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Missouri Armada P-51D Mustang: documents and partial scratch from the Tamiya 1/48 kit


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In case I could not use under the right conditions the AMUR flaps, I have ordered 2 more Rosie the Riveter items. I had used up to now the 0,60 mm one (bought recently, for this kit), but the measures I made on the AMUR flaps (distance between rivets) showed that I would need a 0,75 mm one and maybe a 0,50 mm one. I should get them soon, from UMM (Unique Master Model), American site on which I had bought the 0,60 mm... I could see that double versions exists, allowing to create a double line of rivets. But if you want to buy the several versions (single, double... and even triple!) with a range of distances, it will begin to cost you a lot of money... I think for the 1/48 scale, the range I have will allow to get convincing results. 

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Looking really nice Olivier. Worth remembering that on the original, the paintwork (e.g. invasion stripes and even unit markings), wasn't perfect, having been applied in less than ideal conditions and in something of a hurry. Many aircraft had ovsrsprays showing over masking tape, or stripes painted by hand and so not completely straight.

 

Justin 

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Thanks Justin for that useful (and convenient for me 😉) info, and also for your kind words. But considering the scale 1/48, these imperfections must not be too important. From this point of view, my involuntary small imperfections should give a quite convincing result.

 

Olivier

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Your Mustang becomes a very impressive model , dear Olivier . It´s an aesthetical counterpart for our 806 !

BTW : I heared that prince Harry marries Merkel  ! I don´t know if this is the first choice ! Or was it Miss Marple ? What a crazy world !

All the best !  Hannes

 

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Thanks a lot, Hannes for your kind encouragements! 

Well, I admit I can't understand the madness around that marriage. Of course, I respect every opinion and the English Royal family, and I admit I can myself become a fan for my heart football team, but when I hear that 3 billions persons have seen that ceremony on TV, or when I see the french info channels (especially BFM-TV) focused only on that matter from 3 days, it leaves me stunned... 

 

Cheers

 

Olivier

 

P.S: now, one of these fascinated people could say: who are these guys, who may spend hundred hours to build a 20 cm replica of a WWII aircraft, or a 30 cm one of an old race car that everybody has forgotten, and who want to give us lessons? 😄 

 

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As I don't intend to use the Eagle decals for the squares on the nose, and in order to avoid errors with the squarres, I made a photo of the Eagle picture, and I made the enlargement below:

 

Left side:

KvTPGn.jpg

 

Right side (the same  enlargement simply returned):

SBC7rh.jpg

 

I will cut small squares using the Eagle decals. The Juan Manuel tutorial on the DVD is of great help for that job.

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I have a question about the color that should be applied on the air scoop. The Eagle decals suggest this area should be all yellow, while the Tamiya ones suggest we should have the squares on this area too. Trying to find an answer on our docs, I saw that the restored Frenesi has the squares (like Tamiya suggests). But the period pic of the Passion Wagon SEEMS on the contrary to suggest this area was all red (without certainty).

 

On the restored Frenesi, squares on the air scoop:

BjazBH.png

 

On the period pic of the Passion Wagon, it seems that the color is red on the whole air scoop:

ddiGzV.png

 

Now, maybe all 357th FG had not the same painting in that area. Justin said above with right that the paintwork wasn't done in ideal conditions...

Anyway, the masking job in that air scoop area is not easy to manage for painting. But I think the painting option is still better than the decal one...

 

 

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I used to worry a bit about this delicate step of painting on the nose, with the checker pattern. As for the invasion stripes, when I removed the masking tapes, I had defects and, here too, I used the Vallejo acrylics for corrections, what doesn't mean the result is now perfect. As the paintwork on the original aircrafts wasn't too, I consider this step as over. For the red, a mix of Carmine Red 908 and Leather 940 was used. For the Yellow, no mixing but the Flat Yellow 963.

I want to thank Juan Manuel for his good hints that were very helpful in general and for that step in particular.

 

KMTq19.jpg

 

gnSNg9.jpg

 

Next step: the Medium Sea Grey on the underbody, after the masking of this checker pattern and of the invasion stripes.

 

 

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Nice work with the checker pattern! :)

 

Not easy to mask and paint squares like that.

 

Håkan

 

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On 20/05/2018 at 10:01, Olivier de St Raph said:

I have a question about the color that should be applied on the air scoop. The Eagle decals suggest this area should be all yellow, while the Tamiya ones suggest we should have the squares on this area too. Trying to find an answer on our docs, I saw that the restored Frenesi has the squares (like Tamiya suggests). But the period pic of the Passion Wagon SEEMS on the contrary to suggest this area was all red (without certainty).

 

Hi Olivier,

 

I have a couple of period color pictures showing that it was more likely red

xlCwaK3.jpg

 

Just back from La Ferté Alais airshow, where I saw this beautiful baby flying....

GVuEvzn.jpg

 

Keep up the good work, always great to see your amazing work.

 

Cheers,

 

Laurent

 

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Thanks a lot Laurent these pics confirming what we seemed to see on the Passion Wagon photo, I will certainly modify this area and will apply the red on the whole airscoop.

And thanks too for the nice Nooky Booky pic and the kind and encouragement words! 😉

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I come-back on the question of the color for the air scoop. The enlargement below suggests (I am careful, I admit that it is very difficult to be sure with a B/W pic) that the air scoop was yellow, at least partially. Notice that, unlike the 2 photos Laurent posted above, the square opening on the air scoop is yellow (on the Laurent 's pics, the square opening on the air scoop was red).

There is another argument for the yellow color there, which is the Eagle decal. Eagle is a very famous and serious brand. For this decal sheet (48-101), the markings provided are based on the book written by Merle Olmsted "To war with the Yoxford Boys", ever mentioned above in the thread.

Moreover, they don't provide the same checker pattern for the 3 versions of this decal sheet (Old Crow, Nooky Booky and Missouri Armada).

John Terrell's opinion on that matter would have been interesting, but pity, he seems to have completely disappeared...

 

 

 

cSlk8D.png

 

In this Merle book, several photos seem to confirm the full yellow option (probably that's why Eagle chose it for the decals):

GJa5d3.jpgZsmux7.jpgpWWMkS.jpgVl5Ix5.jpg

 

Conclusion: for now, and for me, the strongest probability is that the air scoop was full yellow... 

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kq9Os4.jpg

 

N.B:

1) in reality, the Green is much darker than what this photo suggests. I lightened it to enhance the nuances got by polishing the painted surfaces.

2) this "base coat" of Green and Medium Sea Grey is not over. Some small corrections, especially in the transition areas, are necessary. This transition is done without using any masking, just airbrushing from a closer distance and decreasing the pressure to 0,8 bars. So  I get a soft separation. I will post pics of this area when the paintjob will be over...

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Looks very nice! :)

 

Never tried painting with that much thinner or low pressure. 

Think I need to try that out.

 

Håkan

 

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3 hours ago, Azgaron said:

Never tried painting with that much thinner or low pressure. 

Dear Håkan,

this pressure is adapted for my Infiniti airbrush (by gravity) and with a medium needle.

With an airbrush by suction, maybe the pressure would be a bit more important (JMV uses the Badger 150 with rather 1 bar when he works very close from the surface). In fact, you have to do trials with your own airbrush.

The alcohol 96° allows very subtle effects in weathering procedures and always gives a very fine grain.

I had done trials (see my post# 721 p. 29) before choosing these options of painting.

It is the first time I do so for an aircraft paintjob. The idea came from the Fiat 806, mu previous build, on which I had applied too an alu base coat under the red, thus getting a very nice metal look (especially with the red that doesn't cover very well), but also from the JM Villalba great FAQ book, in his chapter dedicated to the painting of machine guns (he applied a coat of alu and on this coat a very thinned (with alcohol) coat of XF-1 Tamiya flat black. After drying, he made a drybrush with a flat brush, enhancing details and getting a very realistic metal look...

 

Olivier

 

P.S: thanks Harvey, compliments from the great modeler you are much appreciated 😉

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14 minutes ago, Olivier de St Raph said:

Dear Håkan,

this pressure is adapted for my Infiniti airbrush (by gravity) and with a medium needle.

With an airbrush by suction, maybe the pressure would be a bit more important (JMV uses the Badger 150 with rather 1 bar when he works very close from the surface). In fact, you have to do trials with your airbrush.

The alcohol 96° allows very subtle effects in weathering procedures and always gives a very fine grain.

I had done trials (see my post# 721 p. 29) before choosing these options of painting.

It is the first time I do so for an aircraft paintjob. The idea came from the Fiat 806, on which I had applied too an alu base coat under the red, thus getting a very nice metal look (especially with the red that doesn't cover very well), but also from the JM Villalba great FAQ book, in his chapter dedicated to the painting of machine guns (he applied a coat of alu and on this coat a very thinned (with alcohol) coat of XF-1 Tamiya flat black. After drying, he made a drybrush with a flat brush, enhancing détails and getting a very realistic metal look...

 

Olivier

Thanks for the tip Olivier! :)

I have H&S Evolution with fine adjustment on the handle. Just a step down from Infinity, but good enough I guess.
From the beginning I had a small compressor without any regulator, and thus was used to have thicker mixes, due to the high pressure.

But last year i bougth a better compressor with tank and regulator, which helped a lot. 

As you say, I have to do trials with my airbrush, and will for sure try and set a lower pressure and increase the amount of thinner.

Need to get a new fine needle and nozzle, as the one I have, accidently got a slightly bent needle.

Gotta try that machine gun painting trick too! :)

 

Håkan

 

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6 hours ago, Azgaron said:

I have H&S Evolution with fine adjustment on the handle

In fact, I made a mistake mentioning the Infinity, I made this paintjob with my Evolution! (I have both airbrushes from H&S, I use the Infinity with a 0,2 mm needle and the Evolution with a 0,4 mm one). Like you I suppose, I have the Quick Fix System for Evolution that allows to have the same control on the paint than with an Infinity:

3ahmBr.jpg

 

The compressor is a very important element, imho more important than the airbrush. Now that you have a good one, you will be able to get very good results, and, like me, you will improve by doing trials. If you have to buy a new fine needle, I recommend you to buy in the same time a medium set (0,4 mm needle, head and nozzle). 

About your needle that was bent accidentally, it is true that it is very fragile, and I recommend you not to insert the needle like this (especially with a 0,2 mm one):

8uNf9S.jpg

 

Most of the time, the needle is damaged doing like that after cleaning the airbrush.

Here is, below, the good procedure to reassemble safely your airbrush after cleaning:

rlJbVQ.jpg

To be complete, I also use an interdental brush too for the cleaning.

 

U7kqLp.jpg

 

 

 

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Thanks for the instructive pics! :)

 

The one I have is the silverline FPC two in one, with adjustable stop for the trigger. It comes with one .4 and one .15mm needle.

I dropped the needle, but I'll consider inserting it from the front as you suggest. A new needle wasn't very expensive, but the whole set with nozzle and nozzle cap was! :)

Need to do some more test with different settings on pressure and amount of thinner. Also experiment with setting the trigger stop.

 

Håkan

 

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4I3MbU.jpg

 

N.B: this photo 207 reflects much better the very dark green than the photo 208 and especially the 206 above... I recall that the RAF Dark Green was got by mixing XF-27 (90%) and XF-62 (10%). On such a dark base, the weathering will also have to lighten a bit the general aspect...

 

z3dqsp.jpg

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