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Revell P-51D - Great, or merely Good, or ??


CANicoll

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As promised

 

The cooling pack gaps:

 

Cooler-pack-1.JPG

 

And the back:

 

Gap-4.JPG

 

Having worked hard at getting the fuselage to click onto the wing, I got this:

 

root-1.JPG

 

root-2.JPG

 

Which I think is pretty good

 

On the cowl I got this:

 

Cowl-1.JPG

 

Nothing too scary in that lot

 

The panel under the nose is a bit small:

 

Nose-1.JPG

 

This is how I am handling the gun fairing:

 

Guns-1.JPG

 

I sawed nearly through the back behind the gun barrels so I could spread the top and bottom apart a bit more. Now I'm going to align the fairing as good as possible, then handle the gap along the front edge

 

Finally, I have tried to illustrate the flaps issue. 

 

Flaps-1.JPG

 

I have scribbled across the flaps with a pencil, I'm showing the top of one flap, the bottom of the other. Next I rubbed some 1200 grit paper across the flap, showing this:

 

Flaps-2.JPG

 

There's quite a shrinkage groove along both sides. I'm going to fill those

 

There you go, that's what I found. Next job - filler

 

Richard

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A question guys : Eduard sells a resin replacement propeller. Is there anything wrong with the kit propeller?

Not that I can see. I bought the Eduard prop, and doubt I'll use it. It's nice it you want to show the spinner removed, but with the prop and spinner fully assembled, not much difference. I do think the exhausts and wheels are worth it, though.

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Kit prop looks good to me.. 

 

Kit Exhausts also look good they are fairly easily opened up with a drill bit. With a bit of minor modification it's possible to fit the exhausts and shrouds after painting.. 

 

I got some Barracuda wheels more to try out then any desperate need. 

 

HTH

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Guest Clunkmeister

I'm no P-51D fanatic, but I had to have one.

 

I have a passion for the A and B Mustangs, and short of a P-51B, I'll settle for the fillet less D.

 

Rick Griewski arranged my kit for me, (thanks, buddy, seriously!), and the first thing I did when it arrived was to spread it all out on the kitchen table to see what all the big fuss was about.

 

My very first reaction was "NO RIVETS, we finally have a smooth wing."

Then, "What an awesome cockpit!"

Last, I thought, "Those wheels gotta go." Not because they're bad, but just because I have a drawer full of resin replacements I'll never use if I don't start now.

 

The lack of fuselage rivets is no big deal for me as most of these early D's wore a coat of OD green anyway.

 

I'm not a fan of the kit decals, but there plenty of options out there.

It's Jack Ilfrey's mount for me, FYI.

 

I see no big building issues. Yeah there's some flash, sink marks, and ejection marks. If it's a problem for you, it's time to suck it up and deal with it.

My flaps look OK, and judging by what others on here have found, careful trimming and clamping will allow the cockpit, oil cooler, tail areas to fit without much effort.

Like others have said, the second one will be better than the first, no doubt.

Save your money on questionable kit fixes, get some HGW seatbelts, some extra placards and wheels, and build.

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I see no big building issues...

Easy to say with the sprues spread out on the kitchen table.

 

Build it, and then tell us how easy it was for you to invest hours into cleaning up parts so that they fit, and then test-fitting & fiddling several steps ahead just to make sure none of the plethora of fit problems doesn't cause compounding fit problems on down the line.

 

All of the negative comments made so far have been fair and accurate, if maybe a little too kind.

 

I spent 3 hours just this evening getting the canopy parts to fit the fuselage. Shims for the windscreen in both width and height, more shims to spread the sliding part to almost fit the fuselage lines (closed canopy). Still had to take a file to the fuselage and grind/sand it down to blend it in with the lines of the sliding canopy. 

 

For a canopy. I don't recall the last time that fitting any canopy presented such a problem. The leftover canopy parts from one of my Zoukei Mura P-51D builds actually fit better on the Revell fuselage than the Revell canopy parts did. The ZM parts are of vastly superior quality, too. But, I decided to go with the Revell canopy parts on a coin toss. Literally. 

 

Speaking of Zoukei Mura's P-51D kits, they're known far and wide for being fiddly to assemble. Having built 2 of them so far, I can confirm that assessment. I would also classify this new Revell kit squarely in that same category of excessively fiddly assembly from start to finish. Anyone seeking refuge from the supposedly tedious nature of the Tamiya and Zoukei Mura P-51D kits will not find relief inside of the Revell box. 

 

Two cliches constantly came to mind while building this kit: "Great kit for the price" and "You get what you pay for".

 

I bought this kit pretty much on a dare for $32 at the rip-off LHS. Thanks Troy. ;) I won't be buying any more of them. 

 

D

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All very interesting, however I have had no fit issues what so ever - had a few sink marks on the flaps due to the thickness of the plastic, but everything else went together without gaps or having to shim anything. In fact, the engineering and design of this kit is so to my liking that once I started, I couldn't put the kit down. The only modification I did was to drill out the lightening holes on the forward framing of the gear bay, both left and right sides.

It's a beautiful little kit - and appeals to my design and asthetic tastes!

Cheers

Alan

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I spent time last night final assembling the cockpit, everything fit together well. The rear bulkhead was a tight fit and had to clamp it, and it will need sanding to close up the fuselage gaps On the spine a bit. The front was better, no gaps anywhere, just some sink marks than need filling. The wing is an engineering marvel, every piece fit properly, and successively, with one of the best fit of any Revell kit I have worked on. I no longer question why so many pieces for the wing, now I see clearly why, nice. As someone mentioned, the windscreen will need shimming, not close enough, and filler won't help.

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Strange. Some have fit issues, and many say they have 0 fit issues other than the known quantity of removing flash and filling sink marks. I wonder if there is any particular issue with assembly steps where one step out of alignment or done incorrectly puts consecutive steps out of whack.  Just spit balling here, as I have the kit, but just find it odd that some have had many issues and others none. 

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Brian, I believe that there is a vast spectrum of skills and approaches to construction when it comes to building and constructing a kit... I tend to be extremely conservative when it come to constructing a new kit - I will test fit almost all major parts and assemblies before committing any glue... there is no real *correct* way to go about it, we each have our own preferences and strategies. I do believe this is why we see so many discrepencies in fit and construction....

I built the ZM Ta-152 too, and had no problems with the construction and I remember reading a review where the builder/reviewer had declared the kit a disaster and practically unbuildable..... where in fact he actually had only demonstrated a sloppy and unskilled attempt at construction.

Cheers

Alan

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