Revell P-51D Tuskagee

[Herrick]

As with my Spit, I started this a long time ago, before a house move and then parked it for ages. I came back to it and picked up where I had stopped.

I'm late in posting this to WIP, having done (and re-done) work and by asking questions in different areas of this site, so I'm not going to repeat myself.

 

The first step was to try out the airbrush, which I hadn't touched for about 5 years!

Here's a sequence of pictures:

The nose had a huge step that had to be eradicated and suffered from only my second attempt at using Milliput. That's obviously a knack to it that I haven't got yet!

The mask for the ammo bay was carefully cut from card and held in place by Vallejo Liquid Mask. Unfortunately, this lifted the surrounding paint when I removed the mask.

I'll try to use something gentler to hide recesses like wheel wells in future. ( Thanks to all those who have alreay offered suggestions re this issue).

The tail was masked for the Tuskagee red to be applied and the yellow stripes added to the wings.

I'm not happy with the colour of the yellow stripe, I can see no difference between that and the wheel wells. It's supposed to be Insignia Yellow. The wheels wells are supposed to be Chromate Yellow. ( I was just following the kit paint scheme here. I've since seen the many references to this being a green... sigh!)

I then tried adding some decals. I haven't done this since I was about 11 years old, and I was better at it then!

The one I tried first was on the upper wing, a stupid choice with hindsight but I wasn't expecting any problems. Vallejo fixing solution followed by application of decal. This was from a Warbirds set sourced from Hannants. The decal broke up as soon as I tried to apply it - into multiple pieces. I managed to repair most of it but it's still ugly and has not conformed to the contours of the raised sections on the wing.

I got some Microscale Liquid Decal Film and used that on the next decal and that got applied with much more success, using Vallejo Decal softener, it looks far better.

Port wing:

Starboard wing

 

And finally for now, I added the nose to the plane and discovered the step that needed to be dealt with .

 

That's where I am at present.

The main things that I've learned from this effort are :

• Dry fit parts first. Don't assume parts will fit properly.
• Paint only those pieces that you won't be able to easily get to later.
• Assemble and then fill and smooth.
• Then paint. Work out a paint plan. Handle the model with extreme care, wearing disposable gloves when into the painting process to avoid creating finger prints.
• Apply decals almost as a last step. Make sure the surface is free of any debris, no matter how small. Use the Liquid Decal Film, I'll use it on any decal I apply now. Use a fixer and softener or follow the excellent advice in the Decals forum. I intend to use Lakeland Quickfloor when I can get some.
• Finish with an appropriate varnish or said Quickfloor.
• Always expect the unexpected.

See you soon!

[dogsbody]

So, this is the Revell re-pop of the Monogram 1/48 kit.

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Herrick]

Slow progress on this recently; real life interfered!

The step on the nose has been smoothed out and the trim surfaces painted white. I really must get on with this!

[Herrick]

A little more progress today. Port side decals added.

[Jackson Duvalier]

Good to see you plugging along in spite of the travails.  😎

 

These good old Monogram kits are still buildable!

[Herrick]

I realise that I've been making progress with this but not posting. Time to remedy that.

The result of applying Flory.

The Vallejo aluminum finish has really suffered during this whole process. Part of it is my doing, I seem to be heavy handed, but part is down to the paint itself being so soft.

I finished applying the decals, using a mix of Warbirds and the boxed set. I've been scouring the net trying to find pictures of the Red Tails planes but there don't seem to be many, what there are are distance shots in b/w and most of them seem to refer to those two awful films, so I've ended up just using my imagination

I have never use Flory before, in fact I hadn't even heard of it until I started reading Spadgent build of Revell's 1/32 scale of the same model.

I've probably been too heavy handed ( it's a thing):

I like the way it highlights. There's precious little surface detail on this model but the result of applying has taken away some of that obviously 'plastic model' feel. I also used some Humbrol black wash on the wheel wells which looked way too clean for the floried body.

Taking pictures like this is very unforgiving...

The view from the top of the cleaned up plane.

I'm dreading the moment when I try to clean up the canopy!

Before I apply a coat of Satin varnish to protect it, I want to try to create an impression of exhaust marks on the fuselage. I have no idea how to do that, so there will probably be something of a wait before this gets posted to RFI.

Have a good week!