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1/72 P-51B Hasegawa/KP kitbash: finished


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On 3/23/2017 at 9:54 PM, limeypilot said:

I'm always interested to see how inaccurate kits can be corrected 

 

Ian 

 

 ..don't want to start an argument ..but it's not. It really is not. As the man said he's correcting 'niggles' ...yes,the lower cowl and the rear canopy are a little irritating but I thought the wing was quite good. Obviously all the mods will improve the 'look' but no reason to put this kit to the  back of the stash/build queue..

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Nice.

 

And I blame you entirely for me currently fighting two Frog/Novo P51As, the Monogram P51B and the Hobbyboss P51C!  I hate the Frog kit so much now that the third one has been despatched to ebay.  The Hobbyboss one is basic but it looks okay.

 

TBH, they were all part started anyway and I wanted them out of the way and done.  Currently clearing out the shelving cabinets of doom.

Edited by The Wooksta!
Joyless fascism
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All of your improvements are adding up to a noticeably better P-51B Justin. I'm especially impressed with the rear canopy fairing. What are you planning on using for the rear windows?

This is the area that just defeated my latest Spitfire 21 attempt (and the Spitfire is much simpler), but I haven't worked up the composure to chronicle the whole sorted failure yet.

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On 03/04/2017 at 11:49 PM, Cookenbacher said:

All of your improvements are adding up to a noticeably better P-51B Justin. I'm especially impressed with the rear canopy fairing. What are you planning on using for the rear windows?

This is the area that just defeated my latest Spitfire 21 attempt (and the Spitfire is much simpler), but I haven't worked up the composure to chronicle the whole sorted failure yet.

Hi Cookie,

 

Don't give up on the 21. Its a rae beast and will look good when it's done. On mine I was going to use either a piece of acetate sheet which I had rolled and cut into more or less the right shape. If that didn't work the faalback was a Falcon canopy section. I still hope to finish it but I was defeated by my cack-handedness with the airbrush.

 

I say all the above but tonight for the first time I asked myself if this B model was worth all the effort! I noticed I had put the ailerons on the wrong wings and had to take them off. And then I noticed that the horizontal stabilizers weren't symmetrical so had to pull one off and reattach it. After that I couldn't face rescribing the remaining panel lines on the cowlings so I'll leave it for tonight.

 

Incidentally does anyone know if the radiator rear door on the B and the D are the same size? The KP one is miles smaller than the Airfix D.

 

Justin 

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  • 1 month later...

Well its been a while since my last update on this, mostly because I had a bit of a disaster, dropped the model and cracked the nose. This led to reappraisal of the situation, and I decided that if this was going to get finished I would need to replace a couple of parts with new ones, namely:

 

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a new fuselage from Hasegawa! I reckoned I could get the KP wing (which I think is very good) to fit so decided to give it a try. So step 1 was to use plastic card to replicate the nice detail of the KP cockpit walls in the rather sparse Hasegawa fuselage, fit the KP floor and seat, add a fuel tank/radio from a broken Airfix D model, add the KP tailwheel well and radiator, and stitch the whole thing up. 

 

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Step 2 was to fettle the KP wings so they fitted the Hasegawa fuselage, trim back the incorrect Hasegawa leading edge wingroot extensions, and put it all together. 

 

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The Hasegawa fuselage it a bit short in the tail department, but everything else looks OK. So step 3 was to remove the Hasegawa rudder, then remove the fin and move it back about 1-1.5 mm, fill the gap with plastic card, and refit the rudder.

 

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So here's where I am today. I put some card behind the exhaust openings to avoid having to glue the exhausts in before closing up the fuselage, as Hasegawa would have one do. The prop is from that broken Airfix D model I mentioned above, but it dry-fits beautifully.

 

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My mojo is more or less restored on this: just a bit of rescribing to do around the lower cowling, do some rails for the Malcolm hood (though I'm still undecided on whether to use the original framed canopy or the Malcolm hood) and it should be ready for priming soon.

 

Justin

 

Edited by Bedders
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Hee hee! Got the primer on just now and it's looking OK. This is Mr Surfacer 1200 out of the rattle can. The spinner is the Airfix one which I'm using for good luck. The 75 gal teardrop tanks are from the kit, and the 108 gal paper ones are Freightdog. The pylons are modified from the kit items with added sway bars as correct for the B model. Still a bit of tidying up to do but the shape looks right and overall I'm pleased.

 

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I'm still mulling over what finish to give this, either Olive Drab/Neutral Grey (for Howard Hively's aircraft) or natural metal (for Jim Goodson's last B model before he got a new D). Either way I want it to be 4th FG with Malcolm Hood and I'm avoiding Hofer's machine as it's been done too often (and too well) by others.  

 

More good news is we have the Monaco Grand Prix and Indianapolis this afternoon. And nice weather to boot!

 

Justin

Edited by Bedders
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  • 2 months later...

Well after a period of not doing much on this (or any other models), I've got the main colours on: Tamiya Olive Drab and Neutral Grey, with the white stripes from Lifecolour acrylic and the red from Humbrol enamel. Need to gloss it up to protect it for decalling and other bits of detail work, but the shape looks pretty good, and the way those Tamiya acrylics went down was woderful. First time I've used them too. It's the Hasegawa fuselage, extended in length at the fin by about 1.5mm, plus the KP wings and horizontal tail. The cockpit also came from the KP kit and fitted well. Photo hosting courtesy of village.photos, who have come to my rescue since Photobucket did that thing...

 

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Two reasons I like the KP wing by the way:

1) the leading edge kink is the right shape

2) the panel lines for the ammo bays are correct for B model. I don't think many B kits have nailed the shorter span ammo bays, not even Tamiya on their 48th scale kit.

 

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Where it falls down just a touch is that it doesn't have the slightly increased dihedral on the leading edge of the kink. I've tried to replicate that by sanding/shaping but probably not too visible. And the wheel wells have the usual problem at the rear/spar, which I haven't corrected. But overall I'm quite enjoying this!

 

Justin

Edited by Bedders
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Progress - got a bit of gloss on to protect the main colours and allow me to handle the model for detail painting. Started on the natural metal bits of the flaps, the wheel wells and the sides of the radiator door. Hand painted Xtracolour enamel, which seems to look ok at this stage.

 

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Here's the underneath. I think current theology is that B-model wheel wells were either lacquered aluminium or natrual metal, with some bits Zinc Cromate yellow primer. So I'll follow that as much as I can, e.g the rear wall (which should be the wing spar but I'll try to do some paintwork to disguise the incorrect moulding). I'm hoping to display the model with the clamshell doors just starting to bleed down, so not much of the wheel wells will be visible. 

 

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Edited by Bedders
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Got the main decals on last night and this morning. All Microscale/Superscale apart from the code letters which are from LPS. The stencils will have to wait until I retrieve the Hasegawa sheet from its box which is stashed elsewhere. So that's it on this one for a few days.

 

I'm quite pleased with how the wheels wells turned out. And that I can't see the join between wing and fuselage. Not long to go on this one now.

 

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Or maybe I can....

 

Justin

Edited by Bedders
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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for your kind words folks.

Now - remember this? Close the finish line on the Mustang Group build in January, I had a minor incident:

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So this lunchtime I'm now looking at this. What is it with me and Mustangs?

 

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Repairable, but a pain in the you-know-what...

 

Justin

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Getting there. Paintwork basically finished, sealed off with some Alclad Clear Matt (first time I've used it). Left the red areas glossy as per photos. Just need to unmask the cockpit, tidy up the canopy frames and do the Malcolm hood, undercarriage, pitot tube, antenna, lights and any other fiddly bits. Forgot to mask off the landing light so will need to sort that one....

 

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2 hours ago, Cookenbacher said:

That's looking fantastic Justin!

 

If it's possible, could you recover and re-post your pics of the mods you made to the Hasegawa fuselage? I know they'd make a great reference for myself and many others.

Hi Cookie,

 

I've refreshed the thread with photos from when I started with the Hasegawa fuselage. Hope it's of use.

 

Justin

Edited by Bedders
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So this is where we are today. I'm a bit wary of weathering cos I don't think I'm much good at it. But I've had a go: 

 

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The idea was to replicate this sort of thing on the wing-root:

 

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Like many of us I've been puzzled by the colour of Olive Drab. I've seen lots of faded interpretations but I've been tempted towards replicating the unfaded colour, as exemplified by this print of Gentile's P-51B. This photo below also pushed me towards a darker hue:

 

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Here is the aircraft I'm modelling: Howard Hively's 'The Deacon' which in the image below has the invasion stripes that it wore for about 24 hours before failing to return on the evening of D Day:

 

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So after comparing Humbrol's two enamel Olive Drabs (66 - too dark and too grey, and 155 - much lighter), and Lifecolour acrylic (somewhere in between the two Humbrols but leaning towards the 155), I went for Tamiya's version which seemed to be a good balance. Let's see how it looks when it's finally finished....

 

Justin

Edited by Bedders
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