F-51D Was that too fast?

[Biggles87]

Yesterday I gently prised off the canopy, and although I thought I had been careful not to get any PVA between it and the windscreen I still managed to pull that say too, which proved to be a good thing as I had not finished painting the gunsight and had some other touching up to do.

A major 'senior moment' then followed when I decided to mask for the anti-glare panel and the bands which run from the gun muzzle panels and extend under the wings to the flap hinge lines, before painting the airframe with metallic grey, meaning that I have will have two lots of masking to do rather than one.Doh! I could remove the masking and do it the normal way around but as it took me an hour to get the masking in place, I'll leave it as it is.

   I have a small amount of Tamiya Nato Black already mixed for airbrushing but this looks too grey compared to my photos which show FF943's anti-glare panel to be in good condition with little or no fading so I will add small amounts of semi-gloss black until it looks right. I will use the same mixture for the wing bands.

Bands and anti-glare painted, they look black don't they? They're not believe me but a very dark grey. Perhaps I was right to paint it in this order because I've got a little paint creep in places which will now be covered by the metallic grey.  I'm still having trouble with the broken wing tip and have again removed the aileron in my attempts to fix it! Third time lucky?

  While waiting for the paint to cure I have turned my attention to the propeller. There are two sets of propeller blades in the Meng kit, Hamilton Standard cuffed and Aeroproducts, neither of which is suitable for this particular aircraft which used the Hamilton Standard uncuffed paddle blade type. I tried to modify the Aeroproducts blades by squaring off the tips but this doesn't look right so I have  attempted to ' uncuff '  the HS blades and square off the tips. I'm still not completely convinced but it will have to do, photos with next update.

That's it for now, hoping to do more spraying in a couple of days.

 

John  

[Biggles87]

Below are the two propellers supplied in the kit , on the left my attempt to adapt the HS blades and the Aeroproducts blades on the right. Also included are the main undercarriage legs, outer and inner doors and the flaps. The Spitfire fuselage is my ' paint mule ' on which I have been experimenting with a metallic grey finish.

 

Having remasked the "black" areas with Friskette to lessen the chance of pulling the paint off later, I have sprayed the airframe with a mixture of Tamiya Metallic Grey and about 5% Light Gull Grey, which I have also sprayed on my paint mule so that I can try out various varnishes and washes to see what effect they have. 

I am having major problems with my internet at the moment ( waiting for a new 'box' ) and it took me nearly 30 minutes to post this, so I'll call it a day for now.

Hoping for an improvement soon.

 

John  

[Johnson]

Playing catch up as usual, a nice build John and as you mentioned earlier an interesting parts breakdown. Still it looks good and is obviously working out, with the odd 'challenge' thrown in here and there. Best wishes for the finish!

Cheers,

[gingerbob]

Looks like very impressive surgery on that prop!

[Biggles87]

Unfortunately, it looks like the curse of the GB has struck again and I will not finish this in time to meet the deadline. The most obvious thing missing is the propeller/spinner assembly, but I also wish to add the drop tanks and some RPs donated by my Eduard Mustang, and of course there's the weathering. Most mustangs in Korea were worked hard and became very dirty and tatty if they survived any length of time.

This is where I've got to so far.

Undercarriage and inner ( fairing ) doors fitted, the outer doors will have to wait until I have finished weathering the tyres, and most of the major decals added.

I'm using a mixture of decals from an old Superscale sheet and the Tamiya ' Korean War ' issue of the P-51. The national markings are came from the Superscale sheet because they are thinner than those by Tamiya and conform to the surface detail better, but the side numbers come from Tamiya. There seemed to be quite a variety of styles for the 'buzz' numbers in Korea and the ones from Tamiya are more accurate for this aircraft, being slightly smaller and thinner than those from Superscale but unfortunately I had already applied the thicker ones to the starboard side before realising that they were wrong. In my attempt to remove the markings I have scratched and removed some of the paint from that side so a small repaint will be necessary. The missing part of the '9' on this side is deliberate, my attempt to replicate scratching caused by the pilot/crew chief while entering and leaving the cockpit, not completely satisfied with that.

 I have used the Superscale decals for the sharkmouth because I know that they react well with MicroSol and they have wrapped under the nose nicely leaving just a little strip between the spinner and carb intake which I will fill with a sliver of red decal intended for another option on the sheet.

You can see that I have started to rub away some of the USAF markings on the upper wing, on some aircraft the 'U' was almost completely obliterated, but as I do not have any photos of the upper wings of this particular aircraft I have settled for some medium weathering in that area and a little on the inner area of the national insignia on the opposite wing.

I will continue with this build in my own time and eventually post it in RFI.

Thanks for watching everyone, I've enjoyed this GB, only sorry I wasn't able to finish it on time.

 

John

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good evening John

 I am sorry to read that you will noet meet the deadline but I am looking forward to see it finished very soon ..

All the best ..

 

Patrice