The P-51"mustang" Group Build. 2008

PS     Thank you raptordriver. I hope to have more pictures tomorrow.

navypitsnipe The cats name is Merlin ????? I feel your pain, I really do, but thats just too funny. Hey maybe you could enter it in the "What If BG" with a story about what happened. Oh like the 50 foot cat that ate a Mustang.

Mike, beautiful work! Never seen a weathered NMF mustang before. Thanks for being in this build.

NPS sorry to hear about that!

Hi Raptordriver and all -- many thanks! I must say I'm a believer in the less-is-more approach, in aircraft as in armor. The graphite is a trick as old as FX miniatures and it sure seems to work. You can also get round the weathering process surprisingly quickly with pigments. The dust and carbon took ten minutes to do, and that was feeling my way carefully.

Here are the gallery shots, fresh out of the camera. As the model stands, she's short two bombs, and three or four tiny stencil decals simply vanished due to handling (not as sticky as the Invisaclears). There's not much I'll do differently in my next one, maybe drill out the guns, possibly fill and sand the leading edge for a better finish. I might take a shot at adding brake lines from detailing wire. But on the whole I'm very happy with this horse!

She depicts the personal aircraft of Col. W. Clarke, CO of the 18th FBG. She's a weathered, hard-flown bird seen between missions, re-armed for the next sortie but on the ground long enough for hydraulic pressure to have fallen after engine-stop and the flaps and center bay doors to have bled down as a result. The wings are discolored top and bottom, and from the ejector ports, from heavy firing. The AG panel, originally a bright satin finish, has dulled due to weather, and service crews have chipped the paint where the panels fit. The landing gear and bays show dust from the rough operational strips.

Cheers,

Mike

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Thunderbolt

What can I say ? Your P-51 is magnificent !! The paint scheme I really like alot and it came out beautifully. A job well done. But tell me how you did the exhaust stains ?? Oh and yes the pics were worth waiting for.

Thanks arki and vetteman --

She was sure a fun build and I look forward to cranking out many more. The exhaust stain was done with MiG pigment, "Black Smoke," applied with a size-0 round-end brush. I used a TINY amount and worked it in with the greatest care. (This stuff acts like fingerprinting dust too, you may think the model is clean but you'll find your prints no matter what!) This is my fourth build using pigments for finishing and they're now part of my standard arsenal of techniques -- I should think I'll use them to dust the feet of dinosaurs when the day comes I have the storage and display space to indulge myself in those long-out-of-production 20th scale Kaiyodo vinyls...

For now, this has been a real fun build and I look forward to the next chance to indulge my Mustangaholism!

Clear to take my badge now, guys?

Cheers,

Mike/TB379

PS: Raptordriver -- FSM have solicited the Salvadorean bird as a feature for the mag, so I need to withdraw it from the GB, I remember when a forum model ended up in the mag they asked the builder (Doog, over at Armor, IIRC) to remove it from the forum.

Ruhrow........... was I not supose to take a badge untill i completed my build ??

Hey Thunderbolt your Salvadorean 51 is going to be in FSM?????? Congradulations !!!!!!!!!

Alright T-bolt thanks for the pics! Really nice to see. Updated the list. Good work with your other stang going to FSM!

Vetteman42  -   No worries friend people can put the badge on anytime they like here.

Thunderbolt - pretty darn spectacular. Paint job is super sharp, markings are sweet...definitely earns the coveted "three thumbs up"!

Hello all I know I said I was going to post some WIP pictures yesterday but with live getting in the way and the camera being moody I didnt get-r-done. So here they are today. I had to apply some foil to the bottom of the wing and the belly scoop before the wings could be attached. I must admit I almost missed this small detail, would have been tough going had I indeed glued the wings on then tried to do the foil work. I do have to blame this discovery on my little side kick and helper Ruby, she wanted to go for a walk and as you can see from this pic she does have a way of asking one just cant say no to.

So came back from our walk and the light bulb went off in my head, foil first then glue.

This morning I attacked the tail feathers and did some filling with some thinned squadron puddy applied with a small paint brush, let it dry and did a bit of sanding. OH how I love sanding .....NOT. Looks like I may have to try my hand at scribing as I did lose some of the raised detail.

I do hope I dont end up going right to the wire getting this build finished before the deadline. I hope to be applying the foil by the end of this week but you know how life can be LOL.

T-Bolt, outstanding work on your Mustang.  That's an excellent subject, and very well finished.  I've been meaning to log in for sometime now to tell you so.

Vett, are you planning to foil the whole plane?  Or are you just accentuating certain panels before paint?  curious..

--

The MustangII is like 99.5% done.  Since these photos, I've actually built the mounting base too.  I've got about 2 hours of detail work to finish up.  Mostly, this will be re-applying silver enamel to the paint-chip areas.  The flat-coat really killed any shininess that they had before.  I've already redone the wings, but the fuselage needs this work done.  Notice the bird is heavily weathered to reflect it's expeditionary service from dirt/grass fields in Northern France / Netherlands after D-Day.

Great camo job IL2! You really did a nice job on the weathering.

Thanks IL2 -- the feedback I've had on this project has been great and I appreciate it very much! You're doing a suberb job yourself, the camouflage, weathering and decals are very good indeed!

Well, we have till April 10th if I'm reading things correctly... I suddenly have the urge to see if I could squeeze in Glamorous Glen III in 1:72nd scale, using the same general techniques... Given my workload, I must be certifiable!

Mike/TB379

IL2windhawk I haffta tell ya your Mustang II is a real beauty, the paint job really stands out, I have seen very few done this way.

May I sugest from my own point of view of course, that you leave the paint chips dull as they are, especially the prop. To my eye it looks much more real after d/ling your pictures and blowing them up. I would think that the chipped paint would be dull aluminum after the paint came off. I know from being around planes and flying them that props were never shiny from chipped paint but almost looked grey as if they had been shotpeened. Your prop looks perfect as it is now. Just my opinion for what its worth.

In answer to your question yes I am going to cover my....errrrr Angels P-51 in foil as it won,t be one that has seen combat but will have a used restored look to it I hope. I am building this one for my better half so I think you will understand.

I do have a question, not a suprise huh. I want to use an uncuffed prop on Angel's 51, the kit prop is cuffed, however I do have a (drum roll) ultracast uncuffed prop. My question is has anyone used micro metal foil on resin ? Or should I bite the bullet and remove the cuffs from the kit prop and reshape the blades.

Thanks for the suggestions for paint-chip weathering, VM.  I'll certainly take them into consideration.  That is the kind of input that I always appreciate, because I'm still very much a student in modelling.

I would imagine that if your foil material works on styrene, it will work on resin.  And if it doesn't, you can usually always peel/sand stuff like that off.  Try it on a scrap region of the resin, like the casting runners/block.   Gotta ask though: why put foil on the prop blades?  Are those going to be NMF too?

IL2windhawk

I am still in Modeling 101, however I think you are a few classes ahead me from the looks of your build, cant wait to see the finished pictures. I was a machinist for 40 years and I think I know what beatup aluminum looks like. So I had to say something because your paint chipping looks so very close to real.

To be honest I hadn't thought of testing on the runner I was thinking of doing one blade to see how the foil would look and if it would adhier to the resin. Was a bit worried about taking the foil off of a blade because they seem to be very brittle so it would brake easily. LOL that would be my luck too. I also asked my question in the open forum, and posted a picture I have of a P-51 that Angel fell in love with, heres the link if you want to check it out. My build is ready for foil finally, after lots of filling, sanding, and buffing. I should have some pictures to post in a few days with any luck, and will let you know how the prop worked out.

/forums/1105609/ShowPost.aspx

Hello all. I think its time to post a WIP Picture as it has been a while. I have been foiling the bottom of the wing a panel at a time, I think it gives the wing a more realistic look as far as the panels go. You cant see it in the picture, I am not very good with a camera ya know, but quite by accident I found that if I change the direction of the grain of the foil it gives a variance in reflection which brakes up the color nicely. It should really come out when I bunish it with 0000 steelwool.

Also I would like to know what you guys would think of a final clear coat of semi gloss to tone down the brightness of the foil a bit. I do plan on a gloss coat of future for decals and some accent work around control surfaces, exhaust stains, and such. I will be keeping washes and pastels very light and faint, more than that I think would be overwhelming.

Hey dupes cant wait to see your pictures hurry it up there <grin>

Well - she's finally finished.  Photos are below.  I posted them at the link below too, along with a write up that summarizes everything I've already wrote in this GB about this plane. 

/forums/1110682/ShowPost.aspx#1110682

Hope you guys like!

IL2windhawk sweet build !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To my eye the weathering is perfect. Not over done, yet not understated. For me a very hard look to achieve. I am thinking I may steal your mounting method for a future build, I really like the idea. I will have to pick on you for your vacuform canopy secrets, and how you did that because mine is giving me fits, and not the good ones <grin>.

I hope mine comes out half as well as yours did

navypitsnipe - sorry about the FUBAR; even though the evolution failed, you can count on the intrinsic value of training time! Can you make her a "flier"? Closed wheel weels and canopy, hang from ceiling?

Thunderbolt379 - looks great! hope you recovered fully from your bug...  I like how your panel lines look; not too much IMHO, just right to give that extra level of realism. I will try pastels/graphite on mine, last time I used sludge wash and did not like how it came out...

vetteman42 - very nice work so far! your NMF looks very very good.

IL2windhawk - ditto onthe camo job... and i love the in-flight pose of your bird, even if the prop is not a "blurr". Face it, mustangs aremeant to be in the air ;)  just love the lines. I think I will shamelessly copy your idea for one of my builds :)

dupes - look forward to your build! (and yes, the 251 still in the queue as scheduled!)

Cheers all

Here is my new "spread", the old Revell classic.. hope comes out a third as good as Randy's!

Not sure if I will dress her up as BigBeaut or one of the green nose variants (I have 2 decal sheets). Lets see how the building goes and status of old decals. I may try using vacfor canopies for first time.

I also have the old (and really simple) Testors'; this one will be a "flier" since it barely has any wheel well or canopy detail. It only looks good all closed up and 3 feet up in the ceiling 

And some of the basic references I used for this build; basic construction tips and such:

cheers