Procopius Posted April 22, 2014 Author Posted April 22, 2014 Closed up the fuselages and added the wings tonight. In my zeal, I didn't drill out the spots for the rocket stubs on one, so no rockets or stubs for the SAAF Mustang. Sorry fella. Aside from their flimsy landing gear, so far I actually think I prefer these kits to the Tamiya P-51D, but I'm no Mustang expert. Also began work on the napalm tanks. I guess I should probably stretch sprue to make the little lip that runs around the middle of the tanks, but my wife is adamantly against allowing me to play with fire. With each botched join and blob of melted plastic that creeps up, I hear -Neu-'s reminder that the models need to be the best models I can possibly build, or they'll look terrible with Alclad, ringing in my ears. 2
Procopius Posted April 24, 2014 Author Posted April 24, 2014 Nothing too exciting, just sanding and seam filling tonight. Trying to make it so you can't see all the joins. Interestingly, on one of the kits, I couldn't get the flaps to stay fixed all the way up, for love or money, (I know Mustangs usually sat with their flaps down, but it spoils their lines and makes them look like a man squatting on the privy with his pants down; I'm not saying you're wrong if you prefer it that way, but I am suggesting you reappraise your life thus far), so there's a slight droop on the kit that I've decided will be the SAAF machine. Hydraulic bleed, I guess. 2
Procopius Posted April 25, 2014 Author Posted April 25, 2014 Well, apparently RAAF Mustangs had green cockpits, not black, but it's not changing now. FWIW, I don't see green here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/F-51Ds_77_Sqn_RAAF_at_Iwakuni_c1950.jpg So there's my wiggle room. This kit seems to require little or no filler for anyone else, a sure sign my skills are subpar. I left the flash on for these, by accident. Oh well. 1
Procopius Posted April 26, 2014 Author Posted April 26, 2014 I realized, from re-examining colour photos of the RAAF 'Stangs posted elsewhere in this GB, that their wheel wells were definitely yellow chromate. I masked around the bay and sprayed some Tamiya primer, and I'll shoot some Modelmaster Acrylic yellow zinc chromate there directly.
Rabbit Leader Posted April 26, 2014 Posted April 26, 2014 Procopius, I've been studying Aussie "Stangs" for a long time now and if there's one thing that cannot be 100% confirmed - its Wheel Well colours (unless you have good coloured pics of course) You have YZC, GZC, Aluminium and many variations of each of these stated colours. As your model is a US built P-51D, I'd just stick to the standard US Late War colours. YZC is a good choice however. Should you be making a CA-17 (A68-1 to 80) or CA-18 bird (A68-81 to 200), then things get a little different, however yet again YZC or the paler GZC are also a good choices (usually with Aluminiuim coloured doors). Cheers and looking forward to the home stretch... Dave
Procopius Posted April 26, 2014 Author Posted April 26, 2014 Arrrrgghhhhhh...is nothing about this wretched war simple? Anyhow, I was basing my decision off of this well-known photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/F-51Ds_77_Sqn_RAAF_at_Iwakuni_c1950.jpg But of course now that I look closely, I can't confirm the interior of the gear doors attached to the MLG are painted YZC. Hmmm.
Procopius Posted April 26, 2014 Author Posted April 26, 2014 Just gotta mask the canopies, and then it's go time. What could possibly go wrong?* *=A lot.
Procopius Posted April 26, 2014 Author Posted April 26, 2014 Alclad is sorcery. That is all, gentlemen.
Procopius Posted April 27, 2014 Author Posted April 27, 2014 As mentioned in my Sabre thread, it's abysmally cold here, so I didn't get as much out of the Alclad as I'dve liked to. I'm pretty impressed with it regardless. I sprayed the Mustangs Aluminum, with duraluminum over the gun bays and another panel on the fuse. Unfortunately, this doesn't show up as well as I'd hoped, and it's very subtle. The photos of the real thing I've seen don't show a lot of variation in "skin" tone to my eye, but I welcome suggestions for what else I could/should do. 1
Stew Dapple Posted April 27, 2014 Posted April 27, 2014 Wow, that looks great PC, I can see the difference in the shades on one of the pictures, not on the others though. I believe one of the methods for getting some variation in the shading is to use black primer for most of it but the honey, grey or white primers on selected areas - never tried this myself but have seen it mentioned before - (edit: thought I had found the link but hadn't ) Cheers, Stew
Brews Posted April 27, 2014 Posted April 27, 2014 The photos of the real thing I've seen don't show a lot of variation in "skin" tone to my eye, but I welcome suggestions for what else I could/should do. Do the photos not show that the upper wing is painted, rather than polished metal? If it's polished metal, then there might be putty in the panel seams. The upper wing is the part of the wing that NA were particularly interested in keeping smooth, to keep the flow laminar as much as possible over the wing (i.e. the boundary layer became turbulent as far back as possible).
Brews Posted April 27, 2014 Posted April 27, 2014 I had a look at p51sig.com, and found the following photo, which shows RAAF Mustangs, at least. I interpret the wings as being worn painted aluminium, with polished metal ailerons and flaps. The puttied panel seams show up on the lower plane. 1
Procopius Posted April 27, 2014 Author Posted April 27, 2014 I've begun decaling these. I'm going to be pretty glad to be shot of them, frankly. I opted to try decaling without a clear coat. So far things seem to be going well. One (profoundly) irritating thing about the AIMS decal sheet is that none of the decals are numbered; you have to sort of judge for yourself what goes where.
Rabbit Leader Posted April 28, 2014 Posted April 28, 2014 I say..... those Stangs are looking the part - but my god, you are one messy modeller! Look at that work bench !! Cheers.. Dave
Procopius Posted April 28, 2014 Author Posted April 28, 2014 It's horrible, isn't it? Right now is the worst it's ever been, and it's unlikely to get cleaned until I knock off the Seafire and the 'stangs, at least.
Stew Dapple Posted April 28, 2014 Posted April 28, 2014 I must admit to a strange fascination with other modellers' workspaces, all the stuff that sneaks into photos; the various paints and glues and the other weirder things like a bonus size box of cotton buds I've got one of those little penknives you have with the scissors and tweezers on (the tweezers are pretty rubbish aren't they?) Only mine isn't covered in paint. Anyway your Mustangs are looking great, very nice indeed. Cheers, Stew 2
Procopius Posted April 28, 2014 Author Posted April 28, 2014 I must admit to a strange fascination with other modellers' workspaces, all the stuff that sneaks into photos; the various paints and glues and the other weirder things like a bonus size box of cotton buds I've got one of those little penknives you have with the scissors and tweezers on (the tweezers are pretty rubbish aren't they?) Only mine isn't covered in paint. Ear hygiene is important, Stew. Actually, though, I use the buds for all sorts of things airbrush-related. Two of my three (!!!) airbrushes are fed by detachable colour cups, and the buds, suitably loaded with window cleaner, fit snugly into the receptacle for cleaning it out. They can also be dipped in thinner and used to clear xtracrylixs off the tip of a needle, or for pushing down decals, like the AIMS ones I'm using, which don't seem to want to settle without vigorous assistance. I lost my tweezers about four years ago, so the only function of the penknife is to cut masking tape to size, which it does better than anything else I've ever tried.
Procopius Posted April 29, 2014 Author Posted April 29, 2014 Almost, but not quite finished. Still need to add the inner gear doors, and paint the ordnance. Shown here, with a pre-GB friend. 3
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