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F196F North American Mustang Mk.II - conversion to Mk. I - Finished


AdrianMF

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I have to agree, there’s nothing worse than oversized / undersided decals. These 24 inchers look a lot better. Since you’ve started this little baby I’ve acquired a 1/48 example and have been doing a spot of research. I didn’t quite know the differences between a Mk.1, 1a and 11, however do now. This kit does look quite attractive in this earlier scheme. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

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And I got the guns sorted before work this morning:

83-CECE4-E-30-C1-422-A-9-FBA-0-A692080-C

I can’t see the cheek guns mounted in pictures but I will put a barrel there. The wing guns are in pretty much a straight line (middle one should be low) but I wanted to be safe with drilling. A spot of black paint will give the impression of a lower middle gun port.

 

Back on track!

 

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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3 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

 

I can’t see the cheek guns mounted in pictures but I will put a barrel there. The wing guns are in pretty much a straight line (middle one should be low) but I wanted to be safe with drilling. A spot of black paint will give the impression of a lower middle gun port.

 

 

 

Adrian, lovely job you're doing here - I want to pick it up and fly it round the room! I got a bit obsessive on finding out about the cheek guns there and came across this pic. on Wiki.....XP-51 41-039, one of two Mustang Mk I aircraft handed over to the USAAC for testing

 

800px-XP-51,_serial_number_41-039.jpg

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18 minutes ago, Ventora3300 said:

and came across this pic

The cheek fairings seem to have stopped being fitted quite early on in operations, according to pictures on t'web. The two pictures I have of 613 squadron examples don't show the fairings (which I would expect to show up as lighter blobs, even in the terrible quality of the two pictures) and I can't see any gun barrels either, which I would expect to, but again that could simply be low quality photo problems. So I'm going to do gun barrels and no fairings. 

 

I may also enlarge the wing gun openings a tad and try to get the outer ones higher and the middle ones lower. Or I could just stick to paint effects and finish the damned thing...

 

Regards,

Adrian

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It’s done! Overall it was a nice easy build (apart from shenanigans with the propeller at the end) and I enjoyed the back conversion to a Mk I so that I could do a green and brown one (613 squadron) with a panda logo:

728-FF8-E4-BF1-B-408-A-8-A85-135-E28-DD8

 

My phone doesn’t like taking pictures of Sky on a blue background:

AAE28-D34-13-E8-4-D92-AEF1-5-ECBCA9-D5-B

 

C91-D3534-0-B35-4-D12-B302-0328556-B08-B

 

More pictures in the gallery here.

 

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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Very nice Adrian.

 

The aerials look excellent. Aerials are something I struggle with. May I ask, what did you use, and how did you create the 'blobs' (Insulators?) at each end?

 

Thanks

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1 hour ago, Johnson said:

blobs

Are made out of undiluted acrylic paint. Some of the Revell acrylics in particular are the consistency of toothpaste out of the pot. I just picked up a blob with a fine paintbrush and blobbed it on.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

[EDIT] I used fine black EZ Line for the wiring with superglue and quite a lot of bad language...

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On 10/08/2019 at 17:51, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Sadly it jus tells me I'm missing

Sorry about that! There's a way of fixing it though...

 

It's been an interesting build, not least because I learned two things in particular that I hadn't appreciated before:

  • the Mustang wasn't just a so-so fighter, transformed into something special by the Merlin. It was a great fighter at the altitude army co-op worked at, and the Merlin gave it a high-altitude capability (at the expense of weight and some low-level performance), which made it into a great escort fighter too.
  • the Mustang design was largely done in the years leading up to the "120 days", by a German designer who had a personal project, learning from experience of the Bf109 program before leaving Germany before the war. N-A gambled on his design over licensing the P-40. [EDIT - not true, urban legend, see below]

Regards,

Adrian

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2 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

and quite a lot of bad language...

Yes, that's me and aerials all over.

 

1 hour ago, AdrianMF said:

the Mustang design was largely done in the years leading up to the "120 days", by a German designer who had a personal project, learning from experience of the Bf109 program before leaving Germany before the war. N-A gambled on his design over licensing the P-40.

Didn't know that. Learning about the planes one builds is a nice bi-product of our hobby.

 

Cheers.

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On 10/08/2019 at 18:06, AdrianMF said:

the Mustang design was largely done in the years leading up to the "120 days", by a German designer who had a personal project, learning from experience of the Bf109 program before leaving Germany before the war. N-A gambled on his design over licensing the P-40.

Apparently I have fallen for an urban legend!

 

Edgar Schmued left Germany before the Bf109 was even started, and never worked for Messerschmidt. They did have access to Bf109s captured in the Spanish Civil War but the Mustang wasn't a knock-off Bf109.

 

Sorry,

Adrian

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