to be applied to the P-47's many of these groups used befopre switching.

Bish

I am no expert on US markings, but from what i can tell, certain FG's had certain colours. But not all FG's did it, just as not all BG's had coloured tails. I know Bodney used Blue noses, and there was a Yellow nosed FG and of course Green for Wretham. Not sure about any others.

I guess buying loads of AM for a 5euro kit is a bit silly. But i am sure you can do a nice job on it.

The 4th had red noses, I know that much. The 355th had white spinners, but cowl bands and rudders - at least usually - corresponded to different squadrons in the group. So the 354th Fighter Squadron would have white spinner + red cowl band (back to start of exhaust). The odd duck out is Hank Brown's Hun Hunter ~ Texas, which had a white cowl band on both his -B and -D. 

I am no expert on US markings, but from what i can tell, certain FG's had certain colours. But not all FG's did it, just as not all BG's had coloured tails. I know Bodney used Blue noses, and there was a Yellow nosed FG and of course Green for Wretham. Not sure about any others.

I guess buying loads of AM for a 5euro kit is a bit silly. But i am sure you can do a nice job on it.

Bish,

Any adding i will be doing will have to be scratched detail. I have yet to buy my first AM pit or PE set. Might have to do that one day but not on a 5 euro kit

Don't know if the green nose is a distinct Wretham thing... Must say that doing my first research all i can come up with sofar is that CV_D "cookie" was piloted by Lt. John T Gordon and that the aircraft was lost on july 23 1945 from what i think is a taxi accident but i am not fully clear on that. Nothing on unit markings or anything like that...

Richard

Does sound like a new release of an older Revell kit. But i am sure you can deal with that. Are you adding any AM for the pit.

I do like that Green nose, not noticed that before. I am not sure if the P-47's had it. I have a long term personal project to build aircraft from all the 37 military airfileds in Norfolk. There were only 2 8th AAF fighter bases in the county, Bodney and Wretham. As i already have _-51's for Bodney, i really want to do 47's for wretham. But there are no markings. maybe this will give me some ideas on doing my own.

Bish,

Thanks for the welcome!. This mold looks like it has many moons under it's belt (stamped Venice Ca., raised detail...) and from a first look at the instructions it doesn't even have a control column (to be adressed) but i was in for a fun "quickie" and i liked the markings.

Took some shots for you guys to see what i am yacking about:

Boxart. Love the green nose:

For EUR.4,99 you get a lot of extra flash to make up for the low parts count:

But the decals are the usual great cartograf ones. They never let me down sofar:

Making a start on her ASAP.

Richard

Just realised the GB badge has gone. I think i must have moved it on Photobucket. Will get it back on now.

Course you can Richard. and nothing wrong with 72nd, thats my scale of choise. And i would be interested in seeing the markings for this. I have been trying to find markings for the P-47's from Wretham, but can't find anything. I already have the markings for the Bodney P-51's.

I was up at wretham camp last Sunday and the Sunday before. It's now an Army camp and alot of the buildings are lefty overs from WW2, and some of the old perimiter track can still be seen around the area.

Bish,

Would you allow me to enter a Revell of Germany 1/72nd P51D? Ive been wanting to enter this GB for ages but never had anything suitable in my stash... Just picked up this kit from the LHS and it is very tiny, very basic but offers decals for a crate stationed at East Wretham 1945 with 359 FG, 368FS 8th af.

Richard

That does look very nice. Nice wear and tear on the panel and seat as well. What did you use for wireing the batteries behind the seat.

So my resin pit was waiting for me when I got home Thursday, and I decided to give it to another kit and steal said kit's instrument panel. And with that, the cockpit floor is complete and ready for a wash!

I used Airscale's instrument panel decals for the gauges. Even though they're 1:48, the only ones that would fit in the Tamiya gauge faces were the smallest. Still, with Future on top of them, they look pretty darn tootin'.

Overall, a big improvement over the Eduard PE, IMO.

for the sake of comparison:

Ye, certainly needs working on. The blast tubes on the model also look to large when compared to the real things. I am sure you will be able to sort this out.

Bish

O yes, i keep forgetting those US fighters have blast tubes that stick out from the wings and not the barrels.Sounds like it will look nice, but then given what i have seen of your previous builds, i think we have come to expect that.

Yeah the end result I'm trying for is something like this:

Here's how the kit captures it:

The scary thing is that the "blast tubes" are molded to the upper wing surface, with semi-cylinders protruding where they fit into the lower half of the fairings on the lower wing. Drilling that is going to be rough going. But I did do something similar with that Monogram P-47, and those drill points fell right on the upper/lower divide so this can't be any more trying than that!

Well i can't take much credit for the IP. Its one of the eduard coloured sets, so all i had to do was glue it. The hardest bit was fitting the various levers.

O yes, i keep forgetting those US fighters have blast tubes that stick out from the wings and not the barrels.Sounds like it will look nice, but then given what i have seen of your previous builds, i think we have come to expect that.

Bish - that interior's looking great! The IP in particular looks awesome from here!

As to your question about the gun barrels - mostly correct. I'm replacing the blast tubes where they exit at the leading edge of the wing. The kit's rendition of them is pretty basic, and rather going with the whole Ultracast replace-the-entire-thing approach which seems a nightmare, I'm going to drill them out and replace them with tubing from Albion Alloy. They've got a range of micro tubing that's sized so the smaller ones slide perfectly into the larger ones. Now I just need to figure out how to drill out what's there cleanly! Should look pretty awesome in the end, though, especially if I can get away with leaving them off until after the painting's done.

Thanks checkmate. The last x ray 2 weeks ago showed the fracture had gone, but it was still painful, so they put me back in a caiste for 3 more weeks. I get this off next Wed and then have to wear a brace and have pyhsio. Its a bugger of a bone to heal properly. But at least i can take the brace off and use my hand as normal. Its just awkward trying to get my hand in the right poisition for certain things, and to rest the hand to steady it. Hence why i nhave taken so much time. Things should progress better once its off.

Nice looking interior, Bish.  Glad that you're getting back into things.  How's the bone healing?

Right, finally some progress pics. Not alot done for 5 weeks, but things should be picking up now. Got my motivation back this last week or so, and once the caiste comes off, i won't be so restricted.

Theres been hardly any plastic glued yet, its been almost all PE. And theres alot of it.

Firstly the pit and bombadiers station. I have since fitted bomb site, the IP and the wheels onto the sticks.

The right and left sides of the front of the fuselage. These also show the mounts for the Oxygen tanks i was asking about on another thread. And they match nicely with the oxygen system layout stik posted. The tanks are on order from hannants and should have arrived by the time i get back to work on Wedensday.

The radio room. This has not been fitted into the fuselage, the left side has been left off for now. Still got to add the seats.

And an all over view of everything done so far. Theres not that much detail in the waiste positions, i am going to try and add what i can especially around the windows themselves.

Interiour was painted Interiour Green from xtracol,our. I then used pro modeller was and tamiya weathering dust silver. Hopefully more to follow at the end of next week.

Deffinatly worth showing off. I take it yours just replaceing the guns barrels.

just realised the time. Either your haveing a late one or your up damn early. I thought i was bad.

So that Spitfire IP that had me looking seriously askance at Eduard's effort on the P-51? 

I just can't resist showing it off. 

Hopefully the resin will arrive soon! Also, my tubing order should be coming in tomorrow, so I may start building up the wings and moving into gun surgery this weekend!

Glad you have got the canopy sorted red. I do like that nose art. Looking forward to seeing this.

Thanks Little J, but I can just fill it in with super glue and sand it....no big deal

Redraider,  I think I might have the solid air filter cover plates you are looking for in my photo-etch stash.  I think only the P-51K had the solid plate cover, but I could be wrong.  If I find them they are yours , I just need a address to ship them out.