Squibby

Spent today finishing off the canopy. First up was to plate the outside with aluminium tape. This took a few attempts, I used a template made out of masking tape to get the shape of half the side (join at the pointy end) and transferred it to the self adhesive aluminium tape. I then stuck in on and very carefully burnished it down with my metal scalpel handle. I added the plate around the pointy end in a similar fashion. It was quite difficult to burnish it nice and smooth due to how flexible vac canopies are. There were some bumps that came through despite my best efforts. Then on with the paint following the same shading NMF layering process. In the end it turned out pretty nice. The clarity difference between it and the kit part is night and day, and most importantly there are no ugly seams and locating pins in sight 😃. It's not quite as smooth as the photos would suggest, under direct light there are a few rough patches where the tape isn't quite burnished down well enough....luckily it doesn't bother me enough to go through that whole rigmarole again 🙄. Next up will be the flaps and radiator door I think. Then it's just the prop and landing gear left to sort out.

The brown pigment worked well to dirty up the edge of the stars 'n' bars under the fuel cap, cheers for the suggestion. Though I'd caution anyone doing this that be careful and deliberate with your application because you can't really get it off if you go overboard. I then turned my attention to the internal structure of the canopy. I glued in a thin strip of plastic card around the rim of the canopy to stiffen it up and thicken it a bit. I added 2 little gussets to each side so the canopy would sit nicely on the rails. All this was glued in with some PVA wood glue. The curved brace took a bit more effort to put together, after a couple of failed attempts to wing it 🙄 I used a paper template to get the fit right on the sloped canopy sides. The template was then transferred to plastic card and after a lot of filing, test fitting and drilling I ended up with a fair approximation of the brace. I used a similar process to create the rear 'shelf' as well. I decided to spray the inside frame to remove the glossy effect of the bare plastic. I also had to paint up the new rim I added so would be masking up anyway... I masked it up, sprayed it tire black, unmasked it and fitted the bits in with PVA glue to end up with this. Now I can (carefully) proceed onto 'paneling' the outside with aluminium tape.

@woody37I might try that, I've got some brown pigment lying around somewhere... or else failing that some thinned brown paint through the airbrush might do the trick. @Goatdriver surprisingly that stuff is available in NZ. I might try it out. I use this crystal clear 2 part epoxy I picked up from a hardware store primarily because it doesn't shrink, therefore it's useful for building up the bulge of the lights.

Progress has been slow over the last couple of days. I touched up the exhaust stains again dragging the further out towards the rear of the plane and blending them better (I dropped the metal colour from the mix, it didn't really add much to the effect). I also evened them up, or attempted to, hopefully better now. 🤔 After procrastinating for a bit I painted in the gun barrels and am considering how I can add a bit of soot around them without overdoing it, maybe he had an uneventful mission 😄 I also tackled the formation lights under the wing. I drilled out a small hole in each light then countersunk it with large bit to form a small concave bowl. I stuck in a punched disk of aluminium foil into each bowl and burnished it down to form a reflector (or some approximation of it). Then it was in with slightly thinned Tamiya clear red, green and yellow to form the lenses. I'm thinking I could have used a drop of clear epoxy to form the lenses first but they may have stood a bit proud of the surface. I'm going to reform the wing lights and tail light with epoxy drops but I'll wait until everything else is finished first to prevent damaging them. Now that the bulk of the paintwork is done I unmasked the canopy, unfortunately the front windshield had some paint lift. Easy enough to fix though. Lastly I got my Vac canopy and I dived right in and cut it out. I went nice and slow with a sharp blade, scoring the plastic till it came loose as per the instructions. Everything went well enough until the blade finally cut through and started to get jammed 😓. I managed to get it out fairly intact however except for the corners which got rounded out a bit. I restored the corners using some CA and baking soda filler and cleaned it up with some sandpaper. It's odd working with the material though since it's so thin and flexible. I half expected it to be a bit more rigid for some reason. In any case I can see I need to do a lot of work to build all the missing internal structure with plastic card. I'm intending to cover the outside of the canopy frame with aluminum tape so I can run the rivet wheel over it and scribe in some detail. First though I had to mask it and spray the internal colour (XF-58 tire black in this case)

Oh right lol, that was the before picture!

Progressing nicely, shame about the tail damage. I can't really see the full extent of the damage but I'm thinking it may be salvageable through some bending and liberal filler application? Also really can't see what was wrong with the drilled out barrels. They looked fine in the photos.

Yeah I noticed that...In my defense I was following the decal sheet instructions. In any case it's far too late to do anything about it now. 😕 I went through and painted on scratches and texture onto the wings using a fine brush and some Aquagloss thinned with water. I'm pleased that it worked out nicely. It's hard to see in photos though as it's only visible when the light plays across the surface. I also sprayed on the exhaust stains using an eclectic mix of Tire black (XF-58), flat earth (XF-52) and metal colour 'Exhaust Manifold'. The thinking being that the metallic would prevent the trails from going overly matte. Not sure it worked but it imparted a nice colour to the mix I guess. From what I've seen the trails are quite brownish. I also noticed the panels around the exhaust went a bit iridescent when heated up in more modern photos. Not sure if this happened with wartime planes, but I added a very faint mottling of heavily thinned clear blue to somewhat replicate this. It's a very subtle effect and again may not come out in the photos. I found airbrushing these trails onto metal colours quite tricky because they were very faint and hard to see, I think I may have gone a bit heavy in some areas due to this. Also the area is quite awkward to spray into, I held the plane upside down to so I could sweep my airbrush over the path without hitting the wing. After these photos were taken I touched up the trails again, they're still not perfect but at least a bit more even now though the left side went down a little heavier than desired. Can't take them off and start again so I think I'll just stop now before I go overboard. I think I'll tackle some of the little bits like the various lights and gun barrels next and then I'll move onto the remaining parts. Also I got my Falcon vac replacement canopies since I'm not too happy with the kit one. I'll have to attempt to cut these out at some point, it's my first time with Vacform parts so it'll be interesting.

@Kitchen Modeller I was going to chip up those strips a bit more but I decided I'd leave them somewhat intact as my attempts at painting chipping larger areas always end up looking a bit rough. I went back and added that little hole where oil streams forth (damned if I know what it's really for...) near the manual crank hole. I started to paint in the streak using AK engine oil (glossy brown translucent enamel paint) and some black oil paint to darken it up, before disaster struck. The engine oil is apparently quite sticky and when cleaning up an area with white spirit I inadvertently pulled off the metal coats back to primer 😥. After some mild expletives. I started the process of sorting it out. I first cleaned up the messed up paint by sanding it down and polishing it up. I then went through the whole painting process again laying down aluminium, black shading and chrome over the top. Thankfully the end result looked good. Though the eagle eye'd amongst you may notice a small omission in the second picture... Yes my horrible luck with masking over decals continues. The little red bar thing (presumably some sort of emergency latch?) got pulled off. I managed to fashion a replacement by carefully cutting up one of the unused Tamiya decals (one of the red L's on the flaps). After a bit more work (super carefully 😬) with the AK engine oil and my various enamel / oil washes and paints I ended up with a level of weathering I liked. It's a little more pronounced in certain areas compared to previous photos. But the plane is still generally quite clean. I even managed to paint in that streak from the oil streak hole without wrecking the paintwork again.. To prevent the oils rubbing off I laid down a light flat coating over the whole model. Weathering around the fuel fill cap and spilled fuel / exhaust stain / grime around the radiator duct area. The infamous oil hole with it's cursed streak... More oil streaking from the leaky merlin engine. I've seen a photo with quite pronounced streaks, but since I only found one example I kept it a bit lighter. Apologies for the inconsistency of the photos, my phone seems to be exploring it's range...

Time to crack out the oils to dirty things up a bit more. I managed to spill half a pot of panel liner and some white spirit during this process, not my best work... 😄. Luckily it all fell on a paper towel and came nowhere near the plane. Disasters aside I tried to add some restrained oil weathering / panel lining to the model. I concentrated on a few areas which generally show wear and dirt buildup + staining from oil / fuel etc. I used a mixture of Mig oil brushers (starship filth), Some manner of AK dark brown panel liner and some black oil paint. I applied filters of heavily thinned solutions, pin washed the odd panel line junction and painted in streaks here and there. I kept things toned down as best I could this was an ace's aircraft after all and it wouldn't have been filthy. To dirty up the wing roots and areas where grubby feet would have trampled all over the wing, I dappled on some starship filth and dabbed it off after a few minutes with a dampened paper towel, this created a nice stippled effect simulating boot prints. A little bit of cleanup and touchup here and there to do, I think I need to sort out the wash around the ammo access panels as the panel lined extents are a bit too discrete as seen in these photos. Since I 'weathered' the surface during the painting stage a little bit of oil work goes a long way here. Before I started oil weathering I went through with some aluminium paint (an old bottle of Vallejo model air aluminium, brush paints easier) and carefully brushed in some paint chipping, I concentrated on the painted sections only (obviously 🙄) pin washing the rivet / fasteners and carefully lining the edges of the odd access panel. I then used a water dampened cotton bud to take most of it off to create a very fine chipping effect. I intend to airbrush on the exhaust staining + highlight it with some pigment. I'll add some slight staining around the gun barrels and ejector ports this way as well.

Incredible finish! really looking forward to seeing the RFI pics. The exhaust looks much better now, although if I may suggest you add some light chalky white / grey in there near the exhaust stacks to represent the lean exhaust staining. A few seconds work with a pin-vice should sort out that hole. In fact I need to open it up in my build too.

Cockpit looks great, I'm a great fan of highly detailed kits that just fall together. This one looks a treat, great detail out of the box and your clean paintwork and finishing has really done it justice. Looking forward to see how this develops. Just out of interest, where are you lot keeping these larger models? I'd love to tackle some larger planes like the P38 and mossie but don't really have anywhere to put them afterwards 😄

@giemme I think that's just the diffuse lighting in the photos coupled with the general dimness. I need to sort my photo rig out to make things a bit brighter. The decals are quite shiny still, but so is the plane is so it's harder to differentiate. I've yet to give everything an overall gloss, weather with oils and flatten everything down. Once all that's done everything should be nicely toned down.

Well progressed with the decals now, I love getting to this stage, it's finally starting to look like the real thing. The lifelike decals sheet I'm using is filled with tiny stencils which are a pain to put on, but I'm almost there, only a few on the underside to go. The main decals went down well, but a word of warning to those using Gunze mark softer, apply it sparingly since the decals are quite thin. I didn't mess any up luckily but I was close in some areas Along the way I realized I painted the anti glare strip in the black when it should be dark olive drab. Luckily I wasn't too far along with the decals and was able to mask it up and respray it in XF-62 with all the requisite shading and blending. I also thought the panels around the exhausts were a bit too light. In photos they are usually much darker and more varied in tone. I masked these areas up and mixed up a heavily thinned mix of magnesium metal colour and a dark grey (Gunze H68, RLM 74 in this case) and carefully shaded it leaving the areas around the rivets in the original dark aluminium tone. The end effect is much representative of the real thing IMHO.

And the stripes are now on... after much careful masking. I used XF-1 for the basecoat and XF-58 to post shade. I'm sure they are slightly too narrow / wide or not placed perfectly (I measured the decals), but they get the point across. One thing's for sure, while it may not be too visible in the photos, a fair few of my rivet lines are embarrassingly skewed 😥, The tail plane is particularly bad in places and it made aligning the masking lines quite tricky. I've really got to get more precise drawing the lines in the first place, following them with the wheel is easy enough. I also went back and resprayed the tail wheel bay in XF-4 and I think I'm largely done with the main paintwork. Only the various bits and flaps to paint up and add now. On with a gloss coat ready for decals then...

Blue tail painted. Aligning the masked off region for the serials was surprisingly difficult and even still I think they are slightly misaligned. I used Tamiya XF-8 flat blue as a basecoat and the same postshading + blend method. Only the ID stripes to go...

Looking great, love all the fine airbrush work to weather it. Initially the light shading along the panel lines looked a bit harsh to my eyes but the final result really nails it.

Progress... I've painted the green nose and the anti glare strip. The nose was painted with a basecoat of XF5 flat green which more or less matches the multitude of shades you see on the green nose P51s. The anti glare strip was painted in XF-85 rubber black. Both areas were post shaded with the base colour mixed with a drop of white then blended with a heavily thinned filter of the base colour. I've only got the blue tail and the black bands on the wings / tail planes to go.

Looking good, I think a lot of the newer ones had VHF radios, so didn't need the long antenna. It may have been inside the dorsal 'fin'. Given your plane has no invasion stripes of any kind I'd wager it probably flew later in the war. I'm no expert on this though, so maybe someone more knowledgeable can weigh in?

After a couple of days of squiggling black lines over it I ended up with this. I had to tackle it in a few sessions as my compressor started to heat up something fierce and I had to let it cool down a few times. I just drew boxes and lines following the rivets and panel lines and generally mottled and squiggled around. I then gloss coated it and started with the thinned chrome blend coat (1:5 with X20A). The painted areas of the wing have been left bare for now. After letting the chrome dry a bit. I masked up and sprayed a thinned mix of white aluminium over the painted sections. I also masked and sprayed the darker panels around the exhaust outlets with dark aluminium. I'm incredibly pleased with how it turned out, unfortunately the diffuse lit static photos don't quite capture the depth and subtle variation of the finish. Needless to say this will be my go to NMF method going forward. Next up I'll mask up and get the marking colours and stripes down, Then it'll be a final gloss and onto the decals.

Hi Kitchen Modeller, yes I'm using Vallejo Metal Colours, and no they're not that translucent unless thinned down (i use Tamiya X20A). Chrome being the most translucent I've got. I exclusively spray acrylics since I don't have an extractor and value my lungs 😃, Time to jump right in and stop messing around with old wildcat wing sections... On with the gloss coat went and then an all over coat of aluminium. The coat has a few blemishes here and there (as is tradition...) but it's essentially a base coat so I'm not too fussed. Luckily the bad ones are on the nose and will be hidden by the green nose and anti glare strip. Sure looks nice an shiny though 😁... Shame I'm about to mess it up...😋

Lovely paintwork there...has that nice lived in feel 😁 I especially like the worn effect on the markings,

Plane looks great, love the very subtle weathering on the nose around the fastners and access panels. I just really like the look of the blue nose as well 😄 I was watching one of Doogs modelling videos (search youtube) and he used a neat technique where he used enamel metalizer paint (in his case AK xtreme metal) as a wash over rivets. Created a very subtle refined weathering effect over the fasteners and rivet lines that would have had the paint worn off from regular opening / closing. If I can source some of the same metalizer paint here in NZ I might give it a go. Keep up the good work,

Cheers Corsairfoxfouruncle. I decided against cutting up the aileron at this stage, but those logs are great reads. I remember I started my build in parallel with Olivier's one, his thread has a lot of good info, and we bounced a few ideas around (the seat cushion discussion was doozy 😄). I ended up disappearing and wondered where he had gotten to. Cheer for re-linking that thread, I had a look through the RFI pics and it's a hell of a P51. Airscale's work is simply awe inspiring but lets be real here, that man has some superhuman modelling skills and patience 😁. I remember using his spitfire thread as reference for the cockpit in my Mk1 spit. Marklo, thanks for the suggestion but I feel scotchbrite or any kind of buffing would cause the paint to come off. I'm using relatively fragile acrylics here. I've never had luck with sanding or polishing painted surfaces 😣 The most I'd risk is a rub down with a paper towel...

Thanks for that, I think the only way to replicate that would be to carve out the side wall and build the recessed detail out of plasticard. Would have been relatively doable before I joined the wings together. At this stage I think it falls into the too hard basket. Due to the flush fit of the flaps you can't just build out of the edge to create that recessed detail.

Spent the last couple of days conducting more experiments into getting a realistic weathered NMF. My method essentially starts with laying down an aluminium basecoat then squiggling over it with thinned flat black paint. This is what this ends up looking like. I then gloss and overcoat in very thin 'chrome' paint (due to it's translucency). To replicate the silver painted over panels on the wing I experimented with laying down a layer of white aluminum before squiggling over, the tonal variation got lost however once the chrome went down. I ended up solving it by just spraying a layer of thinned 'white aluminium' over the specific panels after applying the chrome to the other areas. This gave me the effect I was looking for. The lighter panels didn't show as much variation through due to the more opaque colour, which is fine as these panels are usually quite smooth looking. At this point I played around with the flat coat to dull the metal a bit and create that patina you see in photos. There were many fails at this point... I tried a few odd things like laying down chipping solution (essentially the same as hairspray) and spraying the matt varnish over. Predictably it didn't lift very well and made a mess. I also tried thinning the matt varnish with chipping fluid which also didn't do anything special. I finally tried using a light grey paint over the chipping solution and that looked absolutely horrible...😆 In the end I just applied the flat coat relatively unevenly freehand across the 'metal' sections and applied a masked off even layer over the silver painted section (though IMHO a overdid it a bit here). This looked good but not quite there. As a finishing touch I trialed using some gloss thinned with water (about 2 drops water to 1 drop gloss) and applied with a thin brush to form little scratches and worn 'grainy' areas. This looked quite good on the 'painted' section. I also used a big stiff bristled brush to paint streaks over the model, which created a nice streaky grain effect to the metal. I'm really struggling to capture the effect in photos since the scratches are really only visible as more shiney areas on the dull surface. I was testing various techniques so it's a bit overdone in areas. If subtly applied I think it captures that worn metal patina nicely. I think I'm ready to start on the paintwork for real. Oh regarding the aileron edge. I found a reasonably good photo and what is represented seems close enough. Representing this area better would require surgery of the wing which I'm not keen on at this stage. I cleaned up the visible seams a bit more and called it done.