The P-51"mustang" Group Build. 2008

Hi all, 

My Tamiya -D should be in the post shortly.

Chris -- if you took too much plastic scoring out the divebrakes, shim the edges of the hole with some microstrip, attached with superglue. Let the strips overhang, then sand them down flush. This'll get your correct area back. You can do the same with the brake flaps themselves if they've ended up too small, applying strips to the outer edges, same procedure.

TB379

Thanks T-Bolt.  Good tip, it may prove useful.  I did close up the wings, but I can still work on the sides of the cut-outs.  I've been scraping the sides with my knife from time to time. 

The fuselage halves fit well together with a minimum of sanding.  However, the wing to the fuselage joints took some filling, sanding, and effort. 

You may notice the piece of stretched-sprue across the top of the engine cowling.  That's just filling a small gap that barely caught my fingernail, but persisted after sanding.  It's attached with Tenex Plastic welder.  I'll cut it, scrape it, and sand it.  That should take care of that gap. 

I still have to rescribe some of the panel lines that I sanded over/around.  Rescribing is difficult for me, so it may take some time. 

Semper Fi,

Chris 

Azgaron & ridleusmc - great start! Seams and flaw detection can be such a bane... did you catch Hawkeyes' "Reading the seam" thread? lots of good info & tips within...

/forums/883138/ShowPost.aspx

Thanks for the link JMart!

That was really useful reading! I'll try that method!

Cheers,

Azgaron

Here is what I have so far. This is my first time taking and/or posting model pics. Sorry for the poor quality. I did the panel lines with a fat tipped Sharpie and didn't really cover the tail fin or the stabalizers on my first attempt good enough. I will fix that tomorrow. Any and all comments are welcome.

Regards,

Jeff

firesmacker wrote:

...I did the panel lines with a fat tipped Sharpie....

Typically, not a good idea.  Sharpie lines tend to bleed through the layers of paint applied over them.

There are much better methods of preshading.  Do a search on the forums for preshading and drink in the good info.

I'm not trying to be contentious, but how is using a black sharpie different from painting the panel lines with an AB? I have seen others on various forums, including this one do similar things. Would I be better off using a pencil or a more narrow pen? I ask because for now it is easier for me to get things like that done what with having a 18 month son constantley wanting to do everything Daddy does. So this just helps me move it along a little more quickly.

I am always willing to learn more. Would it help if I put another light application of the top coat or is the bleed-through inevitable? I am still pretty new to all of this so I appreciate your feedback Arki.

Regards,

Jeff 

Refer to these links:

/forums/656206/ShowPost.aspx

/forums/799154/ShowPost.aspx

/forums/700107/ShowPost.aspx

/forums/889764/ShowPost.aspx

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=142598&hl=

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=133018&hl=

I'm sure there are more threads, but it's late and I'm tired.  It's a real hit or miss technique with mostly misses. 

Once you read through those threads, you'll see the main difference is paint compatibility.  You might get lucky though.  Your picture is too blurry so it's too hard to tell if you have any bleed through.  

Ok,

Arki, has had me totally freaked out about using a Sharpie for panel lines. here are a few pics. From all that I have read from the links you posted, I need to be careful with using Future and dull-coat. I really like my results so far, hope it doesn't bite me in the ***.

Oops, sorry.  It wasn't my intent to freak you out, just to warn you. 

Well, from the pics it doesn't appear that you are having any bleed through.  Like I say, it's a hit or miss technique that has worked...sometimes. 

Good luck, 'cause what you have so far looks pretty good.

Thanks for the advice. I don't have a tri-pod so I kind of mounted the camera on some of the other Stash Monsters. Weird thing is, they look really nice and clear on Photobucket but look like crap when I post them. No biggie, I'll figure it out on my end. Thanks for the comments.

Jeff 

Firesmacker,

Great work on your mustang.  She's looking good, and it looks like the preshading turned out well.  A friend of mine in a small, informal model club in Jacksonville, NC used sharpies for his preshading and he never mentioned any problems with bleed through.  He didn't always use primer, and he used Tamiya Acrylics for his base colors.  I choose not to use that method, but I have seen favorable results.  Your model is a great example. 

There were a couple of things about the background of your pics I wanted to touch on.  I see you're in the Corsair GB too.  The Dash 1D is a great choice.  The steelers poster should be taken down.  That's not such a great choice.  GO BROWNS.

OK, sorry to get off subject, but I like the shade of OD you used.  What did you use for the base OD?

Another question for anybody who may know:  Is the interior of the canopy framing (of a mustang/apache) Zinc Chromate or Black? 

Semper Fi,

Chris

Chris,

I just used plain old MM olive drab thinned at about 40%. I did the first coat and waited 2 days and hit it again last night with another thin coat. I have the Eduard canopy mask set. All the clear pieces got a Future dip three days ago so I may go ahead and mask and paint those tonight. Thanks for looking. GO STEELERS!

Regards,

Ben Roethlessberger...

I ran into a little problem.  It seems that the center part of the canopy isn't quite fitting right.  The aft windows and the windshield section fit fine.  I line the section up flush with the left side where there are 2 molded on details which keep it flush on that side.  However, there is a considerable lip on the right side.  I tried applying outward pressure to widen the canopy section.  However, I don't want to put too much pressure on the part, because clear plastic is very brittle and will break before it bends.  Here's pics.  Note the lip on the right side of the canopy (first pic).

Do you guys have any ideas on how to fix it?

Semper Fi,

Chris

I managed to sneak in a little painting with some warmer weather and a little less wind.  Still have a ways to go.  Discovered that laying MM Buffing Metalizer over a silver aluminum coat sorta defeated the metalizer.    I guess it didn't turn out too bad.  Oh well, I'm learning (or at least trying to).

Ken

Ken great work there. Paint job is nice.

Chris, sorry for the problem maybe someone else has dealt with this before?

Ok I put the decals on my stang, It will be done tomorrow.

I put the neutral grey on the underside of my 'Stang last night. I need to do a few touchups tomorrow because of some over spray. I really want to do the whole nose/engine section in yellow because I think it will look cool. I have done a lot of searching online and haven't found a single pic of an OD feusalage with a yellow forward end. I don't really care about historical accuaracy. I'm going for "hey, neat". Although I do not want it looking like a clown car either.

Guess I will find out over the next week how it actually looks. Oh well, if all else fails, I can always go for the boring OD on top, neutral grey on the bottom route. 

Regards,

Jeff

P.S.

Chris, the "Regards, Ben Roethlessberger" thing was FUNNY! How dare you ignore my rapist wit...

Edit: Chris in all seriousness, we are both Military Men. Sometimes we have a tendency to overlook the obvious. Are those side part of the canopy meant to be inside of the air frame? I only ask because I did the same thing on a Spitfire I was building. I was going bat-fartingly insane trying to fit it up before the little light in my thick head went off.

Something to think about.

Sincerly,

Romeo Crennel... 

Sorry Jeff, I missed the Ben Rothesburger thing. 

The canopy is meant to sit flush with the side of the fuselage.  I got it fixed a few minutes ago, but it was a scarry process.  I Tenaxed one side, then stretched the other.  After I Tenaxed that side I held it still until I was sure the weld was complete.  I was very worried about stretching it, clear plastic is brittle.  However, I have a couple more Mustang kits in my stash, so if the part broke I'd have another. 

The Apache gets primer tomorrow. 

Semper Fi,

Chris

Great job Chris glad it worked.

Here's mine everyone, I had it finished a couple weeks ago, but the monogram decals were to old. To me the decals were great. After they dried good I thought I would use spray can gloss. It actually ate away the silver! But not much, I repainted it, then used future as the gloss coat. Worked out great for me. To me Monograms kit is great. Well here it is.

Hey it flies

Nice work Andrew! A very beautiful Stang!

Is that the Humbrol silver that behaved that way? Future is so far the only coat I've managed to paint on top of Hu11 without ruining the paint.

Cheers,

Azgaron

Thanks az, its Aclad II silver, it works perfectly for me.

Great work Andrew,

You've done well with an oldie, but a goodie, kit. 

Allow me to make a recommendation: under the right wing there are 3 landing lights.  They are represented by circles molded into the underside of the wing.  The forward one is red, the middle one is green, and the aft one is yellow.  It's a small thing, but Mustang guys always look for it.  She looks great. 

I actually had a full Sunday to sit down with my airbrush.  I guess I have the weather to thank for that.  I started with primer at the beginnig of the NASCAR race.  At the end of the night, I have most of the plane painted, preshades and all.  Here's pics. 

I did lose a dive brake under-panel into the wing, and I'm clueless as to how to fix that.  Thank gosh it's on the underside.

Semper Fi,

Chris

Actually, I think he means it fell into the wing.  If so, ouch.  It would be pure dumb luck if you could shake it out of the wing.  Looks very good despite that headache.

Raptor, really nice job on the P-51.  Don't forget to paint the exhausts. 

Yep, it's somewhere in there.  I can hear it rattling around, which is annoying.

Semper Fi,

Chris

Looking great, Chris! Love to see it done!

Cheers,

Azgaron

You're not the only one, Chris.  While building my 'Stang, I decided to replace the stock barrels with steel hypo tubing.  Well, needless to say, I pushed a few of them in too far and now I have a few lengths of tubing rattling around inside the wings.  Since I don't fly it around the room, it doesn't bother me that much

-Fred

I guess a little rattle doesn't really hurt anything.  The steel tubes probably aren't very hard to replace, are they?   

There's another PE set in my stash that has that panel, but I have no idea how get it in there. Maybe I can rig something up.  Tonight all I did was glue and sand the bombs.  I only worked on it for about half an hour, because it's time to do... TAXES AHHHHHH!  

About the bombs.  I'm going for a weathered look for the aircraft, but it doesn't seem like the bombs would be very weathered.  I know they'd probably seen some abuse from handling.  However, how much weathering would a new bomb have compared to a well used airplane.  I doubt most bombs get used more than once.

Semper Fi,

Chris