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Trumpy's P-51B times two - Dominic Gentile and Ralph Hofer


Thomas Lund

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Thanks Nic

 

Didn't mention it, but my main reason for painting the chequers is so that I dont have to match the decal red to my paint for the nose. They will be right beside each other so it will be very visible if they dont match.

I'm still considering how to paint them so that they become equal size and perfectly aligned. Strips of tape I guess...

 

These days I'm trying to finish a couple of hangar queens for a competition later this year...

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Thanks Snussugen - very nice of you.

 

I think my main problem will be to get EXACTLY the same width on all strips of tape so the squares are, well squares. I've just painted invasion stripes on a 1/72 C-47 and it was hard enough to get those to be equal width. I suspect it will be harder with the much smaller squares. The upside is that it's on a relatively flat piece of cowl.

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Tom,

 

This is looking very nice and Gentiles bird along with Hoffers are two of the best looking B models to have flown. Great job...keep it up.

 

Best

 

Geoff

 

Ps

 

I've done the paint checkerboard thing. Your right, it's a pain to cut the masks exactly the same. To eliminate the problem, I cut a piece of label tape (plastic kind) in a long strip, the put that over the masking tape and cut my lines along the edge of the plastic tape. Helps keep everything uniform without having to measure or align a straight edge...hth

Edited by Ironwing
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  • 1 month later...

New guy speaking up!! Looking forward to see how you do the checkerboard. When i did my Trumpeter B in Gentiles markings, i didn't paint. The mismatch looks "off" . Wish i could redo it.

 

Don

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Ha ha Don - I looked at your Mustang and thought the exact opposite - maybe I'll use the decal. You using the decal doesn't scream at me so perhaps it's only you and me that notice since we are/have been doing it. I've been dreading doing those chequers :-)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back on this one too, but what is this - did I start over ?

 

010_zps79611144.jpg

 

011_zps7457a18e.jpg

 

No. I was at my LHS with my buddies and they 'forced' me to buy another P-51B, so I figured that it would be great to do it in parallel with Gentiles. This one is going to be Ralph Hofers bird 'Salem Representative'.

 

hofer_duke.jpg

 

No wonder his nickname was Kid, huh? Looked all over for a figure of Hofer because I really like that he often flew in his football shirt. Didn't find any, but it would have been great - very different

 

hofer_pilots.jpg

 

This one is going to be partially NMF with invasion stripes, OD wings, bubble top canopy and white wall tires. Like in this photo. Except the OD wings, pretty much the exact opposite of Gentiles bird.

 

9169314_orig.jpg

Edited by Thomas Lund
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Guest Peterpools

Thomas

Fantastic start on the double Mustang build. Brilliant work on the front office and interior.

Keep 'em coming

:popcorn: :popcorn:

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Allright - I'm back and I brought the Mustang brothers

 

I had quite a while finishing up for a contest. Only one in 1/32 I brought was my zero, but also a couple of others you can see in 'Non LSP work' plus one you can see in the 'LSP discussion/... binned kits' (such is life).

 

After that I spent a very long time prepping these for paint - very tedious, especially for Salem Representative as it was to be partially NMF.

 

So that's the reason why it has taken so long.

 

I also spent some time researching the paint schemes. Shangri-la is well documented, but I found out one thing that escaped me earlier and even some of the decal manufacturers. The basic OD/NG planes of the 8th AF had the white stripe on top/bottom of the wing and horizontal stabilizer - but Shangri-la did not have it on the stabilizer. Here you go - Shangri-la at the end - no stripes

 

shangla.jpg

 

So, painting is underway - I deliberately overdid the variations in the color, because in my experience when you put on a few coats of varnish, they easily disappear.

 

002_zps86169791.jpg

 

A little liquid mask under the paint for later chipping

 

003_zps23635577.jpg

 

004_zps67d6cecc.jpg

 

So, next up - painting the red nose... I admit, I've chickened out of painting the chequers. I tried to cut some strips of 2.25mm consistently, but failed. I am going to have to match up the red to the decals - fortunately i have two sheets with Shangri-la so that should make it just a little bit easier

 

Now Salem representative was a bit harder and gave me some worries. Natural metal birds often had the black stripe in the same position as the white above. I would be doing Salem Representative with invasion stripes so it didn't matter with the wing, but the horizontal tail was again the question. If you look at the picture I posted earlier, in my opinion the jury was out. Coupled with this image I thought the black stripes were overpanted with OD (wing, tail and fuselage top was OD):

 

xi_rev.jpg

 

Clearly the stripe is not very black, so I thought black showing through the OD. However fielding the question on hyperscale it was replied that many thought the stripe was actually red. SR had a red stripe on the vertical tail (that's for sure) so it was not completely unlikely. The deal breaker for me was this image: It is well known that Hofer had 'Kidd' written on a red field on the left UC door. In this image it is clear that the field is not black so red is very likely. Also the stripe on the wing is not black either, so I suppose it's red but still it seems odd to me. Think I need a little time to adjust ;-)

 

Hofer_zpscb6a1153.jpg

 

So far SR has gotten alclad NMF (perhaps a few more shades to follow) and the white for invasion stripes

 

008_zps9c0e8a51.jpg

 

010_zpsa770c4da.jpg

 

Starting to look like something I think

Edited by Thomas Lund
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