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Revell P-51 wheels up


Bstarr3

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Some more work on the front office. I'm still waiting on a Royal Mail delivery with my pilot figure, so unfortunately I'm getting to a point where I can't do a whole lot more assembly until I have that. Starboard side is glued on, port side is dry-fitted. Seems to go together very well. Still needs a wash for detail.

 

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20180321_235842.jpg

 

20180321_235847.jpg

 

20180321_235853.jpg

 

Fuselage halves dry fitted with cockpit in place. Looks like the windscreen will need a little shimming. Anyone who's been able to put this kit together without shimming out the windscreen - anything I could do on the inside to make it fit?

20180322_000744.jpg

 

20180322_000747.jpg

 

Here's the fuselage halves taped together. Seems like a good fit. No big gaps, but there will definitely be a seam to work out.

20180322_000808.jpg

Edited by Bstarr3
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Anyone who's been able to put this kit together without shimming out the windscreen - anything I could do on the inside to make it fit? 

File and/or sand the outsides of the cockpit until the fuselage fits together better. See all those ejector pin marks on the outside of the cockpit frames? Use those as a guide for removing material - keep grinding away until they are flush.

 

Also, dry fit the wing top and radiator ducting at the same time. The fit of those parts will also be affected by the width of the cockpit and radiator ducting. Same thing goes for the tail halves around the tail wheel well parts.

 

HTH,

D

Edited by D Bellis
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File and/or sand the outsides of the cockpit until the fuselage fits together better. See all those ejector pin marks on the outside of the cockpit frames? Use those as a guide for removing material - keep grinding away until they are flush.

 

Also, dry fit the wing top and radiator ducting at the same time. The fit of those parts will also be affected by the width of the cockpit and radiator ducting. Same thing goes for the tail halves around the tail wheel well parts.

 

HTH,

D

Thanks.  So, you suggest fitting it all together - wing top, radiator, fuselage halves, tail - and sanding the cockpit framing to adjust fit? Or just the tail as a separate thing?

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Thanks.  So, you suggest fitting it all together - wing top, radiator, fuselage halves, tail - and sanding the cockpit framing to adjust fit? Or just the tail as a separate thing?

Dry fit the fuselage together with the wing top, radiator ducting with the tail wheel well assembled, as well as the aft fuselage/tail halves. Then, sand down the cockpit assembly, tail wheel well assembly and radiator ducting assembly before closing up the fuselage. 

 

Get all of those parts to fit together without having to squeeze anything before committing to glue, and you'll save yourself a lot of filling and sanding later. 

 

Still, there is no guarantee that the windscreen or canopy will fit properly without shimming.

 

HTH,

D

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What! Your windscreen does not fit! How dare you defile the reputation of Revell Germany! You heathen! :rofl:

 

 

Seriously. Take it apart and sand the crap out of the cockpit sidewalls, get it to fit loose in the fuselage, if you just fill the gaps, nothing else wit fit correctly. I'm sure, as others have pointed out, if you just tape the fuselage without the cockpit, things fit better. Cockpit spreads the sides apart and causes fit issues. I believe that sanding the outsides of the cockpit will solve most of those issues, makes sure you take care of the full length of the cockpit sides, as neither the windscreen or canopy will fit right. 

 

Unfortunately, I didn't fit the clear parts until after everything was glued together.  :doh:

 

I ended up using some .010 x .020 styrene stock glued to the cockpit sides to spread the windscreen apart, i set the height by hand so it was level along the top, then glued it in, this left a small gap at the bottom edges I filled with acrylic filler. I also made two small "pads" of this stock so it would hold the canopy a little wide in the open position. since yours is going to be closed, its much more critical to get the canopy fit right. 

 

The next one of these I build will definitely be in the in-flight config. As a matter of fact, I am having so much fun building in-flight models, I am already planning an SBD with dive brakes open in a dive with two crew in it. 

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What! Your windscreen does not fit! How dare you defile the reputation of Revell Germany! You heathen! :rofl:

 

 

Seriously. Take it apart and sand the crap out of the cockpit sidewalls, get it to fit loose in the fuselage, if you just fill the gaps, nothing else wit fit correctly. I'm sure, as others have pointed out, if you just tape the fuselage without the cockpit, things fit better. Cockpit spreads the sides apart and causes fit issues. I believe that sanding the outsides of the cockpit will solve most of those issues, makes sure you take care of the full length of the cockpit sides, as neither the windscreen or canopy will fit right. 

 

Unfortunately, I didn't fit the clear parts until after everything was glued together.  :doh:

 

I ended up using some .010 x .020 styrene stock glued to the cockpit sides to spread the windscreen apart, i set the height by hand so it was level along the top, then glued it in, this left a small gap at the bottom edges I filled with acrylic filler. I also made two small "pads" of this stock so it would hold the canopy a little wide in the open position. since yours is going to be closed, its much more critical to get the canopy fit right. 

 

The next one of these I build will definitely be in the in-flight config. As a matter of fact, I am having so much fun building in-flight models, I am already planning an SBD with dive brakes open in a dive with two crew in it. 

Planes are meant to fly, right?  :piliot:

Where'd you find a 1/32 rear seat gunner figure? 

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Working on an SBD, you should definitely check out "Don't Call Me A Hero" if you haven't already.  Dusty Kleiss won the Navy Cross after scoring three direct hits on carriers during Midway.  Very good account of his life, Navy career, and his recollections of Midway, as well as a few other early war engagements. 

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Some more work on the front office.  I'm still waiting on a Royal Mail delivery with my pilot figure, so unfortunately I'm getting to a point where I can't do a whole lot more assembly until I have that.  Starboard side is glued on, port side is dry-fitted.  Seems to go together very well.  Still needs a wash for detail.

 

20180321_235834.jpg

 

20180321_235842.jpg

 

20180321_235847.jpg

 

20180321_235853.jpg

 

Fuselage halves dry fitted with cockpit in place.  Looks like the windscreen will need a little shimming.  Anyone who's been able to put this kit together without shimming out the windscreen - anything I could do on the inside to make it fit? 

20180322_000744.jpg

 

20180322_000747.jpg

 

Here's the fuselage halves taped together.  Seems like a good fit.  No big gaps, but there will definitely be a seam to work out. 

20180322_000808.jpg

 

Where did you get the tape with the measurements on it?  That looks useful.

 

Chris

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Lookin' really nice Brian!

 

I've been away from the computer for a little while, working on my Corsair, so I haven't commented on your finished Mossie which turned out very nice as well. I think you're getting the hang of this model building thing eh?  :thumbsup:

 

Cheers,

Wolf

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Lookin' really nice Brian!

 

I've been away from the computer for a little while, working on my Corsair, so I haven't commented on your finished Mossie which turned out very nice as well. I think you're getting the hang of this model building thing eh? :thumbsup:

 

Cheers,

Wolf

Thanks, Wolf. Yeah, I'm continuing to get better. I've done 7 models in the past year or so, which have been the first I'd done since I was about 13. Thanks for the compliment on the Mossie! I'd love to see you finish yours someday, and give us some more updates on that Corsair!

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Where did you get the tape with the measurements on it? That looks useful.

 

Chris

Chris,

The tape is some washi tape I bought from the scrapbooking section at Michael's. It has similar adhesive properties to Tamiya tape, for much less. As does Frog Tape brand painters tape, by the way

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Chris,

The tape is some washi tape I bought from the scrapbooking section at Michael's. It has similar adhesive properties to Tamiya tape, for much less. As does Frog Tape brand painters tape, by the way

 

Thanks!  I'll check it out.  Was just at Michaels last weekend.

 

Chris

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, I sort of lost the thread as far as WIP pics go. It comes together so quickly once you get the fuselage together that there weren't many progress pics to show. Lots of sanding and filling, rescribing. We're in the initial paint stages now, which is a lot of fun with this multicolored bird.

 

20180325_234130.jpg

 

Here you can see the shim I placed to widen the windscreen, on the port side of the cockpit rail. It's the thinnest sheet I had, which is actually a for sale sign from the hardware store. I ended up slightly overshimming it - one piece wasn't wide enough, and a piece on each side pushed the starboard side of the windscreen slightly proud of the fuselage side. I'm not putting too much concern into it, since this is a quick build by design, and may end up hanging from the ceiling in the garage.

 

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Shim on the other side. You can also see that the Tamiya pilot figure doesn't quite reach the control stick. You can also see a little step at the wing filet, which I was able to sand down to even.

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I read on another thread here about using pink as a primer for yellow. It does work great. Gives a nice warm tone to the yellow, and makes it easier to get good color saturation and coverage.

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Invasion stripes going down and another view of the sunburned nose. Used MRP colors for the stripes - white with a touch of grey and AMT-6 black with some postshading.

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And now to the controversial blue-green camo. I decided to use the scheme as presented in the Revell instructions - darker along the tail and side fuselage, along the wing root, and at the tips of the wings as well. I mixed up a blue color that was 6 drops mission models USN sea blue to 1 drop black. After applying that, I felt like it was too dark, so I went over it with a light mist coat of uncut blue to give a nice overtone of blue to the blue-black color. It's hard to see the blue in these pictures. I apologize for the low quality shots, but again I was so in the groove with building and then painting that I never really stopped to take good ones.

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On the back of the tail here you can see unadulterated USN sea blue. The custom mixed color is much darker.

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And some NMF! I laid down a base coat using Mission Models gloss black, which went down pretty smooth, although I've seen better from others. I left some of the underside in grey primer to give a little more dull, worn look to the aluminum. From the pics of this plane, though, the side fuselage is pretty shiny.

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Left to do now is some touchup of the blue and green areas, and I'm going to free hand the blotchy blue overspray on the leading edge of the fin and over the wing roots. Then we'll pull off the masking and hope that all that effort was worthwhile!

Edited by Bstarr3
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  • 4 weeks later...

First Photobucket, now postimage. Great...

 

Anyway, here's a near finished photo. About halfway through I decided this one was going on the ceiling so I didn't worry too much about details - and it shows. I'll take another snap of it in attack posture hanging from my garage ceiling and we'll call it done.

 

20180410_213001.jpg

Edited by Bstarr3
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