JayW

Uh - no. We all know who set the bar on the P-51 and I don't know how that bar could be reset. That is yourself with Lope's Hope. All I can do is to try to clear it, or come in second. I'll be doing my damnedest though.....all the while employing techniques that you taught to me BTW.

Yeah Mike - I have sort of come to the same conclusion. I am happy enough with the blue I concocted. BTW - as can be seen here, that aircraft became the personal mount of a guy named Carl Tafel after Preddy got his D-5. The tail letters changed from HO-P to HO-R, but the "Cripes A Mighty" nose art remained. The time between Preddy giving this aircraft up for his -D model to the time it was lost can be measured in a few weeks. Amazing the loss rate in these fighter groups.... I KNEW you would say that Peter! It remains to be seen if this was a good idea or not. Part of it is just impatience - I couldn't wait to see what it would look like. But then I also do not like heavy duty building (like skinning compound contour) on a big unwieldy model. The size of this section was perfect for such work and at times I felt thankful that the part was separate (like the wing fillet fairing nightmare). I did this on the Corsair, as you will remember - you had the same concern there. It had advantages, and also disadvantages. Paint match for one thing. In this case, my split is along a major manufacturing splice (the firewall). I have some confidence I can match up the skin panels upon installation. And I have a wee bit of oversize on the aft edge to help with that.

Indeed! I hope you one day return to it! Oh I sure have. Creating magic out of thin air, and at this scale - it can be addicting. Plus - the problem solving requirements are unlike what one encounters in a manufactured kit. Wow Peter - you have practically a full airframe in the time it took me to paint my Mustang's exhaust stacks. I need to adopt some of your scratch build techniques and quit trying to do just like the drawings for everything. It saves time. However, your skill set with balsa and brass and P-38 and what have you - well mine doesn't include alot of that. At the moment. Anyway - a fascinating subject. And a fascinating period in aircraft development. The RR Merlin came from these racing seaplanes.

Back from the long Thanksgiving weekend. The last thing I'll do to the nose of Cripes A Mighty is some weathering, and install the exhaust stacks. A few pictures: Dirtied it up with Tamiya Weatherine pastes, painted the fasteners a darker silver, applied a flat coat to the blue. That is about how it's going to look, except oil streaks coming out of the large drain holes (that we almost always see). I will do that much later. For the exhaust stacks, I just painted them with Model Master burnt iron, which was a tad dark and a tad metallic speckly. But a heavy dose of Weatherine "sand" and "light sand" followed by flat coat gave them a more convincing look. Also the aft five stacks have some light gray soot - exhaust stains from the stack in front of each. We invariably see that. I am rather proud of those stacks - they are just like the real thing. I will probably augment some of this weathering over time, but it's just about there I think. Well this is a complete unit that will attach to the rest of the aircraft at some point. Now I have to get to work on the rest of the aircraft. And to do that I have to finish a bunch more surfacing in Rhino. And interspersed with holiday activities. Interesting stuff ahead - stay tuned.

Congratulations on a complicated build. She came out great! And thanks for educating us about the Helldiver. Fascinating!

That was fascinating. I now wonder if my Cripes A Mighty had light blue or medium blue. My color is a medium blue.....

I wonder if there was any kind of serious surface treatment done to aircraft in the field receiving paint jobs. This particular aircraft would have been delivered bare aluminum and an OD anti-glare panel on top of the engine cowls. What would they have done with that? Varnish off the OD, or leave it? Prime underneath the blue? Or not?

With skinning of the engine cowls done, don't you know I could not resist continuing with the blue paint. My first task though was to airbrush on a coat of clear Tamiya X-22, which has worked pretty well for me on aluminum in the past. Then, to paint the steel panels around and behind the exhaust stacks. These panels always have a different darker hue to them, so I tried some Vallejo Metal Color Magnesio, which looked about right. It was too, until it lifted off without the slightest provocation. I mean - it was just ridiculous. So it had to go - all I had to do was tape over it and lift the tape. Presto - the paint came with it. So I substituted some Tamiya light gunmetal. Not totally happy with the metallic look, but at least it doesn't lift up. And then - drum roll - the bluenoser blue. First a test panel which went OK although there were signs of some fragility. No problems laying it down. But to my great dismay, the blue lifts up and chips very easily. Not as much as the Metal Color Magnesio, but very fragile anyway. Well all it has to do is survive the masking and painting of the nose art. So I tried it this morning, and after a few hours I got this: Weathering will make it look the part more, and I will do that in time. The other side: Thunnus made the Cripes A Mighty stencil and outline decal for me. Thanks so much John! What an adventure making that happen. To do that without any appreciable paint lifting was a minor miracle. Thankfully John's stencil was not very tacky, and the Vallejo blue stayed on the surface (if just barely). Had it not, I would have been faced with removing all that blue and converting to Tamiya. More: Maybe I should just quit now. Or, get the exhaust stacks on there, weather it, and stop. This project as much as any other gives me great anxiety. Great satisfaction, but with it great anxiety. I worry I will ruin it. And already I have come close a couple times. Now to just leave it alone and move on to other exciting things. Again - Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it!

Wow -thanks Woody!

I'm with you Chuck. The navy doesn't take in the "badassery" factor when making decisions about the toys they will use to further their mission. But "badassery" the Tomcat has in spades. BTW, so does the F-4! And, so does the P-47 for that matter. Badassery.

I have not. The picture of Punchy Powell with this fragment of engine cowl - I have seen it before. Let's get it out in the open: The blue color I came up with: I agree that the photo with Punchy might represent that early blue color better than any other. That said - he's a pretty old man in that shot, and paint fades. It looks to me as if there might be primer underneath the blue. I only say this because the more faded areas seem to be exposing a greenish color. Whether or not that is the case, I wish I had seen this before I mixed up my last blue combination. I think I would have added a drop or two of yellow. Otherwise I am happy enough with it. "I really think you captured the look of those propeller blades by recreating the "twist" along the length of them so well; which allows you to place them at the high pitch-angle at the base, while the prop tips look closer to perpendicular to the thrust line. I would think the 3-D rendering and printing process makes that possible." Says cmayer. Well the Tamiya prop blades look perfect to me and they are injection molded. But yes - I was very very satisfied with the 3D printed prop blades. They involved near zero creativity on my part. So it wasn't so much "captured" as it was "recreated". All I did was to research and find good engineering data on shape and pitch angle through the length of the prop, convert that data into a cad file, and then print it up with my handy-dandy 3D printer. And like magic - four accurate P-51 prop blades. That is actually what I am attempting to do with this entire project - no guesswork, or as little as possible. Truth be told though - there wasn't very much data out there on the cuff. A bit of educated guesswork there....

One more thing - take a look at this panel: And the drawing: That little door behind the exhaust stack cutout is a cover plate for what would have been an extendable/retractable scoop for a "carb hot air induction system" inlet. It is on the LH side only. Being right behind the exhaust stacks, I guess that is where the hot air came from. This system made it on about 60 P-51C-1NT's and that was it. It was discontinued. But the cowl panel support structure behind it continued on for quite a while, including the opening for the scoop. So, a simple plate was used to cover it up. This silly configuration is effective on all P-51B-5 and -10 NA aircraft. The -1's and the -15's didn't get it, nor did the -D models. And Preddy's Cripes A Mighty had it: You can just make it out. Any of you Mustang experts have anything to add? I am curious about this feature's history and why it was discontinued.

It's been a few weeks since I showed any progress on the engine cowl. I decided to just skin the thing and be done with it. For those unfamiliar, I use .005 inch thick aluminum sheet either soft (annealed) or hard (heat treated). These are cut to shape and formed, and glued onto the model using contact cement. I will forever be thankful to Peter Castle (Airscale) for teaching me this method. For the engine cowlings I have used mostly the soft stuff, because most of the cowl panels have compound curvature where much work is done to get the sheet to conform to shape. Here is one of the simpler panels being laid out on a piece of alum sheet. From the outline on the tape, you might guess that it is one of the panels with the exhaust stack cutout: You will see. Much more difficult were the uppermost panels, which had to take on that weird curvature just behind the prop spinner, Here is one after burnishing it into submission: I show it with the tools of the trade. Airscale would approve! And here is the same panel glued onto the 3D printed cowl: It was a victory to get a smooth nose for that panel. Less and less gray, more and more sparkling natural metal. Even more difficult were the wing fillet panels that mate up with the wing leading edge where it meets the fuselage. Peter (Airscale), on his Lope's Hope P-51, resorted to just damning the torpedoes and jumping in and bashing on soft alum sheet to try and get a shape. He succeeded after much effort. I did the same thing. First, an innocent looking piece of aluminum: Placing it on the model and taping it down: Then the fun begins. I chose to make this part out of two pieces; one piece just was not going to take on such a severe shape. Using balsa wood sticks and a small ballpeen hammer, the aluminum begins to reluctantly take on contour. When you get a portion close, tape it down, and continue. Tape and continue, tape and continue. Until you get this: Then glue it on: Now for the bottom half. Same process and you get this: This part slightly overlaps the upper piece. When glued on it gets a vigorous sanding job to try to hide the seam. Take a look: I am happy enough with that, believe me. While doing the right side part, disaster struck: Here is what it is supposed to look like: Yikes! I broke off an important flange that defines part of the landing gear bay opening. Panic ensued. But after settling down and taking the dog for a walk (to think on this), I devised a plan and got it repaired with some plastic stock, CA glue, and P-38 bondo: Now the skinning could continue. Until it was done. Some shots: Needs some blue paint doesn't it? Now - to not drop it. Those little fillet fairing protrusions are fragile. I think this skinning job went pretty well. It isn't perfect, but then neither were the actual aircraft. I hope you all are happy with it as well. More later. And for those who celebrate it, Happy Thanks giving!!

So Tom - when are you going to give us a picture from down low looking up at the cockpit, several stories high. I always like those period pics of Stirlings with that view.

Hey Guy - glad you have this one going again and reporting on it. It's going to be a real beauty. Question - do you have any idea what paint you will use on those fabulous exhaust stacks?

What a stunning picture. It dwarfs the Lancaster and the Halifax. Which means it would really dwarf the B-17, although the B-17 had a longer wing span I believe.

Tom - this is so fun to watch. I love scratch building efforts. Man - that is one large model. with a 100 foot win span, that works out to be just short of a full meter. How can you work on such a monster without knocking it against something? I remember with my 1/18 P-38 (34.5 inch wingspan), I could not find a place to put it down much less work on it. Thankfully the outer wing sections could be removed.

Happy Birthday Peter - may you have many many more!

Oh yes. The acrylics seem to readily accept alcohol as thinner. However I have not tried cheap vodka! 91% stuff from Walgreens instead. Which I also use for 3D print cleanup and wash. For those kind souls who looked at the last blue I came up with - this: And thought "I think that is not quite right.", and didn't come out and say it - well you are too kind! Thank you. But I kept looking at it and told myself "I think that is not quite right." Well it turns out there are some opinions out there on what might be more right, and quite a few agreed that good options are Tamiya flat medium blue XF-18, and Vallejo medium blue 70.963. Wish I had seen that earlier. So after a phone call to the LHS, I ran down and picked these two up, wasn't entirely happy with either, but mixing them about 50-50 and adding a bit of white, I got this: And I think that comes much closer. I am declaring victory. So I am committed to this color now, and as you can see the prop spinner is painted with it, chipped, and weathered. A couple more shots: Looking at wartime pictures of this aircraft, it certainly looks as if it was "rode hard and put up wet". So you see paint chipped off the spinner from pieces flying off his foe from an attack dead astern (done with the hairspray method) - something Preddy did alot of, the aft half of the spinner dirtier than the forward half (Flory wash) - something I see consistently in period pictures, and of course the paint wear on the aft face of each prop blade (also hairspray method). So celebrate with me on the very first 100% complete sub-project on this very involved build. I am not sure what you will see next. I might keep going with the blue which means skinning the rest of the engine cowls. Or, more transparency work. Soon.

I took a shot at the blue with some Vellejo pastel blue colors, added in some Tamiya flat blue - and I got this: No weathering or chipping yet, which will slightly alter the hue. I suppose it could be a tad lighter, but the brightness is cut down a good bit which is what I wanted. Comments? BTW - the Hamilton Standard decals are complements of Thunnus. He took a scan of the Cripes A Mighty 1/32 scale decal set, scaled it up to 1/18, copied it onto clear decal sheet, made a white oval shaped mask of the correct size, and sent it all to me a few days ago. What a nice fellow. Thanks John. He did plenty more than that too - you will see. I do not think I am not going to do the data stencil decals we commonly see on the prop roots. I think the details are too small for a mask. If I had good decals for them I guess I would. But I do not. I could make them and put the yellow lettering on a black background and print onto white decal paper. I have done that before. But the result is only marginally acceptable. Besides - I see quite a few period pictures where the props no longer have the stenciling for whatever reason. Including one of this particular aircraft in the EagleCals book, where it appears the stencils are missing.

So it's been two steps forward and one step back. Or even one step forward and two steps back. Nothing is coming easy. First - to home in on that blue-nose-bastards-of-bodney early blue. Tamiya says to mix X-14 sky blue with XF-8 flat blue at 3/1: That got me this on the mule: Yikes! Not sure what y'all think, but I just have to look away. Too blue. To tone it down some, I mixed in some of the US Navy intermediate blue I used on my Corsair. And promptly clogged up my airbrush!! Those paints are incompatible. I think other modelers have struggled to find the right blue color too. So I went to the local hobby store and talked with the owner who paints alot of models. He says he likes the vallejo acrylics, and they have alot of blue colors. We settled on a few color combos and I am going to fiddle around with these: Field blue, pastel blue, and ultramarine. Let's see how it goes - I will report out soon. Anybody got any good ideas in the meantime, now that I shelled out some money for blue paint? On another front, I am continuing my adventures with clear resin for my transparencies. I did a few innocent tweaks to the print file - increased exposure time by two seconds, and slowed down the lift speed. I also added some supports to the Malcolm hood where the bulge begins and ends. And then waited many hours for the result. I got this: Horrible parts. Unusable all of them. The extra supports on the hood did practically nothing good at all. What I really wanted is good windshield side glass parts, and was denied that also. For some reason they are the most pesky of all. A surprise. OK - I told myself at the beginning that I will fail many times. Stay tuned - I have reason to be hopeful. And if I cannot succeed with my current approach, I might have Shapeways make the ones I am failing at.

I think the hood is more clear than the picture indicates. I am surprised how clear it is actually. It's biggest problem is something that I experienced on a -D model canopy months ago - which is a "layer cake" effect. Perhaps it can be seen. Not so much a visualization of individual layers, but a squashing effect that gives it a wavy look. I was unable to fully buff that out on the test part. I don't know what caused it, but I have some ideas. It could be inadequate exposure time for each layer. I am at 8 seconds (the grey is 3.5 seconds). Nova3D recommends the 6 - 7 second range. And I have it on fairly high authority though that closer to 11 seconds might be better. I have already done a slew of industry test parts to get the right settings, with confusing results. Anyway, the part came out rather sticky and soft, which reinforces my hypothesis. If the part, as it is being laid down, has insufficiently cured layers, then I would expect some deformation of some kind. So my first tweak is to increase exposure time by a couple seconds per layer (which will significantly increase print time, BTW). I am also going to tweak the "lift speed". After the machine lays down a layer, it lifts up the part from the bottom of the tub to allow liquid resin to pour into the gap. Then it comes back down to lay down the next layer. That lift speed can affect the quality of the part - too much speed and it pulls harder on the part as it is lifting, possibly causing deformation. OK enough. I will report out soon.

Oh it helps Derek - alot. That canopy of yours looks like it can stand up to any other option for a transparency. And also better than my first try. I am using a liquid resin called Nova3D "High Transparency" , upon the recommendation of a fellow on a 3D printing FB page. Also it has gotten good reviews on the web. Who knows if it is better or worse than any other resin.... I am going to hold the vac-form option in reserve for now. And continue on with the 3D print option. I had expected to be printing up several parts, tweaking all the while. It is temperamental stuff. So I will indeed be printing more parts, including the windshield parts. And I guess I have the option of getting Shapeways to do it - they provided Derek with a most beautiful canopy. Stay tuned!

So quite a while ago Future became Pledge, as I understand it. Specifically "Pledge Floor Care with Future Shine." Can anyone find this stuff without paying an arm and a leg for it? And if not, what are alternatives being used by modelers today?

Would be a good excuse to get on a plane and fly out!