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Bob Hoovers Rockwell F-51/Cavalier- Finished


azureglo

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War, what is it good for? Asked Edwin Starr. Well apart from driving me crazy masking camo, a good supply of warbirds for excitable men to chuck around the skies in peacetime it seems.

Fed up of all that futzing about with RLM this that and the other, I remembered my days in States in the 70s/80s when I was a regular visitor to the Reno Air races and recall fondly , a certain Mr Bob Hoover in a canary yellow Mustang and his wonderful catchphrase “ Gentlemen, you have a race” coming over the Tannoys .

Fast forward to SMW 2015 and Greg Drawbaughs stand selling all manner of Reno Racer goodies saw me come home with the decals for the Rockwell F-51/Cavalier.

drawdecals.jpg

It’ll be a simple conversion as the Airfix F-51 has the required uncuffed prop and bulged canopy that Cavaliers used.

spwues.jpg

Have a bit of hacking to do to get a second seat in where the radio crap is but nothing a razor saw and ignorance can’t cope with. I remember flying a Cavalier in the 80s that belonged to one of our directors and remember that the interior was a nondescript grey and the modernised panel with VOR, audio selector etc. was still black, hence a Yahu P-51 panel and let’s hope no one notices the modern stuff isn’t there. Alclad grey primer looks pretty nondescript so it will be the interior colour.

Paint wise, I did extensive research; well I walked to my paint cabinet and decided the Mr Color RLM 04 is close enough.

Finally I’m doing another build simultaneously, a new thing for me but hopefully something that can get the 300+ plus stash down quicker...

So onwards we go.

Anil The Dualist.

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Thank you gents for your kind words, my plastic butchery continued but was interrupted by this little item I picked up in Tokyo a few months back

feelingparts.jpg

Yes, "feeling parts" , just what we all need eh? After some jiggery pokery with water and bending them and painting few shiny bits, we have a cockpit with an improvised jump seat: Close enough for me and I wasn't the fool wedged in there anyhow.

jumpseat.jpg

The Yahu IP panel is a honey: Ludicrously fragile AF joystick disintegrated even after using Pico saws etc. New one made from unpainted aluminium tube.

panel.jpg

Lastly some Mr Color dark iron on the rad and a quick buff to pop the raised bits. She's all sealed up and waiting for the de-seaming to begin tomorrow. I have a good feeling about this...

radiator.jpg

zippedup.jpg

Anil The Optimist

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A few days labour and "Gentlemen, you have an airframe!". Much frustration trying voodoo seam filling compounds and have now gone back to zapagap and micro balloons. Airfix' soft plastic incredibly annoying as small parts bend and snap unexpectedly but as I'm getting these kits delivered to my door for £5.24, I'm a happy camper.

airframe.jpg

Love the look of that late un-cuffed prop, the spinner may not be right but nor am I most of the time. With a bit of luck, Gaston should chip in with a few lines drawn on my pic to show me what shape it should be... Tomorrow is primer day.

Anil

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  • 3 weeks later...

Been slowly losing the will to live with this as I had reappearing seam lines after 4 bouts of filling/sanding/priming. Each time, no seam was visible under my acrylic Vallejo silver seam checker test paint, only to reappear after hitting the fixed area with Alclad white.

Then a poke with a finger revealed the plastic was soft: the Alclad was actually melting the Airfix styrene. Tried this on some unused pieces and an academy wildcat paint mule and lo and behold, only the Airfix styrene was melting in random spots with the cellulose thinners in Alclad. Something to watch out for in future (or may I should Future it first?). I always disliked the soft styrene AF has started to use on their new issues and this makes me even more wary... Still its primed and on the home straight.

primo.jpg

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Sorry to hear about your issue with the soft plastic and harsh thinners reacting Anil but glad you now have a solid primer base down. Ready for a splash of colour now?

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As Col suggested, splashing on the some colour: Its Mr Color RLM 04 yellow, turning out a wee bit more "golden" than I expected but I might do final top coat of a more lemon yellow to tame it. My shiny new Iwata HP TH is making building up these coats positively enjoyable.

I can see why people despair of spraying yellow, it seems horrible and blotchy initially but given patience and lots of light even coats, it seems to moving to a lovely solid yellow.

olyeller.jpg

Somewhere is a lonely Copyboss F-5e languishing for the STGB so hopefully that may get some attention but my goldfish like attention span is already eyeing up this baby;

decalporn.jpg

Even did a quick paint test with some Tamiya Mica blue, A blue and yellow pair of Reno 'Stangs would look very pretty methinks.

imblue.jpg

Hopefully with the depressing drudgery of the reappearing seams finally solved, I may get these done before Microsoft calls me to parts foreign (that's Yorkshire to you).

Anil

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Darby, on 11 Dec 2015 - 6:42 PM, said:Darby, on 11 Dec 2015 - 6:42 PM, said:Darby, on 11 Dec 2015 - 6:42 PM, said:Darby, on 11 Dec 2015 - 6:42 PM, said:Darby, on 11 Dec 2015 - 6:42 PM, said:

Looking forward to a different looking Mustang. I found out years ago about cellulose thinners on styrene. It ate my old skool Lightning wings.

Cookenbacher, on 11 Dec 2015 - 4:23 PM, said:Cookenbacher, on 11 Dec 2015 - 4:23 PM, said:Cookenbacher, on 11 Dec 2015 - 4:23 PM, said:Cookenbacher, on 11 Dec 2015 - 4:23 PM, said:Cookenbacher, on 11 Dec 2015 - 4:23 PM, said:

I didn't realize cellulose/lacquer thinners could melt Airfix plastic like that - thanks for the warning Anil.

I love the scheme you've chosen. I got to see Bob Hoover fly his Aerocommander Shrike when I was a kid.

I'm no expert on this topic, but I tried neat cellulose thinners of varying types from body shop antibloom, Mr levelling to panel wipe/gun cleaner and all they do is clean the surface on Academy, Trumpeter, Tamiya, Az, Hasegawa, Special hobby and even PM kits I have to hand. Trying the same on Airfix results in at least one or two melt spots on a 1/72 109e, Do-17z, Defiant and even a 1/48 109e-1/3 (all recent issue).

Now seeing as my friendly paint shop guru id'ed Alclad primers as cellulose primers pre mixed with thinners, with added benzene and toluene, I think Airfix styrene is the one to watch, he suggested 2 quick mist coats rubbed down as a barrier, then the wet coat self levelling technique that Paul Budzik described which is how he trains his apprentices to spray car bodies. The issue is large amounts of cellulose thinners pooling straight on soft-ish styrene as this technique requires.

Bizarrely enough, I've just done the information architecture for a website for the worlds biggest producer of raw styrene feedstocks, so may yet be able to ask a real expert.

BTW Cooky Cookie (may I call you that?), I too saw Bob in the Shrike with its green cheatline livery, doing barrel rolls in this tubby little twin prop! There is an absolutely stunning tribute film that is well worth watching to get an idea of the "the greatest stick-and-rudder man who ever lived"

Anil the Non Chemist

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That's some great info about the characteristics of Alclad cellulose primers Anil, thanks for relating it to the rest of us.

It's amazing what Hoover could do with a twin prop business plane, and then he'd do it with the engines off! Thanks for the movie recommendation, I finally know what to get my dad for Christmas.

'Cooky' is fine, but many have advocated for 'Cookie'.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 year later...
On 5/11/2017 at 8:44 AM, Bedders said:

Anil, 

 

Did you ever make your Thunderbird P-51C? If so I'd be interested to see how it turned out as I'm minded to invest in those decals and do one myself.

 

Justin

 

Hi Justin

 

No I didn't  build it as I had to give up my modelling for a little while due to health issues. The trick if you're going to do it, is get some Tamiya TS 50 as shown and decant it. The decals are unusual but if you follow the instructions re the extremely hot water they work surprisingly well as I found.  They are a bit thicker than silkscreen but seemed to settle down into panel lines nicely and the carrier film disappeared  after final coating with Alclad Aqua gloss.

 

Have fun!

 

Anil

Edited by azureglo
fat finger
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  • 4 weeks later...

Great work indeed!  Love your method for dealing with the home for the GIB (or as our Navy calls them, self-loading baggage).  For mine, I hacked out the radio and the whole chunk of floor the thing sat on.  Replaced it all with a piece of plastic card flush with the pilots floor.  Oddly enough, the whole contraption managed to hold together long enough for me to get it glued into the airframe.  I like your solution better!

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