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


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Galfa,

the Alclad White Alu was airbrushed directly on the plastic. I made trials applying the Dark Green and the Medium Sea Grey over this alu coat to check if the paint would not peel off when removing the masks, and it was OK, even leaving Tamiya masking tape for several days.

I have explained above (see my post#721 p. 29) the reason of this choice to apply an alu coat instead of the colors directly. I would not have used any primer but here, the goal is to get a « metal look » on my P-51D that will be weathered after that. And for that, the Alclad has many advantages:

1) the coat is very thin and so I won’t lose details.

2) the smallest defects on the surface will appear with such a merciless alu thin coat, and I have to do small corrections before going on.

But because I have decided, on Juan Manuel recommendation, to paint and not use the decals for the invasion stripes and the small squares on the nose, I will do some trials of no peeling off when removing the masks on the red  and white colors too.

Did I reply to your question ?

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Me too, John, I look forward. Though I must fight my will of fast progress to avoid errors and tricks. I am actually doing small corrections of filling or sanding defects, helped by the merciless thin coat of Alclad. In the same time, I am doing trials with flat red and white on the Alclad to check the resistance of such coats of paint to mask removing...

Like Juan in his DVD, I will begin the painting job with the invasion stripes on the fuselage and the 357th F.G typical squarres on the nose following strictly the steps of my master and friend. 

 

Like you, I love that unique design of the Mustang, so elegant.

 

Cheers

 

Olivier

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On 5/10/2018 at 6:19 AM, Olivier de St Raph said:

Galfa,

the Alclad White Alu was airbrushed directly on the plastic.

...

Did I reply to your question ?

Indeed, thank you for your answer.  Please post more pictures !

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I go on improving the state of surface on my whole aircraft. For example, I recreate round marks that had nearly disappeared. I made this photo in the middle of the job to show the difference "before/ after":

eQp3Kb.jpg

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Dear Olivier , it´s a pleasure to  see your progress !  Although I´m not an aeroplane modeller I feel connected with flying objects . . As a young boy , age 14 , I learned to fly with gliders on the German mountain Wasserkuppe . BTW  : The Mef is also waiting  for getting  treated by your great skills !   All the best !   Hannes

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Thanks a lot chaps! I must precise that I used brass tube because it was very well fitted to the size of the round holes I had to recreate, but a stronger material than brass would be better. Indeed, when you heat the brass, especially so thin, it tends to bend...

Hannes, you probably have a good suggestion for us? Do you have a reference of steel tubes in 0,5 mm o.d x 0,3 mm i.d?

 

All the best

 

Olivier

 

N.B: Hannes, the Mef should indeed be my next project... 😉

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Dear Olivier , sorry , I don´t have any references for steel tubes of that diameter . The smallest Knupfer steel tubes have a diameter of 2 mm .Injection needles could possibly be a solution .

I´m currently about to build a new radiator case out of brass for my 806 . To get a stable construction I ´m using 2 thin brass sheets instead of one thicker sheet .

Both sheets are connected by 2 c epoxi (  12 hours till firm  ) and this measure stiffens the brass construction  . I hope this hint could be useful for you .

Many greetings , my friend !   Hannes

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Dear Hannes,

the injection needle is a very good suggestion to which I had thought but the ones I use for my pro activity are of smaller diameter. I am gonna try to get 0,5 mm ones at the pharmacy...

Good luck for your radiator case my friend 

 

Cheers

 

Olivier

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My cockpit masking began to be quite damaged, with all the handling described above. 

 

HNq74Y.jpg

 

I have decided to take advantage of that removing to finish the cockpit with the gun sight, so that I will not have to do that while the painting and weathering job is done.

I recall that I had bought the Eduard K 14 gunsight set. Here is the instruction sheet:

 

V5g00c.jpg

 

As mentioned in labels, I have several small problems with these instructions:

1)  the PE part 13 is missing in most of our docs, except in the NAA docs: I suppose Eduard based itself on this doc for that part...

lL08XW.png

 

... because on field P-51, I don't see it. I won't reproduce here all my docs showing the K 14, but just an example:

kbn8Iy.png

 

2) the film B provided is supposed to come inside the PE 13 part. Here too, I don't see this vertical glass on our docs.

 

3) the instruction suggests to paint silver the holes inside the K 14. I am not sure at all it is a good hint, but what I am sure, is that I must represent the glass over these holes:

747qCT.jpg

 

I must say some P-51 experts, - especially  Antonio, Laurent and John T. - are missing from a moment in the thread, that could have brought their useful answers to these questions...

I hope I didn't say or do anything that could hurt them...

Anyway, in the doubt, I will not use the PE 13 part (or maybe just a portion of the frame) and not the film B too...

 

 

 

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This evening, no model making for me, I will be following and supporting my heart team for the final of the Europa League against a great team : the Atletico Madrid, that will be the favorite.

Allez l’O.M !!!

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You're welcome! 
I'm okey with Hakan, but the "simple" trick, for those who can't type å is to copy and paste! :)

 

Håkan

 

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Hi Olivier,, I hope you had a good time at the football.

I usually paint the two holes where the lenses fit gloss black, I think silver would make them look like light bulbs. I also think that the part labelled PE13 is very  rarely seen on the gunsight in the field.

 

John

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Hi John,

pity, I had not a very good time with the football, as things went wrong for my heart team...

Yes, I agree with you, I think Eduard suggested the silver to get a kind of mirrored effect (not very convincing...).

As I said above, I kept a portion of the PE13 part, cutting it with care to represent the frame.

 

Before the soccer game, I have begun the masking and painting job of the invasion stripes on the fuselage, with the white. And this morning, I went on with the black, after drying during the night:

682Myk.jpg

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I said above I wouldn't use the AMUR flaps, because they don't fit well with the Tamiya kit. Though, I have applied the Vallejo black  and then washed the surface with alcohol, in order to enhance the rivets lines, with the intention to use these flaps as a reference.

Well, considering the very neat result, it would be a pity not to use them. I can't pretend getting such an amazing flap by modifying the Tamiya part. So, I will do my best in order to adapt them... We shall see.

N.B: 1) Consider that the real lenght of these flaps do not exceed 60 mm... 

2) more, this photo doesn't really do completely justice to these very nice parts, because they don't show well the stressed surface, but I confirm that, here too, it would be a very tedious work to get such a surface from the Tamiya part (I know what I'm talking about 😉)

 

CWcgUN.jpg

 

Return to my progress: I have removed the masks used for the invasion stripes. I had small imperfections, difficult to avoid with all the details and small reliefs, that I have corrected using the Vallejo Black (950) and White (951) acrylics and the great Winsor and Newton n°2 Series 7 paintbrush. The Vallejo are great, if they are correctly thinned (with water), you nearly don't see any paintbrush mark (and probably not at all after the weathering job to follow). But now that I see these photos, it appears that some small defects are still present (especially on the first one), that I will correct, of course:

 

O1jbmo.jpg

 

P3YWCy.jpg

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