A 1:72 Mustang trio, a B, a Mk III and a Mk IVa - No lets add another B and make it 4 Mustangs instead- All Now Complete

[Cheshiretaurus]

Have had these on the bench since just before Christmas but haven't got around to making a post yet.

 

So what are we building. :-

 

The kits:-

 

Academy B & C

The parts on these are identical so one will become a B model and the other a MkIII

 

 

and an Airfix D with the old Matchbox decals

 

I have on order a Freightdog Mustang IV conversion to make this into a Mk IVa and will be in the colours of Dooleybird.

 

Image from scalemates

 

 

A few pics of the progress

 

 

 

I believe the RAF preference was for a black floor.

 

Airfix control column broke on removal from the sprue I repaired it but obviously not well enough as it broke again but this time to the carpet monster.

A 0.3mm rod to fix, will be painted in due course.

 

Tamiya tape harness, cockpits dry brushed, Humbrol gloss coted, Flory grime washed then, Humbrol Matt coted

 

Instrument panels dry brushed

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ive now closed up the fuselages they are still setting

 

Wings are also closed up and once set I'm going to set to work with the seam lines.

 

Ironically Christmas day gave me a fourth Mustang in my cracker. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 It was a 30 second build.

 

 

 

 

More to follow

 

Regards

CT

[Courageous]

Racing along there CT, looking great.

 

Stuart

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good morning CT

Welcome aboard and very nice start

Have fun

Patrice

[Cheshiretaurus]

This is things at close of play last night. Todays plan is to blend the seams then mate the wings and tails on the Academy Mustangs but not the Airfix. That has a resin lower nose to fit to make it a mk IVa. I think the tail can go on today though while I await the nose from Hannants.

CT

[gingerbob]

Goodness, talk about jump-starting a build thread!

[Toryu]

Bravo for building a mix of -Bs and -Ds. I tried this many years ago and gave up because they seemed too different.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Lunchtime update.

 

Fuselage seams have been blended only a few minor imperfections remained and were marked with pencil. Also found I had lost part of the control column from one of the Academy kits too. 

 

 

A little sprue goo and let that set.

Also put the tail on the Airfix D and found the control column 😀 Which shall remain bagged until just before the canopy goes on.

 

Bit more sanding later and wheels to paint soon and props to make.....

 

CT

 

[Courageous]

Steaming ahead CT and looking great.

Looking at your radiator exhausts on your builds, I wonder on my own builds, what colour are they meant to be; underside colour, interior colour, other?

 

Stuart

[Cheshiretaurus]

22 minutes ago, Courageous said:

,what colour are they meant to be; underside colour, interior colour, other?

That Im not certain of, I'm intending to do those and possibly the undercarriage bays in vomit yellow zinc chromate primer unless i can find out different. The black you see on the Airfix fuselage is just Mr surfacer 1500 black.

 

Im also not sure if i should put aluminium down or zinc chromate or even use both in different areas in preparation for hairspray chipping. 

 

Been practicing that on this old Novo spit painted with MRP. Still not done it on an actual build yet. Still need a bit more practice I think. 

Wings have gone on the Academy Mustangs tonight pics later.

[Graham Boak]

Only the visible spar was zinc chromate, and presumably then only on metal finish aircraft - but I can't swear to that.

[Courageous]

FWIW, I found this useful, post #3:

 

Stuart

[RidgeRunner]

They are looking good, CT.

[Cheshiretaurus]

10 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Only the visible spar was zinc chromate, and presumably then only on metal finish aircraft - but I can't swear to that.

 

10 hours ago, Courageous said:

FWIW, I found this useful, post #3:

 

Stuart

Going to have a good read of that. Thanks

 

Wings went on last night. Need to do some more blending and rescribing lost panel lines.

Undercarriage was primed with Mr surfacer. 

 

Alclad dull aluminium went on  the undercarriage this morning.

 

CT 

[RidgeRunner]

13 hours ago, Cheshiretaurus said:

Been practicing that on this old Novo spit painted with MRP. Still not done it on an actual build yet. Still need a bit more practice I think.

Pardon my ignorance, mate, but what is spit painting?

[Cheshiretaurus]

5 minutes ago, RidgeRunner said:

Pardon my ignorance, mate, but what is spit painting?

Spit.....Spitfire 👍

[RidgeRunner]

Er..... Too early in the morning for my old brain

 

Have a good and productive day, mate

 

Martin

Edited December 30, 2019 by RidgeRunner

[Cheshiretaurus]

14 minutes ago, RidgeRunner said:

 

Have a good and productive day, mate

 

Work day today

 Not much mustang building today. 😪

[Ratch]

MRP?

[Cheshiretaurus]

45 minutes ago, Ratch said:

MRP?

A lovely range of airbrush ready lacquer paints https://mrpaint.sk

[Cheshiretaurus]

Still blending joins and scribing panel lines back in.

 

Last post of the year contained these 2 goodies

 

 

A very good wealth of diagrams and information. 

 

While ive been rescribing the usual panel lines back across the centre line ive also been putting the cowling fasteners back in that been sanded away.

 

The Merlin engined Mustangs upper cowl has a split along the centre so Ive tried to recreate this but need to get 30 or so screws all lined up neatly.

 

So heres the plan.....

 

First some measuring up to make a template guide.

 

Both Acadamy and Airfix kits match up for size in this area so just need one template.

 

Next is to decide where the screws will be and do a bit of drawing. The long horizontal line represents the centre line of the cowl. The other two lines represent the line of screws on either side. The vertical lines mark where each screw will be. With me? No? Read on then.

 

From this i printed four of the templates onto some clear inkjet decal film and made a decal in the normal way.

While thats drying I scribed the centre line onto the Airfix Guinea pig with 3M tape as a guide.

 

Next is apply the decaled template guide

 

You see the plan coming together now?

Ive removed the centre black line from the decal as made things too cluttered and I can use the scribed line to line the two remaining black lines centrally either side.

Next was to go along with a sewing machine needle in a pin vice pushing a mark in plastic for each screw.

 

Once each screw is marked I removed the decal to reveal the fastening screws 

I could call things complete at this stage but i decided go a stage further and deepen each one with a 0.25mm drill bit.

In this pic I'm partway through so you can see the difference between the indentations and the drilled ones.

 

And this one complete

 

One down two to go.

 

CT

 

 

 

 

[Bedders]

Nice job on those fasteners CT. When I started building Airfix mustangs I found the prospect of doing the fasteners a touch too daunting, so took a policy decision not to try it. Something to review in light of your template masterstroke...

 

Justin

[Cheshiretaurus]

Been working on Dooleybird last couple of days. The freight Dog Mk IVa conversion arrived a couple of days ago. 

 

Nose was cut off from under the Airfix P51D and the new nose CAed  into place. This left a few gaps that needed filling, I suspect it was my poor accuracy in hacking off the Airfix nose that was to blame rather than the Freight dog part.

 

 

 

CA and zip kicker followed by sanding then repeat to blend and get the profile back. I'm now happy with the shape but I've lost some scribe lines so will need to put them back before putting the fasteners back in.

 

 

Still more work to do there on that bit.

 

Moving further aft the seam line for the oil cooler is a bit in accessible so I addressed that with a slither of 5thou plasticard still to be sanded, small task but at least I feel I got somewhere with it.

 

 

And wheels painted too.

 

Then today this arrived all the way from Australia many thanks to Rabbit Leader, Its the decal sheet from the  old Airfix P51B Hun Hunter Texas. So this means I can have a 3rd Academy P51B on the go now making 4 P-51s for this GB

 

So I got to start that build as well. 

 

All happy today in the CT aircraft factory.

 

 

 

[Cookenbacher]

Great stuff CT, the Freightdog chin looks nice, I've got a few, but haven't used them yet. Brilliant tip on using the plasticard to cover the inaccessible seam under the cooler.

[Cheshiretaurus]

Crikey has it been a month since my last update? Id better get cracking on then.

 

4th P51 has been assembled for the Hun Hunter, Built exactly the same as the other Academy ones however with the previous two builds ended up with a step between the lower nose and the lower wing that I had to sand level.

 

The step as on the 1st two builds

 

Or have a gap

 

I know I'll put some plasticard in as a spacer

 

Think that did the trick

 

Problem fixed just to blend and smooth out now.

 

That was couple of weeks ago, today I got another chance to do some building, I've done the same again with a bit of plasticard to cover the inaccessible seam line on the Academy P51s too. Once set I smoothed out the exposed trailing bit of card. 

 

Ive also been filling any remaining visible blemishes with sprue goo and once set sanded those smooth.

 

Now to rescribing lost panel lines. 

 

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to see clearly enough (even with optivisors) when scribing exactly how things are going due to having a light grey scribe line on a light grey plastic, I need more contrast so latest technique I'm employing on this is to spray the black primer first before starting the scribing. I find black easier on the eye to see surface detail. The idea is the scribed lines with become light grey exposed plastic against the black background. Ive recently tried this method on another build with good success. After the scribing session I'll go back over those ares with the black primer. 

 

This evening Ive given them all a coat of Mr Surfacer 1500 black thinned with the new Mr Rapid thinner.  I quite like this new thinner, great for matt finishes, Of course Mr Levelling thinner will still be used for gloss finishes.

 

 

Think I'm finished modelling for the night .

 

Goodnight and thanks for looking.

 

CT

[Smudge]

These are coming along nicely.

 

On 01/01/2020 at 19:18, Cheshiretaurus said:

 

 

 

This is interesting. I spent an hour or two this afternoon filling panel lines and joints on my Airfix kit, including the centre line down the top of the cowling. Maybe I shouldn't have been so thorough