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


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Hi Olivier

well, I dont agree with the statement about several factories building Mustangs, it is totally false only North American Aviation (NAA) built the P-51 Mustang in factories based in Inglewood, California, and Dallas, Texas

 after ww2 when mustangs were used in the korean war this prodecure wasn't used in the wings, there are many clear pictures  to prove it, also  Mustang used in other countries didnt puttied the wings, the picture you posted belongs to an italian Mustang and it dosen't have puttied wings also becuase it has been restored and cleaned, it is your model and up to you my friend but if you want to follow historical accuracy then fill your model's wings! ;)

cheers

 

Edited by antonio argudo
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There are always exceptions to the rule as the photo in 102 shows. When you get the O'Leary book you will also see how other things differed between  the factories, there is a photo of the production line at Dallas where every wing is primed all the way back to the flap/aileron hinge line, and others from Inglewood where the primer just covers the 40% where the rivets were filled.

I have the Meng kit which is full of pin holes representing rivets and when I build it the first thing I will do is paint the appropriate wing surfaces with Mr Surfacer 500 and then sand them back, which will hopefully leave just a trace of the rivets, so we are like minded on that.

 

Cheers

 

John

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Maybe I expressed myself not so well, Juan asserted this as an assumption and not as something sure and you are certainly right on this point, even if you and John mention 2 factories, one at Dallas, one at Inglewood, with sometimes small differences. Anyway, it doesn't change anything to the question of choosing a smooth or a corrugated surface. And I go on thinking the second one is more realistic (and more aesthetic imho) for a worn aircraft like the Missouri was.

 

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Antonio,

I had these pics of the Passion Wagon, which is, as you say, very close from the Missouri. Moreover, I tried unsuccessfully to find wings pics of this restored aircraft. Anyway, these pics have their place in the numbered docs (the most important in my mind). So:

 

oyGe8f.jpg

 

94rfjR.jpg

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1 hour ago, antonio argudo said:

the picture you posted belongs to an italian Mustang

Are you sure of that, Antonio? 

And the second pic, taken by JMV at Duxford, is a US one, definitely, and we can see this corrugated surface on the wings, OK?

It would be interesting to see the Passion Wagon or the Old Crow wings... These aircrafts still exist (restored), if I am correct, we should be able to find pics of their wings... 

That said, the corrugated sheet effect on worn aircrafts is a reality, no? The corrugations of the aluminum coating result from the pressure exercised by rivets on the internal structure and will increase with the stress undergone during the flights, no?

In these conditions, I don't see why a very smooth surface, like the Tamiya one, would be a better choice... One more time, it is not question to represent rivets like I did (I recall it was just a first step)...

 

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I tend to avoid using restored aircraft as references of how wartime aircraft looked as not all restorations duplicate exactly the way the original aircaft were built. I posted the Museum of Flight example to illustrate how I think the wing treatment would have looked upon leaving the factory.

 

In the end the choice is yours as it should be.

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Hi Olivier,

I'm pretty sure it is italian because I have see it in person ;)  it is the P-51D. 44-73444 - Italian Air Force Museum at Vigna di Valle Air Force Base

 

P_51_D_Mustang_SM_82_Marsupiale.jpg

 

 

I also visited the Cosford Museum in London and took some pics (not too good sorry) but here they are:

duxford2.jpg

 

duxford3.jpg

duxford4.jpg

duxford.jpg

 

 

some other interesting puttied wings pics

wiing.jpg

mustangwing.jpg

 

cheers

 

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9 hours ago, antonio argudo said:

I'm pretty sure it is italian because I have see it in person ;)  it is the P-51D. 44-73444 - Italian Air Force Museum at Vigna di Valle Air Force Base

Hi Antonio,

I am really impressed by the level of this thread, with experts like you. You are right, it is the Italian Mustang, the manikin near the aircraft confirms so.

But the 5th pic you show is very interesting, it shows precisely - on a well restored and a gloss surface state - the corrugated surface I'd like to get, very far from the smooth surface of the Tamiya kit:

 

uSZKGD.jpg

 

Cheers

 

Olivier

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Here is the amazing JMV Missouri Armada (I allow myself to post it because this pic is public, I found it on Google image). Notice that if the rivets are slightly visible, they are nearly flat on the wings. I love that subtle weathering, I would be very happy to do nearly as well. Juan is a master, a great artist, giving life to his models. With such a full green top surface, the smooth Tamiya surface could give a dull model imho. Of course, this is my personal opinion... 

T4PmPU.jpg

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Hi Olivier,

thanks for your kind words amigo, yes the stressed skin effect is really evident in that picture, but mainly because of its long service life, I  have been very fascinated by it also and tried on my first tamiya mustang I built years ago, also in olive green camo but striped down the paint and filled the effect of stressed skin, it is quite easy to overdone  this technique  and hard to fix so I recomend you try first on another model first,  also on  a  dull green camo  it won't  be much visble.

here are 2  tutorial about stressed skin, quite nice:

http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/stressed_skin/

 

http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/stressedskineffectkh_1.htm

 

 

and the tamiya mustang I built long ago (and destroyed)

cheers

tt.jpg

tt3.jpg

 

tete.jpg

tete2.jpg

 

 

 

Edited by antonio argudo
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6 hours ago, antonio argudo said:

I found this pic of Missouri Armada, it is new at least to me!

To me too, Antonio, and that's a great pic! this very lively photo showing famous pilots in a funny attitude with rugby balls brings us new infos, especially about the tread... Thanks too for the other pics and for the links explaining the "stressed skin" and how to represent it, that I began to read and are very instructive. We really have a dream team here, and you are definitely one of his best members!

 

Cheers

 

P.S: I have to admit that the pics you bring in your post #337 don’t show a corrugated surface but a flat one, especially the 1, the 2 and the 5.

 

P.S 2: and congrats for your wonderful build shown on post#336, the highly detailed engine is particularly impressive!

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Of course, The last Antonio pic is added to the "best docs" numbered, with arrows to point the most interesting details. Pity for me, I had ordered, in the same time as the Eduard Brassin 108 gallon tanks, Eduard diamond tread wheels. This photo shows another shape...

 

iKfrPx.jpg

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Ultimately you have to decide at what point in it's service life you wish to depict  the aircraft . Recently delivered with smooth wings and very little weathering, or later with wings which have been stressed and show signs of the rivet and panel lines giving a corrugated or dimpled effect. I think that we have established that all ( wartime ) Mustang wings were puttied at the factories, what happened to them later is still the subject of debate, here and elsewhere.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

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You are absolutely right, John

Yet I have decided from the beginning to represent the Missouri Armada when the photos we know were taken. There are 18 svastikas on the fuselage, which means that we are probably about april or may 1945. Logically, the plane is worn (as we can see on our docs) and so for the wings, with a bit corrugated surface. The Eagle cals provide a decal with these 18 svastikas.

 

Cheers

 

Olivier

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Hi Olivier,

these videos of the 357th fighter group are very  interesting, also quite funny how the ground personel climb through the landing gear to the wings lol

cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyBwdvLXEnY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3TbVGolb9Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xptiBqwNUpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0_xiT-SBBI

 

Edited by antonio argudo
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@Olivier de St Raph - Hi Olivier, I'm enjoying following this build.

 

I'm not sure anyone has explained why the wings were smooth.

 

The Mustang was unique. It had a low drag wing profile. As a result the range was outstanding as was the top speed. Made it great for escorting bombers a long way and then having enough fuel to defend them. But the wing had to be completely smooth - particularly the front - otherwise it did not work. Even dead insects had a measurable impact. The putty was used to get the wing profile perfect and hide the tiny imperfections of the flush rivets.

 

Like any finish it must have worn. So there was a maintenance penalty.

 

Everything above is factually true. The next is speculation.

 

I think the pictures where the wing is smooth, are of aircraft that needed the performance - i.e. escorts.

 

Pictures where the wing is just rivetted are aircraft that did not need the speed or endurance. Perhaps they were doing ground attack and the USAF had control of the skies. For these aircraft the wing still worked well enough without the need to have a smooth surface. This saved the squadrons maintenance time.

 

Finally a note on kill markings. They generally refer to the pilot I think. In an extreme case, he may have crashed every time he landed but so long as he was successful in the air and survived landing, the tally would always be written on a new aircraft! The boss might not be happy though!

 

So in your case, what was the pilot famous for and what did his squadron do. That will tell you whether the wings were smooth or not.

 

Hope that is of interest and not just a repeat of something someone else has said.

 

Nick

 

 

 

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Oh and another thing - the finish on the fuselage will be more traditional because the flow is poorer (due to the propellor) and has less direct impact on lift. So they did not need to treat the fasteners and rivets - they are therefore much more visible.

 

Nick

 

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Happy to welcome you in the thread, Nick (as with Hannes and Harvey, among others, Nick was a member of our previous "dream team" on the thread "Fiat 806: research and scratchbuilds"), and thank you for this very instructive and fascinating comment. 

I think I am right saying that in the spring of 1945, when I situate my "Missouri", the Allied forces had the control of the skies from a moment (the German is about to surrender, the 8th of may), so we may suppose that it didn't need the same wings maintenance than a few months earlier. Of course, I would dream finding the ultimate doc showing its wings clearly at the same period, but even Antonio won't find that... But I admit however that it becomes more and more hazardous for me to consider the stressed skin option. So I will just follow Juan Manuel DVD to get more or less visible but flat rivets on my Missouri wings (he did not do a stressed skin on his ones).

I jump to another question coming-back on the Garry comment about the tread, with this comparison enlargement (I increased the contrast on the right wheel - left picture -).

P4fORh.png

 

This shows imho that we don't have the same tread on both wheels. And like Gary, I would bet for diamond ones on the left picture (right wheel). This would show that they didn't mind about that (and maybe they did with what they had...). Anyway, in such conditions, I feel free to use the diamond tread wheels I should get soon, ordered on the DHM site.

 

Furthermore, I got yesterday the Eduard set for Airfix I was expecting for a new try with the very delicate canopy rails. 

More soon...

 

P.S: Antonio, your links about creating "stressed skin" and the You tube period videos were great, thanks again! The time is missing for me to follow all these exciting infos and go on my build, but I have fun and am pleased to see this thread is so lively!

 

 

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