The P-51"mustang" Group Build. 2008

Looking good Arki!!    That Tamiya kit is a beaut.

Ken 

Another quick progress pic.  I've painted a few select panels Dark Aluminum, touched up the Aluminum, and painted the Insignia Yellow, Insignia Red and Olive Drab areas. 

Next is to begin final assembly of the landing gear, gear doors, flaps, and prop/spinner on the model.   

I haven't tried that, but I do know others have.  Now, if I could just rack my brain and remember where I last saw an example....

Something keeps pointing my memory over to the forums on Hyperscale.  If I find any good examples I'll link them for you.

Don't sweat it, Ark.  The paint looks sweet.  Aluminum is rather grainy anyways.  If the finish really bothers you, maybe you can try buffing it somewhere unnoticeable: like underneath a horizontal stabilizer.   It might work... but like I said above, I've never used alcad.

I've been toying with the idea of pre-painting my P-51A with a metallizer, then covering it all with acrylic camoflauge.  The idea is that I could come back for weathering and scratch/sand the acrylic paint to let the aluminum shine through.  I dunno if anyone has tried this before, but I'd sure like to hear from them if they have.

Thanks for the comments guys!

IL, in regards to the graininess of the Alclad...what graininess I have is solely due to the smoothness (or lack of) of my base coat.  This is not my best NMF by any measure, particularly on the wings.  The gloss base coat just didn't dry as glossy as it should have and with NMF everything shows through.

In hindsight I should have either 1) resprayed the gloss coat, or 2) sanded it with 6000 and 12000 grit to really smooth it out.  I did neither because of my own impatience.

Alclad typically goes down like glass over glass smooth surfaces, but you have to achieve the glass smooth surface.  I've never tried any of the other NMF products so I can't speak to the reasons for any graininess after application.

Wow Arki,

You are moving fast on that bird.  She's looking great too.  That Alcad stuff looks pretty sweet: I think I'm gonna have to try it some time.  Pardon the question, but does buffing the Alcad finish reduce the graininess like it does for the lacquer metallizers?  You should see how grainy the freshly-applied aluminum looks on my B-58 in IMS2.  But my prior testing has shown that buffing it will really bring the paint alive: make it look like real metal.  I dunno, this NMF stuff is all new for me.  I will try to accomplish some of this buffing business tommorrow and post more pictures at IMS2.

Keep it up!

Arki again great progress and NMF

and lewbud, Thanks for the oob review sounds like a good challenge.

Well, I've started construction on the High Planes 172 Red Baron, ok nothing put together yet but some primer on parts.  For those who have never seen a High Planes kit, I'll give you a brief OOB review.  The kit consists of 22 plastic parts molded in a light blue plastic the fuselage, wigns etc are finely engraved, 5 resin (two wheels, the gear bay, and a set of flaps if you chose to drop 'em), two white metal landing gear, and one vac formed canopy.  The wings are a four piece affair, the bottom, separate landing gear bay, and the top wing halves.  The pit is a multipiece affair with cockpit floor, seat, IP, and sidewalls.  I think the seat and IP are the only things usable, but not much will be seen throught the tiny canopy once everything is said and done.  There is no rear radiator and the cooling duct is molded into the fuselage in the open position.  The tail wheel is unusable.  The exhaust stacks are crap, but might be ok after a good cleaning-will have to see if there are any after market parts for a Shackelton.  The mouth to the radiator scoop is a short shot.  Looks like I'll getting a cheap D model somewhere to help finish out the kit.  The decals are good.  Instructions are a one sided 8 1/2 X 11 sheet affair, banking on the fact that you've put a Mustang together once or twice as there is only a crudely drawn exploded diagram showing how the parts go together and a decal guide.  Can't comment on if the parts came on sprues or not, and the amount of flash on the kit as I bought it at a club auction several years ago and the parts were in ziploc bags and appear to have been cleaned up.  That being said, it is the Red Baron and the High Planes kit is the only game in town.  This could be fun.  Off to pillage the local hobby shop.

Thanks Frank!  Actually, if you go back to page 22 you can see the subject I'm building.

Cheers

 Arki 30,

The P51 your building looks great so far .

I can't wait to see the subject that you are building . By the looks of yours and others you are

making it time to really get started on mine.

 Frank C

 F4U almost done weathering

 P47 stripping, back to repaint AGAIN

Dirk, thanks for the compliments.  Check the front page for the manufacturer and scale, or my sig.

Cheers!

arki30

That is a really nice looking Mustang. Both in the work you have done and the quality of the model itself. What brand and scale is it? The work you've done really shows off the detail in the fuselage. Fantastic

Quick progress pic.  I've applied the Alclad Aluminum to everything that needed it, and landing gear is painted along with the main wheels.  Next is to mask off select panels on the plane and apply Alclad Dark Aluminum for some variation. 

Slowly but surely I'm still plugging away.

doc-hm3 wrote:

Guy's... I've come through the portal from the "DARK SIDE" to participate in this Mustang round-up. I've not built a bird of prey in twenty years. My subject shall be Tamiya's 1/48th PETIE 2. What I mean to say guy's is, count me in.

Welcome aboard doc-hm3 Sorry for the late response I will put you down!

IL2windhawk wrote:

LOL Dirk, That IS one funky Mustang kit!  Thanks for posting pictures. You should get a photo-etch set for it! LOL It looks like a great practice model though, so good luck with it and welcome back to the hobby!

 IL2windhawk

Yeah, its perfect for trying out new things such as air brushing techniques. I have to admit for what its worth I'm pretty happy with it. Last night I attached the canopy, rear landing gear, and landing gear doors. Hopefully I will get the main gear fixed (broke one) and installed by this weekend. Then I can start the decals and weathering.

LOL Dirk,

That IS one funky Mustang kit!  Thanks for posting pictures.
You should get a photo-etch set for it! LOL

It looks like a great practice model though, so good luck with it and welcome back to the hobby!

doc-hm3 wrote:

Guy's... I've come through the portal from the "DARK SIDE" to participate in this Mustang round-up. I've not built a bird of prey in twenty years. My subject shall be Tamiya's 1/48th PETIE 2. What I mean to say guy's is, count me in.

She goes together real sweet with very little effort.  As long as you don't try to to use the True Details Wheelbay set, you'll have it built in no time.

-Fred

Thanks Viper

Here is my progress so far. Like I stated earlier I started with a cheap Starfix model i found at a dollar store. It came with 2 whole spree trees of parts. The cockpit consists of a seat and that's it. Like many people here I'm just returning to the hobby and need to start off easy. I'm actually doing three projects simotaniously. A ship, a car and a aircraft.

Basically this is an out of the box build, I had to do a little filling and sanding but that was about it. Now I need to do some fine sanding to the top coat, add the landing gear, and finish the canopy. Did I mention the pilot looks like he belongs in a Phantom rather then a Mustang?

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More to follow

Dirkpitt289 wrote:

Hey everyone I hope I'm not too late for this build. I've had a P51 kicking around for years I've wanted to build. Its an el cheap o  found in the dollar store. I decided it would be good to use for a test project. First I was going to foil it but then I stumbled onto something while watching "Dog Fights." A brief mention of a German captured P51. Thanks to a few guys here on FSMF I have the paint scheme nailed down.

No dirk its not to late to join. I do think the captured ones are pretty awsome.

Hey everyone

I hope I'm not too late for this build. I've had a P51 kicking around for years I've wanted to build. Its an el cheap o  found in the dollar store. I decided it would be good to use for a test project. First I was going to foil it but then I stumbled onto something while watching "Dog Fights." A brief mention of a German captured P51.

Thanks to a few guys here on FSMF I have the paint scheme nailed down.  

dupes wrote:

...wouldn't it be easier just to finish the forward part of the fuselage, since they're basically giving you the whole thing anyway?

As mentioned above, the Tamiya kit is engineered such that the top of the nose is a single piece.  This is actually a very nice feature in my opinion.  The real mustang has a riveted panel line right down the centerline of the nose.  On other mustang kits, this is right where the seam between fuselage halves is, so the builder has to blend the seam and also leaving a convincing panel line over the seam.  I have found this to be a difficult task, but it's a non-issue with the Tamiya kits.

Looking good, Arki.
I hope to re-start operations on my P-51A after I finish my B-58 for IMS3. 
When I stopped work on the P-51A I was just about ready to apply primer.

I concur with Fred.  Comparing the original vs. resin halves they are virtually dead on matches minus the fillet.

The fit (minus my goofs) is eerily good.  Anyone who has worked with resin replacements/conversions knows that sanding and dry-fitting are a given.  With these I dry-fitted and didn't have to do a lick of sanding to mate the kit parts to the fuselage.  That tells me they cast from the originals. 

dupes wrote:

Looking good, man. Interesting to me (especially since I've never done one) how they decide where to stop the resin parts and have you resume the kit parts...wouldn't it be easier just to finish the forward part of the fuselage, since they're basically giving you the whole thing anyway? Is that just a cost-saving measure for them, trying to cut down on the amount of resin?

My best guess is that the fuselage halves are modified tammy halves and not complete resculpts.  The made the fillet mod to the tammy halves and cast them up in resin.  Since it's a direct replacement, I wouldn't see a need to replace the top cowl panel or the chin scoop since the styrene parts should be drop-ins.

It's cheaper for everyone (manufacturer and customer) - and the fewer the parts you make, the less the chance you have of something breaking.

-Fred