Alex Gordon Posted August 30, 2014 Share Posted August 30, 2014 (edited) G'day Chums, One of my little habits is to build multiples of kits with common colours in parallel.I'm a bit of a cheapskate and I find that I don't waste as much paint when spraying by doing this.I started this kt at the same time as my Mustang III and it is now at more or less the same state where it will go on to its own paint scheme. First off the obligatory box piccie.This is the Italeri boxing of the kit.The plastic looks to be well moulded with crisp detail and the decals are to Italeri's usual standard. I started by spraying Humbrol 226 Interior Green onto the interior components. The mould seam needed to be sanded off the tyres and the diamond tread pattern reinstating.Patience and a good sharp scalpel blade pressed on were the order of the day, The glassware is a tad thick but very clear. The relevant canopy parts were cut from the sprue.The sprue gates were cleaned up and the masking for paint began.The framing edges are represented by lightly engraved panel lines so a gentle burnishing with the point of a cocktail stick will reveal the line through the tape so that a gentle cut round with a new scalpel blade can be made.Done the right way the line will guide the blade and mistakes don't happen.This time it worked for me.The insides were masked as well. Some of the interior components needed a spot of black paint,so when the green had dried the relevant bits were masked off ready. More soon chums.thanks for looking in. Edited March 8, 2021 by Alex Gordon 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted September 3, 2014 Author Share Posted September 3, 2014 (edited) Hello again Chums, More progress to show on this one.The various boxes in the cockpit were brush painted matt black.The cowling parts were glued together. The intake on the top of the cowling is just a hole into a cavity.I cut a piece of plastic card to blank this off. The new piece was then glued in and a shot of Interior Green was sprayed down the resulting channel. The aft glazing was fitted,the instrument panel decal was applied and the internal components made ready for fitting. The dive brakes in the wings are see through.I cut four bits of plastic card to size,painted the appropriate areas Interior Green and glued them into place. The fuselage halves were taped together and glued.The interior components were fitted after the halves were put together.It's a bit of a fiddle to do but less so than trying to align them all while trying to mate up the two halves.The lower wing was then fitted.I have to say that the fit of all parts up to now was very good. The back wall where the cooling intake goes was painted matt black. The cowling was fitted up and glued on,also the joint forward of the windscreen,which had been left unglued in case a spot of fettling was needed,was glued up.No fettling was needed in putting these bits together. I then started on fitting the wing upper surfaces.I first made the joint to the fuselage.This needed a little packing away from the lower wing to make it sit properly but it's easier to sort out a joint on the leading edge than it is to mess about with a step along the fuselage. The propellor blade tips were sprayed with Humbrol 154 Insignia Yellow. More soon chums,thanks all for looking in. Edited March 8, 2021 by Alex Gordon 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Looking good Alex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted September 7, 2014 Author Share Posted September 7, 2014 (edited) G'day Chums, Mish,many thanks. A little more progress to show.Having fixed the upper wing halves to the fuselage it was then time to sort out the warpage of the lower wing. The wing components were progressively taped up and glued together working from the inner end outwards.They're about as good as I'm going to make them. More soon chums.thanks for looking in. Edited March 8, 2021 by Alex Gordon 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted September 8, 2014 Share Posted September 8, 2014 Thats some warp in those wings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted September 13, 2014 Author Share Posted September 13, 2014 (edited) Hello again Chums, Mish,that certainly is some warpage but I've corrected worse than that using this method. Further progress to show.The canopy was a bit of a game.The front portion wouldn't sit properly because the gunsight was in the way.I've also just noticed that the instrument panel decal doesn't line up with the detail on the panel itself.I think it's time I made a visit to the optician. Anyway,off came the gunsight,on went the windscreen where it should sit,back in went the gunsight and all was well.Then I offered up the side portion and found gaps at both edges. I just happened to have a few slivers of clear plastic sheet left over from a G scale railway station that I built recently.This stuff works with poly cement so I built up both edges with this stuff. Thanks for looking in chums,more soon. Edited March 8, 2021 by Alex Gordon 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wellzy Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Looking good so far keep up the good work Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted September 18, 2014 Author Share Posted September 18, 2014 (edited) G'day Chums, Les,thanks old chum.This has been an interesting build so far,not a shake and bake but not a true horror. Some more progress to show.The lamp compartment in the wing is just a hole.In the absence of any easily sourced photography I decided to just make a back wall for it and add something that sort of lampesque.I cut a piece of thin plastic card. I then bent it around a suitable paintbrush handle and glued it in place. While that was setting I turned my attention to a couple of minor gaps at the inner end of the leading edge of the wing.A couple of suitably short lengths of stretched sprue were glued in. On the real thing the inner maingear doors had a mechanical uplock and so stayed shut on a parked aircraft.I glued the door panels in place.It seems a shame to hide all that detail but I'm all for an easy life.These went in with no fettling at all.Lovely. The panel aft of the radiator is supplied as a separate part.This was glued into place and found to have a nice big juicy awkward to reach joint that needed filling. So fill it we did,shaping and smoothing and all.Milliput is splendid stuff to work with when you can get at it.This took two goes to sort out. The canopy side was fitted.The clear plastic card method would have worked perfectly if I had glued it all together properly.A wipe of milliput sorted it all out. More soon chums,thanks for looking in. Edited March 8, 2021 by Alex Gordon 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted September 24, 2014 Author Share Posted September 24, 2014 (edited) Hello again Chums, A bit more progress to show.A short length of round clear sprue was let into a hole drilled into the new backing.The edge of the clear part was painted black before the cover was fitted. This was then masked off and the underside made ready for paint. Humbrol 125 was used for the Neutral Gray underside colour with some gloss varnish added to make decalling easier later on. Once dry the underside was masked off for the upper side colour. About three years ago I was building the Airfix B26.My tin of 155 had gone to rags but there was just enough to make a colour chip so that my local hardware shop could custom mix a replacement.The base for this was a Berger gloss.I went for gloss because it doesn't darken when it is overcoated with varnish,something that used to irritate me.This custom mix was used here. The paint guide in the instructions shows various bits that look like overpainted markings after a change of ownership.The aircraft I am depicting is in an American paint scheme with theatre markings taken on and operated by the RAF.I elaborated slightly on the kit paint guide regarding the wing markings.Masks were cut using the decals as a guide. The aircraft was based in Italy in 1943 so,by my reckoning,RAF Dark Green would have been available.I used Humbrol 163 for the upper surface bits. The underside was then masked off appropriately. These were then treated to a drop of Humbrol 165 Medium Sea Grey,on the same premise that it too would have been available. The propellor blade tips were masked off and the blades painted matt black. The decals went on a treat.They looked to be a bit heavy on first inspection but a drop of Klear underneath each one made them settle into all the surface detail with no problems at all.This piccie doesn't show this too well,unfortunately. Anyway,these were left to set properly for a couple of days.Matt varnish and weathering next. More soon chums,thanks for looking. Edited March 8, 2021 by Alex Gordon 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted October 3, 2014 Author Share Posted October 3, 2014 (edited) G'day Chums, Nearly there with this one.The various gun barrels and muzzles were made ready for a coat of matt black paint. I wasn't too keen on the pitot probe so I made a new one from a length of telephone wire.With a little fettling it'll look a lot sharper and be less prone to being broken off.Guess what happened to the fin bit just after I took this piccie?Ah well,the shape wasn't quite right anyway. The kit supplies the sway braces as a part of the bomb mouldings.I'm not yet sure if I'm going to fit anything on the hardpoints so I thought,being as there is a surfeit of spares in the Hasegawa kit,I'd pinch a few. The nose machine gun barrels were fitted.You may be wondering why there is a tag of masking tape around each one.These bits are just begging to be lost forever inside the fuselage with absolutely no hope whatsoever of being recovered.They would also be a pain to replicate.Best not to lose them thought I and made them impossible to drop completely through the hole. More soon chums,thanks for looking. Edited March 8, 2021 by Alex Gordon 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Gosh this was my original choice for the GB, as I wanted to build something different....which I managed too. I just so hope you finish this one, we just can't have a Mustang STGB without one...and this ones a beauty!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Gordon Posted October 5, 2014 Author Share Posted October 5, 2014 (edited) Hello again Chums, Rich,only just made it. After an unseemly flurry of paint,glue and "what else have I forgotten?" all the work I'm going to do on this one is done,so I'm calling this one finished. My thanks to Mish for doing her bit and to Les,Rich and Bob for doing their bit and to everyone who looked in for your comment and encouragement. Cheers all. Edited March 8, 2021 by Alex Gordon Replace Photobucket URLs. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Work In Progress Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Weird fit problems caused by warping there. I built this when it was new, in the Accurate Min original production run, and it just fell together. Still, your finished model shows none of the signs of the problems it caused you, so all's well that ends well/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolwe82 Posted October 10, 2014 Share Posted October 10, 2014 Very nice work Alex, thats one great mustang ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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