Giorgio N Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 This is my entry for the Mustang STGB: I'll be building P-51D 44-63803 as it was in 1954 while serving as a targe tug with the Kentucky ANG. The starting point will be the 1/72 italeri kit. This already contains the postwar insignia and has most of the features seen on this mustang. I'm not really going to add many details, but at least something in the cocpit will be needed. Box art: And sprues: A first dry-fit of the fuselage halves show that these are quite flimsy and I'm afraid the fit will not be brilliant, something quite worrying on a natural metal finished aircraft. Anyway at least the kit is cheap.... with airfix having announced a new P-51D for 2012 there's hope we'll have a cheap good mustang to try some other interesting marking on.. One thing I like to do in all my GB builds is to show a picture of the subject and this time "my" aircraft is pictured in a web page: http://www.swissmustangs.ch/20214/20268.html There are a few pictures of the same plane in the book "USAF Plus Fifteen" and I've wanted to build this aircraft since I first bought the book. I hope I can make decent model of it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 (edited) Hi Giorgio Like your choice, The Kentucky ANG oridinated from the 368th F/S 359 F/G after WWII . The Kentucky ANG plad a significant role in the Korean War ,flying F51`s. Good luck with your build wellzy Edited January 6, 2012 by wellzy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bertie McBoatface Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 I think you have made an interesting choice, Giorgio. Good luck with those flimsy fuselage pieces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldhouse Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 Nice choice !! enjoy the build !! Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 Thanks guys, hope I can make something decent out of this kit... First build pictures today. I've started to do something on the cockpit. This is really bare in the Italeri kit and I felt that something had to be done, even if my Mustang will most likely have its cockpit painted black. Here's a picture showing some idea of structure in the fuselage halves and some support behind the seat armour And a better view of the right fuselage half What's in there was based on several pictures but is meant to be more of an indication of the various boxes than a 100% faithful reproduction. This would be too hard for my skills... and what's the point if the interior is black anyway ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted January 9, 2012 Author Share Posted January 9, 2012 (edited) Some more work done in the cockpit: some detail has been added to the port fuselage half I also added that sort of tank or whatever (sorry, not a Mustang expert... ) that features prominently in the cockpit. Of course it had to be scratchbuilt from bits and pieces of plastic... and I think it came out too tall. The structure behind the armour was completed too At this point I could have just painted the cockpit but for some unknown reason I decided to try and represent the rivets on the cockpit sills... to do that I used a riveter tool on the back of some lead foil I have. Here's one attached It looks better in reality than it is in the picture, as the metal reflected the light making it look like "bumpy". In reality is pretty flat. The rivet pattern can be seen quite well. It was then time to put some tamiya NATO black in the airbrush cup, add some light grey to lighten it a bit and paint the interior ! Here are the two fuselage halves after the coat of paint, some drybrushing, a black wash and a few bits of colour And a view of the cockpit floor with radios, the armour and other parts. The belts on the seat are moulded on, but painting them show how one is wider than the other... pretty bad in my opinion ! I'll have to do something. Lap belts have been added from lead foil. In the meantime I also checked the rest of the kit and noticed a flaw in the moulds. Look at this view of the bottom of the fuselage: The fairings of the oil and water radiators are not simmetrical ! Very annoying !!! The bigger one has been cut away and will be built out of brass sheet, the smaller might be more complicated though. Edited January 9, 2012 by Giorgio N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Lime Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Giorgio, Nice work on the cocckpit so far, has come up nicely under some paint. Mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Nice one Giorgio, sure looks like a fiddly build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 I've got the decals for this machine for my Tamiya 1:32 kit... one day, one day ! Ian - Co-host Britmodeller 2011 P-51 Mustang STGB - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted January 23, 2012 Author Share Posted January 23, 2012 Thanks folks for your nice comments ! I have to say I am indeed a slow builder, more so in this moment where my job requires me to spend several evenings on the phone with customers in other timezones.... but there's been some progress ! First I added some touche in the cockpit to finish it off. As adding switches and fuses in 1/72 is beyond my skills, I cheated using decals. For these I printed some small bits and instruments on a very old Jetcal decal sheet. This stuff is too thick for my taste for decals to go on a model surface, but works great for the interior parts. Judge for yourself on the sidewall of the P-51: The instrument panel was just painted black and the raised detail made to appear scraping the paint with a knife. Tedious work ! I also added a tube that is very visible on the same side... here it is seen after I closed the fuselage halves The picture also shows one bad thing: the paint on some parts of the seat is worn. I'll have to touch-up this and other areas. Another picture showing the seatbelts: Not great, but will do the job. After having closed the fuselage I removed the moulded on outlet, as this was asymmetric. This was later rebuilt and here it is completed (with the wing in place to test fit) Speaking of the wings, I added some cabling to the wheel wells. In reality the wells would have done with rebuilding, as they are not that good IMHO, but I have decided to focus on other aspects of the model, so these 3 cables will add some interest.... And then it was time to glue the wing ! Not a difficult thing to do, but unfortunately something showed up that I had not noticed: The wing chord is wider than the fillet with the fuselage !!! Big error here from Italeri.. no surprise that when people talk about tamigawa quality they don't say tamigawaleri !!!! Had I noticed this before I'd have just dropped the flaps to hide the problem, but now I have to do something. And this something will be scratchbuilding a new fillet. Very, very annoying ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 Nice progress Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 (edited) Good luck with the wing chord ,apart from that looking good. wellzy Edited January 23, 2012 by wellzy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted January 30, 2012 Author Share Posted January 30, 2012 Thanks to all ! Unfortunately I'm not having enough time to answer the comments and also comment on all the other great builds going on in this GB... I attacked the wing-fuselage fillet, a couple of bits of plasticard added the missing length and these were then faired in with plenty of filler. Here they are seen from the top: And the bottom: Unfortunately the whole wing-fuselage junction required a lot of filler ! It now looks almost fine... almost, I know there's a lot of filling and sanding waiting for me in the next few days... WIth the fillets sorted, I glued the windscreen in preparation for a first coat of primer. Italeri here provides the windscreen together with a big chunk of fuselage. It's a very good idea as it allows any filling to be done far from the areas that must remain clear. However while the idea was good the execution was less so: There's a huge step ! After checking several pictures I understood that this step is not there on the real mustangs, so this will need to be sorted. Airfix has announced a P-51D for later this year.... I'm now looking forward to see this, the italeri kit looks accurate but is really showing to many problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Hi Giorqio Looking good now , hope you dont get any more problems with this build wellzy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Nice work Giorgio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted February 6, 2012 Author Share Posted February 6, 2012 (edited) As usual, progress only comes over the weekend.... after having sorted the areas requiring filling, it was finally time to start painting ! I deced to spray over the yellow areas first. This because I don't want to mask over the metal painted surfaces. Then I masked the areas supposed to stay yellow (front and rear fuselage and wingtips) and decided to lay some black paint as a base for the following humbrol metal-cote paints. The red streak is just an effect of using a flash to take the picture. Unfortunately I noticed that the lower surfaces were not smooth yet, with a couple of quite deep scars caused by the sanding... so I had to sand again, and now the model is waiting to have the lower surfaces repainted in black... I hate these things !!! One thing that can be noticed is that I glued the spinner without the propeller. I decided to cut the prop blades individually because I was sure that the spinner would have required sanding, something impossible to do with the blades in place. It is something I do on all my models of prop-driven aircrafts, and I was right in doing it here: the spinner needed a lot of sanding to look good ! Edited February 6, 2012 by Giorgio N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Looking good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Hi Giorgio Like it looking good. wellzy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted February 13, 2012 Author Share Posted February 13, 2012 Ok, it's now official: I hate natural metal finishes !!!! On my Mustang I used humbrol metalcotes. Initially I tried a mix of matt and polished aluminium, as the pictures did not show a very polished finish. The rsult was too dull however, so I masked the ailerons and spraid a coat of polished aluminium. All looked fine but when I started polishing some panels with a cloth I damaged some parts with my fingernails.... so it was back to the airbrush,add more paint... and then some paint reacted badly with the previous coat.... anyway, Im not listing all the Deities that have been mentioned in the last few days as there might be children watching this.... Here's the final coat on the model: Once the masking was removed, a very colourful Mustang appeared. Fortunately there was very little paint bleed through, although some paint ended on the windscreen. Some panels have been polished more than others and I quite like the finish. However the overall finish is not very smooth, I must have made some mistake, maybe the paint was not thinned well enough. I'll practice more before I start the next NM subject.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 Painting of the main airframe has now been completed with the addition of the black anti-glare panel. I used black as the pictures show a black panel to me. At this point decaling could start ! Not that much will be used of the box decals, just the national insignia and the few stencils... very few, as the box only really provides the red markings on the flaps. Some black decal strips were also used: The rest of the markings will be scratchbuilt with some parts being painted on clear decals and others printed on an inkjet. Now with the end of the STGB approaching, I have to start working on the artwork for the decals ! These will not be easy as this aircraft seem to have the serials in a coupe of different fonts. The KY ANG titles fortunately seem to be in the standard post-war USAF font. And look like they are insignia blue and not black. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Looking good Giorgio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Coming together nicely. Ian - Co-host Britmodeller 2011 P-51 Mustang STGB - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Looking good Mate wellzy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted February 21, 2012 Author Share Posted February 21, 2012 Thanks guys ! I'm now working on the decals artwork... the big "03" on the nose is done and so are the ANG titles. The serial number on the tail though is making me go mad ! I'm struggling to understand well the shape of some numbers from the pictures I have... I guess I'm being too pedantic here, as in the end a 1/72 Mustang serial number is small enough to hide many of the smaller differences.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted February 27, 2012 Author Share Posted February 27, 2012 (edited) Artwork for the decals is now completed ! It took me a long time to do it and I'm still not sure I've done this right... anyway, with the GB closing soon, I have to stop worrying and keep printing and building ! The decals were drawn on Corel Draw, still my favourite drawing software. To size them correctly, I imported a scale drawing of the P-51D side, scaled this to 1/72 and "applied" the bits of artwork over the profile on the software. The result is this: Now this evening I'll print some test-shots in plain paper, and check if these fit fine on the model. The yellow bolt will likely need some tweaks to wrap correctly around the nose... One thing you might notice: I decided to draw the KY ANG titles in insignia blue. I am not 100% sure, but the pictures I have seem to indicate these in dark blue rather than black. Not so strange in a sense, as USAF aircrafts of the day were supposed to have the USAF titles in insignia blue, while the serials were in black. Edited February 27, 2012 by Giorgio N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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