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RAAF 3SQN Mustang IVa (P-51K)


Pappy

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On 1/17/2020 at 6:46 PM, Courageous said:

Looking rather smart.

 

Stuart

 

Thanks very much Stuart

On 1/20/2020 at 2:04 AM, Joss said:

Looking great pappy!

Love the colour variation, looking forward to seeing more!

Joss

Cheers Joss

 

G'day people, I am a little frustrated at the moment because the trusty air compressor has finally expired after several years of faithful service 😧

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Hi Pappy,

 

Caught up with your build a bit late... glad I did, some really great work.

 

Sorry about your compressor, hope it gets fixed or maybe a replacement? After 30 years of faithful work I replaced my Sparmax... with a new Sparmax. But this has an airtank, automatic pressure regulator and moisture trap. Glad I did, bloomin marvellous!

 

Cheers,

 

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10 hours ago, Johnson said:

Hi Pappy,

 

Caught up with your build a bit late... glad I did, some really great work.

 

Sorry about your compressor, hope it gets fixed or maybe a replacement? After 30 years of faithful work I replaced my Sparmax... with a new Sparmax. But this has an airtank, automatic pressure regulator and moisture trap. Glad I did, bloomin marvellous!

 

Cheers,

 

G'day Charlie,

 

Thanks very much . Wow, 30 years, that is a good run, I managed 15 years with my current jobbie!

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

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G'day people,

 

So soldiering on with the back-up compressor. This is more of an industrial jobby, and the pressure regulator is not as refined but it will get the job done until I can get around to replacing my smaller compressor. I have gone back and cleaned up most of the overspray and I just need to respray the underside demarcation now. I have also added some tonal variation by spraying a palette of lighter and darker shades of the base colour. Once satisfied with the tonal variation, I misted over each colour with a highly thinned (95% thinners) base colour to soften the effect.

 

 

009_zpsikkr7at3.jpg

 

010_zps76d715cs.jpg

 

 

I have not tidied up the flaps yet. You can see how much over spray there is, compare the flaps the rest of the airframe,

 

012_zps6hd7d5hz.jpg

 

thanks for looking,

 

Pappy

Edited by Pappy
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11 hours ago, ragnarec said:

Very nice job with that camo! 

 

Thank you

7 hours ago, pacificmustang said:

That is starting to look really sharp Pappy

 

Bruce

Thanks Bruce,

 

It is starting to get to where I want it.

 

The pics I have show the planes as dirty but not overly chipped. The Airfix paint notes include yellow wing leading edges (theatre ID markings perhaps?) These do not appear in my references so I will not have them on my build,

 

cheers

 

Pappy

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On 1/26/2020 at 11:25 PM, Graham Boak said:

Yellow leading edges were a UK Fighter Command requirement, not called for in the Mediterranean but sometimes seen on aircraft transferred from UK stock.  If this aircraft was never in the UK then I wouldn't expect to see them.

Cheers Graham, that agrees with my reference pics as my subject was direct from lend lease stock rather than a transfer from a UK unit.

 

G'day people,

 

So the lower demarcation line has been done and the underside treated to some colour modulation,

 

001_zpsvyjqj9li.jpg

 

003_zpsuhkiwmju.jpg

 

002_zpsqzsc7q3b.jpg

 

The flaps have just been dry fitted again and they are a nice tight fit, you could just leave them  installed without any glue if you wanted to

 

004_zpsfae1qfxq.jpg

 

Well, she is ready for a gloss coat in preparation for the decals

 

Thanks for looking ,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

 

 

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21 hours ago, almac said:

Excellent work on the camouflage.

 

Cheers Allan 

 

15 hours ago, Hewy said:

Very nicley painted camo pappy

 

13 hours ago, Andwil said:

Great paint job, nice variation in the colour, particularly like the underside.

 

AW

Thanks chaps, my biggest concern was the underside.

As the majority og the wing panel lines were filled, there was a great danger that it would become a featureless grey slab - however, if I overdid the colour modulation that would also look weird.

 

I don' subscribe to the pre-shading school (heresy I know) but prefer to post shade, and try and avoid fading just the panel  centres as paint fading does't stop conveniently at a panel line in real life,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

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G'day people,

 

A small update. Having survived the heatwaves and bush fires, we are now undergoing a deluge of biblical proportions, but I am not complaining as this type of heavy soaking rain is sorely needed. Unfortunately, it makes spraying a painful process as the high humidity means lots of water vapour to contend with. This manifests itself as a sudden spit of water whilst spraying. I eventually ended up placing an  in-line moisture trap right near the airbrush in addition to the moisture trap on the compressor regulator which has not completely solved the issue but seems to work when spraying in short sessions.

 

Anyhoooo, the bird has been clear coated, I am just waiting for the  gloss to harden before the stickers can go on,

 

001_zpsb3fmj9pn.jpg

 

003_zpslyndthwl.jpg

 

004_zpsatojkrnb.jpg

 

The rudder has now been attached and it is starting to look like an aeroplane!

 

cheers

 

Pappy

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2 hours ago, Pappy said:

This manifests itself as a sudden spit of water whilst spraying

I hate it when that happens, usually at some critical point! Did you get yourself a new Compressor Pappy?

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19 minutes ago, Johnson said:

I hate it when that happens, usually at some critical point! Did you get yourself a new Compressor Pappy?

G'day Charlie,

 

Yes I did and very glad I am too, the regulator actually regulates !

 

I had been soldiering on with my old unit and to be honest didn't  really worry about fiddling with the air pressure as I could use the trigger to control airflow, an advantage to using a dual action airbrush that I had simply got used to. I have since bought myself a gravity feed dual action and now I can experiment with really low pressure e.g 7psi and getting really close to the mnodel as the regulator is very responsive,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

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G'day people,

 

A little more progress today,

 

The decals have been applied and sealed it is now it is time to get a little dirty. I wanted a well used aircraft but not abused. I added chipping around what I considered the areas with the most traffic like the wing root near the cockpit, the ammunition access panels and the various engine inspection panels etc.

 

001_zpsz3dtmnp7.jpg

 

003_zpsnk3x51yj.jpg

 

004_zpsyw7ulswr.jpg

 

The underside I wanted a little more worn. Pictures of RAAF 3SQN operating from Fano airfield in Italy show the conditions to have been fairly primitive, so using pics of in-flight P-51ds as reference, I began to add various fluid stains and streaks

 

005_zpsifuq2u1b.jpg

 

The inner landing gear doors have been a little bit of a bugbear for me, specifically which position to depict them in. In the end I decided on a compromise and left the left door fully opened and modified the right door to depict it partially open, as if falling open as the hydraulic pressure bleeds off.  I appreciate the info supplied by Gingerbob ref the P-51k flight manual suggesting that the aircraft should be parked with the flaps dropped (to prevent people using them as a step) and that by dropping the inner doors (fairing doors)  applied an undercarriage lock to prevent accidental u/c retraction, but I just liked the asymmetric look of it

 

006_zpsffliphsi.jpg

 

Not much more to do now, I just need to add the main gear legs and de-mask the canopy,

 

thanks for looking,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited by Pappy
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Looking good.  Looks like the wingtips have sprouted screamers.

 

To reduce weight the P-51D had the weight on wheels safety system eliminated.  Pulling the Emergency Release lowered the doors and locked the Landing Gear Handle in the down position. If the gear handle was moved to the "UP" position while on the ground the gear would retract as soon as the aircraft was moved. Crew chiefs also liked the flaps down because the refueling crews could then reach the wing fuel ports from the ground.

 

To get my canopy to sit properly I had to trim about 1-2 mm from the bottom of the canopy cross brace where it attaches to the canopy and bevel the lower edge of the canopy to a near knife edge from about 3 mm aft of the canopy bow.

 

Cheers,

Rich

Edited by Rich B
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2 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

I like the weathering, especially the underside.

 

John

 

34 minutes ago, Andwil said:

Fantastic, really good job Pappy.

 

AW

 

Thanks very much fellas

 

21 minutes ago, Rich B said:

Looking good.  Looks like the wingtips have sprouted screamers.

 

To reduce weight the P-51D had the weight on wheels safety system eliminated.  Pulling the Emergency Release lowered the doors and locked the Landing Gear Handle in the down position. If the gear handle was moved to the "UP" position while on the ground the gear would retract as soon as the aircraft was moved. Crew chiefs also liked the flaps down because the refueling crews could then reach the wing fuel ports from the ground.

 

To get my canopy to sit properly I had to trim about 1-2 mm from the bottom of the canopy cross brace where it attaches to the canopy and bevel the lower edge of the canopy to a near knife edge from about 3 mm aft of the canopy bow.

 

Cheers,

Rich

G:'day Rich,

 

Yeah all the cool kids have screamers on their wingtips. Actually I was um, 'ínspred' by your build to include the screamers, I did not notice these when I was looking at my refs, they are easy to miss, but when I went looking for them, sure enough, there they were, good pick-up. Good gouge on the u/c system as well.

 

Thanks for the tip ref the canopy, my dry fitting indicated that some sanding of the inner canopy frame would be required to get a natural 'sit' as the canopy is slid backwards, I have yet to do this but I did remove the canopy cross brace  in preparation, hopefully that will be last job to do before I can put this one to bed, I hope next weekend,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

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