Johnson

Rebel looks great in the Gallery CT. I like the interior green on the inside of the canopy. I also noticed that I'd forgotten to add the rear view mirror on mine! Too late now for this GB but I will add it and update my thread. I see the mirror on your Rebel Queen is white, may I ask where that info came from? Thanks,

They look great CT! I love the underwing lights.

1/72 Airfix North American P-51D Mustang P-51D-10 NA 44-14450 'Old Crow' flown by Major Clarence 'Bud' Anderson 363rd FS, 357th FG, Leiston UK, December 1944. Bud Anderson claimed 16.25 kills, becoming a triple Ace and flew 116 Combat missions between November 1943 and January 1945. Awards: Air Medal with 1 oak leaf cluster, Air Medal with 13 oak leaf clusters (2 silver, 3 bronze), American Campaign Medal, American Defense Medal, Bronze Star, Distinguished Flying Cross with 4 oak leaf clusters (and many more). Col Anderson is the last remaining triple ace from WW2, he turned 98 on 13th January. Build thread, if you want more, is here: Cheers,

Brilliant Rod. The weathering (well, and the rest of the work) is what takes it up to the modelling stratosphere.

A great display Patrice!

I think Old Crow is done. The Xtracrylic Clear Satin worked fine, very pleased with the results, decal carrier film has completely disappeared, I don't think I've ever had a model with so little silvering. Winsor & Newton Matt Acrylic Varnish on the nose. Almost all the final bits and bobs have been added with PVA, a few with cryo. I'll try to add a little weathering and post pics in the gallery later. Here are the results of a very enjoyable Mustang STGB; Acknowledgments: Thanks to Patrice @TEMPESTMK5 and Bob @gingerbob for hosting an excellent GB! All those who commented and encouraged! And to Hasegawa, Academy & Airfix for such great kits! Cheers,

I have to agree with MiGFan79. Alclad does give a great NMF finish. The best I've found so far. But it can be tricky. Alclad recommend primers before using their NMF finishes, but I don't agree. Many of the problems I've seen here on BM seem to relate to primers. I've tried Alclad's grey microfiller primer which (in my opinion) ruins the final finish. It does its job, but dulls down the lovely smooth Alclad sheen and adds granularity. I've also tried their Gloss Black Base, which is fine until you try to mask the final NMF paint (e.g. Aluminium) applied on top of it. The Aluminium rips right off even with low tack masking tape because the black base is so smooth that it has no key to hold it. The best results I've had is applying the Alclad NMF to the clean and smooth plastic of the kit, but even doing it that way can give you problems with seam lines and areas where you've rubbed plastic or filler down. Alclad is so thin it is completely unforgiving and shows every flaw. A rub down with 1200 (or finer) wet and dry is usually successful. I want to try the Mr Surfacer 1200 primer and Ak Xtreme Metallic Aluminium that @Rod The Fixer used on his excellent 1/48 Airfix F-51D. Cheers,

Good to see your Seafox coming along John. Beautiful work with the rigging, she's going to look lovely. Best regards,

Well, good try Stuart and you've done really well with your other builds. Do keep posting, I'll enjoy seeing the racers being finished. Best wishes,

Don't see why not Cookie... Which makes me think, if the STGB ends at midnight tomorrow @Enzo Matrix, is that my midnight (UK)? Which time zone is that based on? Is it midnight at 'Somewhere in the dark and nasty regions, where nobody goes', and does this give some an advantage? (looking very good Cookie!)

Saturday afternoon update... about 34 hours to go... Almost all the decals on. I'll add some stencils around the fuel fillers. The 'new' (second-hand 2006 SuperScale) decals are very good, mostly. The kill marking are too big, the length is just about OK but they're far too deep compared to the photo. But they're beautifully done. The pilot and crew names decal, just the white part, went AWOL late last night, must have stuck to my fingers. Couldn't see it anywhere and was about to give up but had one more look on the carpet - and there it was! It's tiny! The modelling Gods must have been looking after me! Not sure whether to seal the decals with Xtracrylic satin or just leave it. I don't want to spoil the nice sheen you get with the Alclad aluminium . The front will need a coat of matt for sure. Then a bit of weathering, not too much. All the bits and bobs to add. There's K-14 gunsight around somewhere and the oil surge hole on the starboard engine panel needs drilling, a slight oversight for Airfix. And the control column needs mending! Cheers,

Thanks TAG. I've gone with RAF dark green. That's a great picture you posted! A really useful guide to the various shades of NMF on a Mustang! I did notice that the bottom of the u/c doors appeared to be grey - but I missed the tail wheel doors! We know that the camouflage paint was stripped off in a hurry overnight so its possible that the crew weren't able to do a thorough job on the wings (grey on the u/c door and the remnants of the white stripe just visible on the top of the wing near the fuselage). But how much got left is a matter of conjecture. Its possible that the photo was taken soon after the paint was first stripped and hence some was left. For my model I'm assuming that the crew, who would have kept Old Crow looking pretty smart, would have cleaned up the rest of the wings and u/c doors. Or possibly not? The tire nearest the camera has a distinct grey circle where the white might have been, which would be expected with older tires in winter. How long did tires last on an operational Mustang? Cheers,

That's an excellent finish you've achieved Rod. May I ask what primer and metallic paints you used? Thanks,

Very nice.

Too right Stuart! And as Terry said ⬆️. A great job, looks excellent.

Thanks for your input on this Justin and Michael. These are my thoughts too, and I've used Xtracolor RAF Dark Green. Looks suitably dark! Cheers,

Your hot water idea worked AW. It took several lots of boiling water, bending them gently with tweezers whilst immersed, and even then they were reluctant to bend. But I think they will do now. Final stages of painting. She's had several coats of Alclad II Aluminium, and is just getting some Dark Aluminium on the exhaust surrounds. Eduard canopy masks on the front screen (Airfix) and the rear canopy (Squadron). The Airfix rear canopy is pretty good too, and closes perfectly. With the Squadron canopy open ⬆️ and Airfix closed ⬇️. Decals next. Thanks for looking,

Great work Alan and what rapid progress!

I was just looking at Fool's Paradise IV in the gallery and I thought much the same. It's the overlarge and too deep front windscreen of the earlier kit that's wrong. The rear canopy isn't bad and the rest of the kit is a reasonable representation of a P-51D.

Nicely done!

That's great work Shin. I'm guessing here Ian and Shin, but maybe the original owner never intended to use drop tanks? Were they much used in Korea? I see that there appears to be a additional sprue with bombs, so maybe that's what he intended to use. Prop aircraft were often used in close support and interdiction roles in Korea. Cheers,

Great result Michael!

Great stuff CT. Bands on spinners are a pain I've decided. I used the 'apply the masking tape then cut round' technique, worked mostly.. Dooleybird looks very good, nice roundels. Cheers,

Thanks AW. I've always used black, but I read somewhere on here that they were OD. I just wish I could remember where I read it. Just too much going on sometimes! Cheers,

The 'invasion' stripes weren't as simple as they seemed. Looking at the photo, they appeared small, not the regular 18 inch stripes. How wide? A bit of maths, measuring the length of the plane - 9.93m full size - and its length on the photo, then the length of the stripes gave me 13.48" each. When drawn on a copy of my old MAP plans they seemed right and I added a copy of the Stars and Bars which confirmed their size and position; Oh yes, Airfix got the position of the panel line wrong where the forward black stripe ends. This threw me for a while as the photo shows it in front of the black stripe, but checking on the MAP Plans (and another off the web) shows the kit to be wrong. Most of the non-NMF painting is done. I used Xtracolor RAF Dark Green for the cowl, this being on the assumption that they didn't bother repainting the cowl/name when they stripped the camouflage and what was left was the original RAF Green. Next up, Alclad for the NMF. Adding all the enamel paint first might seem the wrong way round, but I'm confident that I can mask the enamel, but judging by others experience (and a bit of my own) with Alclad, it can peel off with even low tack masking tape. Lastly, can anyone tell me, should the instrument shroud be olive drab or black? Cheers,