Three more for the Wisconsin Air National Guard

[billn53]

The Bondo has built up the fuselage area beneath the canopy and mitigated the "slab-sidedness" issue. Under a few coats of Mr Surfacer, it's looking presentable and nearly ready for paint.

 

 

I'd like to install the canopy and fair it in to the fuselage prior to painting. Before I can do that, I had to detail the visible areas beneath the canopy, fore and aft of the cockpit:

 

 

 

I used parts from my donor kits, some styrene stock, and a bit of Apoxie Sculpt, to fill in the bare areas:

 

 

I'm calling the cockpit/canopy job mostly done, and moving on to other tasks:

 

 

 

Next item on my list was the horizontal stabilizers. The Matchbox items are excessively thick, so I will be replacing them with their Heller counterparts. In the photo below, Matchbox is on the left, Heller in the middle, and Hobbycraft on the right. 

 

 

 

The F-86A had a traditional elevator, vice the all-moving stabilator of later Sabre models. The elevator included counter-weights near the tips, which I scribed in on both the Heller and Hobbycraft items:

 

 

 

My scribing skills are not the best, as you can tell thanks to the macro lens! 

 

With all that, here's the current status of the Sabre builds. The Hobbycraft is ready for paint, I'm only waiting on the Matchbox to catch up so I can do the painting all at once. For the Matchbox Sabre, I need to finish up a couple items in the cockpit and then add the canopy. After that, the wings and horizontal stabs will go on. When I get to that point, it will be painting time.

 

For markings, I'll do the Hobbycraft as a Wisconsin ANG bird. I'm undecided about what to do with the Matchbox Sabre -- when I started this project, I wasn't expecting to end up with two F-86's.

 

 

[Courageous]

8 hours ago, billn53 said:

My scribing skills are not the best

Ditto, I too void such tasks and do it when it's absolutely necessary. Good going by the way.

 

Stuart

[billn53]

Today's goal was to get the canopy on my Matchbox build.

 

To give the canopy more support when gluing it on, I added thin strips of styrene on either side of the cockpit sill. That creates a glue join to the inner sides of the vacuform canopy, instead of just along the thin lower edge:

 

 

I decided to add a pilot. I used a PJ Productions 1950s USAF pilot figure. The head on the PJ figure seemed to me a bit on the small side, so I transplanted the Matchbox kit's head to the PJ Productions body.

 

 

 

 

I then masked the canopy

 

 

 

and glued it in place with Zap "Formula 560" Canopy Glue:

 

 

 

I'll let that set up overnight, then fair in canopy edges with the fuselage.

[billn53]

While the canopy glue on the Matchbox Sabre was drying, I began work on the Hobbycraft build's Pavla canopy. Pavla's F-86A vacuform canopy comes in two parts: the fixed windscreen, and the sliding canopy section. It is sized for the Airfix kit and is thus a bit narrower than needed for Hobbycraft's F-86. For that reason, I intend to only use the Pavla forward windscreen, and use the kit piece for the sliding section.

 

As can be seen below, some work is needed to fit the Pavla windscreen to the Hobbycraft kit:

 

 

I've highlighted the areas that need to be removed / re-worked here:

 

 

 

I used my trusty rotary tool to do the deed:

 

 

 

In this photo, I've added the kit gunsight section and filled the gap between the gunsight and the forward bump with Apoxie Sculpt. I've also added styrene strips to either side of the gunsight. These serve two purposes: first (as with my the Matchbox build), they provide more gluing surface for the windscreen; second, the strips will force the windscreen to be wider and better conforms with the fuselage sides.

 

 

 

This is the Pavla piece now sitting nicely on the Hobbycraft front end. I was a bit of an overachiever in my grinding forward of the canopy, but the resulting gap should be easily rectified with a bit of putty.

 

 

 

Next step is to mask up the windscreen and glue it in place.

[billn53]

I masked the Pavla windscreen and attached it to the Hobbycraft Sabre with canopy glue. I also applied a generous layer of watch cement (G-S Hypo Cement) along the front edge of the windscreen, thinking it would help fill in the gap where I had carved the fuselage.

 

   

 

 

 

On the Matchbox build, I decided to try using Mr Surfacer 1000 along the edge of the windscreen to help fair it in with the fuselage. More than one application will probably be needed . . .

 

 

I finally glued the wings on to the Matchbox fuselage. I taped 1-mm plastic rod to the wingtips to help achieve the appropriate amount of dihedral.

 

 

There were significant gaps along the ring roots, which I attacked with stretched sprue and sprue gloop. This formula seemed to work very well on my Scorpion, we'll see if I can repeat that success here:

 

 

 

The watch cement and sprue gloop are going to take a while to fully set up, so maybe this is a good time to start the final member of this three-part project:

 

 

 

I've acquired a boat-load of aftermarket I could apply, so I'll take stock of what I have and come up with a plan of action:

 

 

 

 

[opus999]

I've only messed with a pilot twice in my life (coincidentally one was in my John Glenn F-86 build a few years ago), but they do look nice if done right like yours.  The windscreen on the Hobbycraft Sabre turned out nice!

 

I'll be watching the P-51D with interest -- I've got one in the stash and my Dad started one too.  What I saw of his I was pretty impressed with.

[Courageous]

7 hours ago, billn53 said:

More than one application will probably be needed . . .

Things normally look much worse before they get better. Definitely beating this into submission.

 

Stuart

[rob Lyttle]

That was an epic catch up and read! 

Excellent stuff as usual, Bill. Great challenges, and great solutions. 

An F86 with slats and flaps deployed is a pleasure to behold. 

The little Airfix Mustang is a gem of a kit out of the box..... I don’t know where you'll put all the extra stuff 😀

[billn53]

2 minutes ago, rob Lyttle said:

The little Airfix Mustang is a gem of a kit out of the box..... I don’t know where you'll put all the extra stuff 😀

Just wait and see. I just spent a couple hours fitting the CMK interior. It’s actually a pretty close fit, but Airfix’s tight tolerances meant I needed to do some light sanding at strategic points ... the difficulty was finding out where those points were. 
 

Details in my next update.

 

- Bill

[TheRealMrEd]

Bill,

 

It's great to see you cracking the whip on these builds, making them shape up!  Keep up the good work.  Always like to see more bashin'!

 

Ed

[billn53]

Yesterday was Mustang day!

 

The Wisconsin Air National Guard flew P-51s from their inception in 1947 until 1953, when they transitioned to the F-89 Scorpion. I will be building this P-51D of the Wisconsin ANG (or one very much like it), circa 1948:

 

 

 

Colors are reported to be: Red nose, red & black striped tail, black anti-glare panel, and NMF fuselage.

 

I inventoried my aftermarket options to decide which to include in this build. The answer (surprise!) was: all of it. Let's take a look at the major items:

 

The Airfix cockpit is well detailed and perfectly acceptable as-is (except for the instrument panel, which I'll discuss later). The CMK interior set takes the level of detail one notch higher:

 

    

 

The CMK kit includes a seat with a PE harness, but I prefer to use the QuickBoost seat which has its belts molded in. Here it is compared to the Airfix seat:

 

 

 

Airfix's instrument panel is, well, disappointing. I will be using a replacement from Yahu. (And, yes, I realize the Yahu IP is for an early P51-D, but it's close enough for me considering it will be barely visible once installed)

 

 

 

The kit's propeller is nicely done, but the wrong style for the particular aircraft I'm modeling. I'm forced to use a QuickBoost prop, which comes with individual blades 🙁 (I much prefer single-piece props, there's less of a chance I'll muck it up!)

 

   

 

That's it for the major AM items. I do have a couple of other items I'll probably include, such as a set brass gun barrels. We'll see when I get to that point.

 

I began with the instrument panel. The CMK interior set has a panel which is supposed to be perched on top of a center console. This seemed pretty iffy, so I decided to use the Airfix piece instead (with Yahu panel) which securely mounts to the fuselage floor:

 

 

 

 

A little surgery later, and I had the Airfix panel in place:

 

 

 

A test fit confirmed the panel fits nicely in the fuselage:

 

 

 

However, I found that the fuselage refused to close up with the CMK interior in place. It took me a while to discover where the problem was, but eventually I corrected the fit by sanding down the CMK piece along its sides, bottom, and front bulkhead. I also ground a bit of the fuselage as insurance for the IP fit:

 

 

 

This may appear to have been a lot of work, but the CMK piece is actually very close to the original kit parts in size, and only minor sanding was needed to make it fit. Much less work than I've had to do with most other resin cockpit replacements.

 

I next removed the fuselage sidewall detail and glued the CMK pieces in place. Here they are after a shot of interior green:

 

 

While I had paint in the cup, I went ahead and did the landing gear wells:

 

 

 

Next followed a couple hours work detail-painting the interior, using photos of an actual cockpit as a guide:

 

   

 

   

 

I also painted this radiator piece, which must be installed prior to closing the fuselage:

 

 

 

Last chance to see my interior work, before I glue the fuselage halves together. (my apologies for the less-than-sharp focus)

 

   

 

And then, before I knew it, the fuselage was zipped up:

 

 

 

Not bad for a day's work!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[2996 Victor]

Very nice work, indeed! The interior is excellent. I'll be following your Mustang's progress, and scrolling back to page one and reading from the top as well!

 

The CMK parts look quite nice, but I have to say the Quickboost seat is a huge improvement. I've stuck with the kit item and added Eduard etched belts to mine, which were a diabolical fiddle! I'm also a huge fan of Yahu's instrument panels, and use them wherever possible!

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[billn53]

Switching back to the F-86's, the forward windscreens faired in nicely. I sprayed the canopy framing on both Sabres in preparation for doing the natural metal finish.

 

 

 

I glued the horizontal stabilizers in place, using a template to ensure the dihedral was correct:

 

 

The Matchbox Sabre has a couple of large holes at the rear, for over-sized fuel dump pieces. These should have been taken care of much earlier, but better late than never! I filled the holes with sprue gloop and will use better parts from my donor kit for the fuel dumps:

 

 

While the sprue gloop is hardening, I began work on the minor pieces that will eventually find their way on the Sabres. I felt the slats on the Hobbycraft kit were too thick at the trailing edge, so I used a scraper to create more of a knife edge:

 

 

I also applied a base coat of paint on the smaller pieces (flaps & slats, landing gear doors, pylons, fuel tanks, etc). Most of these got Alclad medium gloss gray, but I sprayed the fuel tanks and slats with Tamiya XF-1 gloss black. I plan to paint those items with Xtreme Metal polished aluminum (vice plain aluminum for the rest of the plane). If they turn out too shiny, I'll tone them down with the plain aluminum.

 

 

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow I'll get the gloss gray base coat on the two Sabres, and when that's dry I'll apply the first (of what will likely be many) natural metal finish.

[neil5208]

Good start on the Mustang Bill, have you checked the main undercarriage yet? The two kits I have done both had distorted main legs, one I could straighten and the other Airfix replaced.

[billn53]

13 minutes ago, neil5208 said:

Good start on the Mustang Bill, have you checked the main undercarriage yet? The two kits I have done both had distorted main legs, one I could straighten and the other Airfix replaced.

Hmmm.... I'll have to check. I have two more kits in the stash, hopefully if this one has a bum leg I can find a replacement there.

[opus999]

Boy, that Mustang was buttoned up quick!  I'm impressed with the detail Airfix put in there, but the AM parts are much better.  Those Yahu IP's look really neat, but I think I would be too disappointed when I discover they are barely visible.  The cockpit turned out fantastic, though!  Hard to believe it is 1/72.

 

bummer to hear about possible bum legs in the Mustang kits.  I'll have to check the one in my stash.

[billn53]

10 minutes ago, opus999 said:

 

bummer to hear about possible bum legs in the Mustang kits.  I'll have to check the one in my stash.

Yeah, one of my legs was bent (part #9).  I was able to make it more-or-less straight with a little heat. I’ll check the other kits in my stash and, if necessary, send Airfix a replacement request. 

[billn53]

This morning I sprayed the two Sabres with their base coat of Alclad gloss medium gray, and set them aside to allow the paint to fully cure:

 

 

 

That done, I turned my attention back to the Airfix P-51D kit. Having closed the fuselage, the next task was to assemble and install the wings. The wing consists of a full-span lower part and two upper pieces. Fit is very good, the only potential issue I found was at the wingtips, where the lower piece fit a bit too deep into the upper section, creating a step with the wingtip. I fixed this by adding very thin (about 0.2-mm) shims to the upper piece:

 

 

Other than at the aforementioned wingtips, no putty was needed. I did run a bead of Mr Surfacer along the the leading edge (just to be sure). The only area where it made any significant difference was at the gun ports:

 

 

 

Speaking of guns, you might have noticed I cut away the molded-in barrels from the wing. Instead, I added a set of aftermarket brass barrels from Master Model:

 

 

First step was to drill out holes for the brass pieces (easier said than done):

 

 

Then the brass parts were assembled. This was very tricky, as I had to insert a very tiny gun barrel into a slightly larger brass tube. I lost a couple of barrels when they went too far down into the tube and refused to come back out. Fortunately, spares were included (and, I used them all!). Here's my final result:

 

 

 

I didn't pay as much attention to the instructions as I should have, and made a mistake in my assembly. What that was, will be my secret . . . .

 

Adding the wings to the fuselage was a tight fit, and a clamp was needed at the front end to force a minor gap to close. At this point, I also attached the horizontal stabilizers:

 

 

With the wings in place, I could now add the radiator inlet. This piece had significant flash, which was difficult to remove from the narrow opening:

 

 

I also added the radiator flap. Airfix gives the option of having the flap completely open, or completely closed. In the photo of the aircraft I'm modeling, the flap appears to be in an intermediate position, so that's how I modeled it:

 

 

 

Recall that I had previously painted and installed the radiator prior to closing the fuselage:

 

 

Not wanting my work to be ruined by overspray when I paint the fuselage, I had masked the radiator face before closing the fuselage. I'm now concerned that I won't be able to remove the masking, as it's pretty far down and access is limited:

 

 

That's it for today's progress report. Tomorrow, we might see the first coat of NMF go on the Sabres!

[2996 Victor]

Hi Bill,

Great progress all round and a very neat solution to the P-51D wing panel fit - I've salted that away for use when I do mine in the next few days!

The Master gun barrels look very effective, too: I may need to invest in a set of those!

Kind regards,

Mark

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Bill, great work man.  Your Airfix P-51D mileage mirrored mine with the CMK—elevated detail juxtaposed with some well worth effort to make it fit—your IP looks outstanding! (FWIW, I think it edges out Eduard’s)  

 

Only asking this question because I respect your research in these matters—I thought late and post war Mustangs wells were YZC vice IG—that said Guard maintenance did/does a remarkable keeping them flying. Growing up around the VT Guard, I heard retired Crew Chiefs speak of both YZC & IG green on their P-51D/Hs (they probably thought I was a wonked kid asking those questions while they were focused on watching the next F-4 sortie during the open house—but I just wanted my Monogram P-51D to look right). I know sig less about F-86s & I am learning a lot from this build.  I do know that making a Matchbox rock likes yours does takes skill—really impressed with how all these are moving along—best, Erwin

[billn53]

1 hour ago, VT Red Sox Fan said:

I thought late and post war Mustangs wells were YZC vice IG...

 

Hi Erwin!

As to the wheel well color, I'm really not sure and if anyone can definitively tell me it should be yellow zinc chromate, it's not too late to re-paint.

Photos of ANG Mustangs showing the wheel wells are few and far between, much less color photos. I've found a couple b&w photos, one suggests YZC and the other is very dark, like IG.

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Thanks Bill, FWIW, I would stick with IG—without definitive info, I feel it is a safer bet the ANG was moving toward IG vice YZC in parallel with the Active USAF’s then newer models—thanks for your thoughts & well done—really enjoying this build set—best, Erwin

[billn53]

When I was in the Navy, we used to joke that if you gave a sailor a paint brush, he would paint anything what wasn't moving. Yesterday, I fell into that trap with my Mustang. Having installed the wings and stabs, and cleaned up all the seams, I thought I was ready to add the natural metal finish. Photos of the Wisconsin ANG P-51's indicate the aluminum was well-worn, so I first put on a base coat of flat dark gray. That was followed with a mix of XTreme Metal matt aluminum and dark aluminum (3:1 ratio)

 

 

 

It was then that I remembered, on the P-51, most wing panel lines were puttied smooth and the wings were painted a gloss aluminum color, not bare metal. So, out with the putty!

 

 

 

But wait, there's more to my sad story!

 

I knew that the P-51 in my photo was not carrying underwing tanks, but I had failed to see the pylon under the wing. Also, I hadn't noticed the zero-length rocket launch rails, even though they are clearly visible in these photos:

 

   

 

Here's a drawing of the launchers, and my less-than-accurate depiction installed under the wings:

 

 

With the wings now more fully detailed, it was back to the paint booth for an overall coat of Mr Surfacer 1200

 

    

 

There's also progress to report on the Sabres!

 

I painted each with a base coat of Xtreme Metal Aluminum, and applied the "polished aluminum through a mottling mask" technique that I had first used on the Scorpion:

 

 

 

After the metallic paints were dry, I sprayed a protective gloss coat of Future and began panel highlighting. The first phase was to apply white aluminum to the moveable surfaces (slats, flaps, ailerons, etc.) and select panels on the tail:

 

 

 

I still have a bunch more panel shading to do, plus weathering of the metallic surfaces, if I am to replicate the appearance of this well-worn Sabre:

 

 

 

 

[opus999]

I don't know if you've seen it, but Eduard's P-51D instructions have a diagram that shows which parts of the tops/bottoms of the wings were Aluminum lacquer and which were bare metal.  I can help you with that if you haven't seen it. What are you planning to use for the aluminum paint on the wings?  I've thought about my approach on the Airfix P-51D kit (when I get to it) and originally thought of using Alclad's High Speed silver, but now I think about Tamiya's  AS-12, which a few people have remarked looks a lot like aluminum lacquer paint to them.

 

I'm intrigued by the AK matt aluminum paint. I know you cut it with Dark Aluminum, so maybe that's why it is reflective as it is in the picture.  The build after next for me is going to be "Geronimo", a Malcolm-hooded P-51B (C?) of the 257th.  The pictures I've found of it show it looking very dull metal.  I have some ideas about what to use, but I'm curious to see how your AK approach pans out here.

 

Love the F-86's -- they're shiny!!!  😎

[billn53]

2 hours ago, opus999 said:

I don't know if you've seen it, but Eduard's P-51D instructions have a diagram that shows which parts of the tops/bottoms of the wings were Aluminum lacquer and which were bare metal.  I can help you with that if you haven't seen it. What are you planning to use for the aluminum paint on the wings?  I've thought about my approach on the Airfix P-51D kit (when I get to it) and originally thought of using Alclad's High Speed silver, but now I think about Tamiya's  AS-12, which a few people have remarked looks a lot like aluminum lacquer paint to them.

 

I'm intrigued by the AK matt aluminum paint. I know you cut it with Dark Aluminum, so maybe that's why it is reflective as it is in the picture.  The build after next for me is going to be "Geronimo", a Malcolm-hooded P-51B (C?) of the 257th.  The pictures I've found of it show it looking very dull metal.  I have some ideas about what to use, but I'm curious to see how your AK approach pans out here.

 

Love the F-86's -- they're shiny!!!  😎

 

Thanks for the tip on the Eduard instructions. I have that kit in my stash but wasn't aware the instructions showed what parts of the wings were lacquer vs bare.

 

I wasn't happy with the XTreme Metal "Matt Aluminum + Dark Aluminum" combination, and since I had to repaint after puttying the wings I went with a different combo: Aluminum + Dark Aluminum (about 2:1 ratio). It is, of course, quite shiny but that I can beat down with a good satin or matt varnish.

 

For the aluminum lacquer on the wings, I did a number of test shots and decided on Tamiya's LP-11 Silver lacquer. This is it compared with AS-12 straight from the rattlecan:

 

 

 

and some of the other LP metallics I looked at:

 

 

 

More in my next post...