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Always wondered what would have happened in the Pacific if the Mustang had shown up much earlier. What if the P-51D had been used by the American Volunteer Group and a new plane showed up in China for the group? Going to use the Dragon 1/32 kit dressed in Flying Tigers colors, Chuck Older's aircraft, and in a departure from most of my builds, will be strictly OOB. Just getting started on the cockpit detail. Ohhh so different from the Tamiya kit! The engine is the bare minimum I think is needed to get the prop and all installed since I'll keep the cowls buttoned up. Using the PE instrument panel as I just could not figure out how to use the clear plastic piece. But FIFTEEN separate decals!! Painted the bottom a variation of the British Sky Blue. On the wing top I've put down the Earth Brown, currently showing some initial weathering (maybe a hastily applied paint job before the plane was dispatched to China?) Will be VERY interesting trying to fit the P-40 sharks mouth onto the P-51 tho. Hoping to finish this up before the end of August.

Hi everyone, After a 2 year hiatus, finally coming close to completion. I have been eagerly following everyone's Mustang WIP's for tips, tricks and hints. Thanks so much everyone for sharing as it has made 'reentry' so much easier and I hope I can add to the overall discussion. I am building the Tamiya 1:32 kit, and agree with all the positive comments others have made. I find that if something doesn't fit right, I'm not doing something right. That little bit of wisdom has saved me multiple times. I'm still trying to figure out the livery and have many options, including Big Beautiful Doll. So decisions, decisions. I'll start with the early build pics and add more later so these articles don't get too long. I've taken some color liberties such as the copper piping and a wood floor in the cockpit. I know not historically accurate, but I've seen pictures of others who have done this and I really liked how it looked. The copper is enamel sprayed right from the Testors can. Outdoors to avoid the odors. Most of the rest of the paint is Model Master or Tamiya acrylics. With the cowl panels off the copper piping will just be visible. A close up of the right sidewall. The Eduard color and placards add amazing detail. The cockpit sidewalls are a combination of the Tamiya parts and Eduard's color PE. I also have the Barracuda stencils but OMG are they tiny! Saving them for my next Mustang. Here is the left side: Next up the engine and super charger and the completed cockpit. My photo skills are improved with later pictures. :-)

Back in the mid `80`s, the California Highway Patrol started using Ford Mustangs as patrol/pursuit cars. So for this What If build, what if they had used P-51 Mustangs instead? They certainly would have been fast enough to catch any speeders on the road. Plus there's the added benefit of six Browning 0.50cal to shoot up slow down any one trying to evade. Just think what the television show "World's Scariest Police Chases" would have looked like. Some bank robber fleeing in his car only to get strafed by the Mustang. Chase over. I was looking to find an inexpensive Mustang kit for the build when I remembered this was in the stash: [/url] I'd started a bit, mostly just filling in the rivets on the wings and stopped when the Tamiya kit was annouced. It definitely has less than 25% completed. I have ordered a set of CHP decals from Police Car Models and they are on their way. I'm planning on doing black wings with a white fuselage. I'll add a FLIR pod on the centre line so it'll be an all weather capable aircraft. Just need to figure out a light bar Carl

AKA - Diving into the Alclad Pool.....I just hope the water is fine..... A very very generous soul here wished me an early Merry Christmas here with a package that he said needed to belong to a good Mustang home. I am very grateful and humbled. The package contained a whole slew of bits and pieces from more than a few of the old silver Monogram Mustang. In fact its so old its described as "3/8 INCH SCALE". I had never seen this kit in the flesh, though in the stash are two of the Phantom Mustang versions. Seems its the same kit minus the stand and electrical motor that goes in the engine to spin the prop....thats my guess anyway. So after digging through all the bits and sorting them I discovered it would be real easy to take some of the parts and make a quick build style Mustang. I believe there still may be enough left over to build a kit per the instructions with the working landing gear and bomb releases. So my plans for this build is an in-flight, gear-up version. I will build it sans engine as well, as the engine cowling and exhausts are already molded as part of the fuselage. There are a few complications to fix and fill because of the omitted moving parts. But the detail on the fuselage and flight surfaces seem pretty good to my eye. I dont have scale drawings as of yet, so I cant be real specific on the kits shape problems, but I will point some of the more obvious ones as I go, and also hope to point out the kits pros as well compared to some of the other Mustangs in my stash. The biggest goal of this build is a real attempt at using Alclad for its natural metal finish. After seeing WillimaJ's "THIS IS IT!" I just have to give this a go. Then take what Ive learned and transfer it to the rest of my in progress and future Mustang builds. Its sink or swim time.....and I am pretty convinced my previous theories and attempts fall short of just bucking up and using Alclad for NMF as well as that great silver lacquer finish for the wings and rudder that WilliamJ displayed. As much as I like the painting process it seems I always have issues, and I am hoping the Alclad will help with that part. Here are a few pics to get this started..... Box as received, little worse for wear, but abounds with personality and who knows, it may even be older than I.... The instructions cover page.....copyright 1962 The instructions, most of which I am ignoring on this build. But, I am impressed with the original kits engineering. A quick pic of the fuselage side and flight surfaces. A close up of some of the stuff I will have to deal with that was part of the kits movable components. I havent decided on its livery just yet, but I did just recently manage to purchase this nifty book from our very own ssculpter and maybe it will help me with a decision. I think I will be swapping in a HS Cuffed prop, certainly puttying the wings, I havent decided on exactly how much I will be doing to the cockpit, or the oil cooler exhaust duct area. I have noticed so far that the formation lights are molded on the wrong wing. It also seems the gun ports , gun and ammo doors and underwing hardpoints are molded too far outboard, and that appears to be a placement issue that starts with the landing gear pivot access panel being too outboard as well. Thanks for looking in and stay tuned for more....here we go....

Hello all: Well, I got damn sick and tired of watching all the great builds going on here and not having anything to participate with. So, I canned the P-61 (actually put it back in the box and shelved it but "canned" elicits a more appropriate feeling regarding the Avionix sets that I attempted to use. Adjectives of disappointment with those sets fail me at the moment so I'll forget about it and move on.) Anyway, I pulled out a Tamiya first release P-51D from the stash shelf and decided to "have a go" (best British accent). Below are a few of the photos of the progress I've made on it and while nowhere near some of the abilities I've seen here lately, I'm confident it'll be as right as I can make it without having to succumb to AMS; if I do, then it'll probably never get done. The kit itself is a mismash of block numbers that Tamiya had to do to get more than one version out of a single box. Consequently, the details of some of the parts on the kit aren't quite correct for an earlier P-51D. The kit lends itself better to the block 20-25 series aircraft out of the box. Wherever I need to make a change to a kit part to accurately represent the block 15 aircraft, I'll do my best to point it out. The first shot below is of the oil tank, firewall and the rear half of the V-1650 Packard Merlin. Without going into too much details, P-51D-15-NA aircraft had an oil tank without a dipstick. The kit provides a "bump" for the dipstick by the filler neck which I promptly sanded off. I also made a filler cap from punched styrene disks with stretched sprue "ears". They're not really noticeable in the photo but they are there. I dropped the damn thing on the ground about 20 times before I got it glued in place. I was damn lucky to find it more than once! The interior green on the firewall is a mixture of my own using Testor's enamel zinc chromate and flat black; the same way the original interior green was made. The mixture is about 10:1, using the Mk. 1 eyeball to judge the color until it "looked right". The oil tank itself, while seen in natural metal on most wartime Mustangs is Testor's Model Master Interior Green which, in my opinion, is WAY off the mark. Maybe I just got a bad mix but if my older bottles of the color weren't solidified, I would've used them as the colors were much better. I painted the tank as the surface of the tank is somewhat pebbly and wouldn't yield a good natural metal finish; so, I painted it and am calling it a replacement tank from the spares depot.... That's my story and I'm stickin to it. I also discovered a little known piece of information (at least to me) about the firewall from reading the P-51D E&R manual. The firewall is mostly armor plate excepting behind the oil tank itself which is stainless steel. So, I painted that portion of the firewall, a stainless steel color (or reasonable facsimile thereof ) Attachment straps are aluminum although they should probably be a steel color as aluminum is almost never used as band clamps to hold tanks in place...it's far too weak. The engine is Tamiya X-18 semi-gloss black which looks fantastic in 1/32. The bolt/nut details were picked out with a sharpened toothpick and some Testor's chrome silver paint. I'd say it looks convincing for an out of box engine. The next photo is, you guessed it, the cockpit area. Basic coloring of the cockpit floor is flat black representing the non-skid paint used to cover the plywood flooring. The zinc chromate recessed area is actually the top of the wing (on the real aircraft). I've forgotten exactly what the silver cylinder is for but it's silver.... LOL. I've yet to paint the control locking pin red and the control column is awaiting some painting effects to accentuate the canvas boot at the base of the column (it can be seen in the lower right corner of the photo). I used MDC luftwaffe cockpit gauge decals ( I know, I know, it's not right) for the fuel gauges on the cockpit floor and used Microcoat Gloss for the lens. At normal viewing distances, without magnification, you'll never be able to tell they're luftwaffe gauges. The canvas cover below the seat got a coat of OD. I have not yet weathered the cockpit floor other than some drybrushing to make the magnificent detail on this kit pop out. I'll add some wood colored paint wear later. The flooring under the fuselage fuel tank is/was plywood and I represented that with some Testor's wood colored paint...doesn't look too bad and when it's installed, you probably won't be able to see much of it anyway. The fuel tank itself got a coat of Tamiya X-18 with some of the metal parts of the tank being picked out in flat black. The radio/battery rack will also be painted flat black, not interior green as called out in the Tamiya instructions. I haven't looked deep enough into the specifics of -15 Mustangs to see whether or not the SCR-522 radio was installed or the earlier version. A quick look at the P-51D/Mustang IV Illustrated Parts Catalog will provide the answer, I just have to go look it up. I sure hope it's the SCR-522 radio set as I do NOT want to scratchbuild an entire radio set...PITA. I'm getting lazy in my middle agedness You'll also take note of the white plastic rod that runs on the left side of the radio rack. That my friends, is the tank vent which Tamiya only faintly tries to portray on the tank. If you have the kit (built or unbuilt) and look at the tank in the forward left hand corner, you'll see a small length of raised plastic eminating from a small, circular area with four represented fasteners. That is the tank vent as Tamiya provides. Early P-51D's had only the vent tube. Later marks (-20 and later I'm thinking) had a carburetor vapor return line integral with the 90 degree elbow that come out of the tank. I know it's tough to envision without a specific photograph so I'll refer you to dodgem37's excellent build of this same kit for illustration of that specific feature which is portrayed flawlessly. The seat is the Warren-Macarthur style and used if for no other reason that the vast majority of Mustangs I see have the Shick-Johnson seat installed. The Shick-Johnoson seat was more common on later Mustangs but there's no hard and fast rule to say which Mustangs got which seats, regardless of production block. This is probably one of those cases where the aircraft got whatever seat was available at the time. The earlier the block number, the better the chance of having a Warren-Macarthur seat though. Similar seats were in the B and C Mustangs. Mustang seats, according to my references were painted dull dark green so that's what this one got. That and a set of HGW seat belts/harness which while tricky to assemble, look very convincing once installed. I'm a long-winded poster sometimes and you'll please forgive the few photos in relation to the text. I've a long way to go but this kit is a gem and it shouldn't be too long before I add to this topic with more pix. Thanks for looking in

Hello everyone, This is my first time to post a build on here and I'm a little ways into my build already but I thought why not share my progress and gather some others' input for future builds. I'm making the 1/32 Tamiya P-51D pretty much OOB. I do plan to use some OOP Pyn-up decals I have. I can't decide which one I want to do first though, I'm torn between Passion Wagon and Moon Mullins' P-51D. Both of these birds are early production P-51s with a filletless tail. Before I post pictures of my decals can someone please tell me if it's allowed to post nude pin-ups that were nose art? I'll add pictures as soon as I figure out how that works and I get an answer to my question. Cheers, Brady

About half an hour ago I got new pictures from Zoukei-mura, showing stunningly build up samples showing the four marking schemes given in this coming kit:

Finished this one today, what an awesome kit! After building Tamiya's A6M5, I thought it was the best ever. Their Spitfire was even better, and I loved that one too. This one is even better, and I can only surmise that their Corsair will top this one. I will soon find out! Tamiya's 1/32 P-51D, built as Col. Glenn Eagleston's "Feeble Eagle" of the 353rd FS. Built mostly from the box, with Barracuda Resins tires, G-factor tailwheel strut and HGW seatbelts. Main decals are from Eagle Editions, stencil decals are from Fundekals. All of the decals performed flawlessly. I scratchbuilt some cockpit details, mainly the battery overfill bottle from clear sprue and some extra wiring for the radio and battery. Painted with Alclad paints, this is my very first NMF aircraft and to say I am happy with how it turned out is an understatement! I have wanted one in a metal finish for years, but never thought I could actually do it. I have tried a few times and was defeated with each one. Now, I finally have one for my display case! Already planning another Mustang, this time one of the Pacific VLR birds. There's a build thread here. Thanks for looking in!

After building both the Tamiya A6M Zero and Spitfire, I am eager to sink my teeth into their P-51D Mustang! Adding a few AM bits, Barracuda resin tires, G-Factor brass gear, and HGW seatbelts. Not certain yet which markings I plan to use, so for now will start with building the engine then move onto the wings until I figure out which production block the finished model will be, as the cockpit has numerous differences between them. So for now, a quick photo of the box and AM bits, and on to the build!

Well, this came as a complete surprise to me. I had been completely content with the Airfix 1/24 P-51D kit, and really happy to have scored the reissue P-51D/K boxing with all the extra bits and pieces, and much better plastic. BUT.............. I just had the amazing fortune of aquiring the Hobby Craft 1/24 P-51D, and all I can say so far is......WOW!!!! This kit is just amazing, and is probably worth the c-note plus, that they are listing them for, and so what makes this even better is that I paid just over a third of that for this jewel. So with this aquisition I am moving the paint scheme and nose art from my Airfix build over to this kit......for 5 very good reasons....... S.W.M.B.O. My original build was for her (as the plane sports her name, although shes not a blonde), I thought it was great that I found real nose art from WWII that was so appropriate. And now I believe a better kit for her. So I intend on building this kit represent "Jan" QP-D, the initial mount of Lt. Robert Dickmeyer of the 334th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, 8th Air Force, stationed at Debden, UK. His tour with the 334th was from 6JUN44 through 26DEC44. During that period he had two Mustangs assigned to him, 44-13956 and later 44-14606, P-51D-5NA and P-51D-10NA respectively. He scored 2.5 kills (1 ME109 and 1.5 FW109) and I read that 413956 was downed by flack near France, and he dead sticked the Mustang into a 9th AF landing strip, but I have not been able to pin point the date. These Mustangs also were adorned with nose art by the 334th's famous artist Sgt. Donald Allen.I hope to do a decent natural metal look on her fuselage, and aluminum paint finish on the wings. I havent done any of that before, so its going to be trial and error, I am afraid, but I am looking forward to the challenge. Obviously at this scale, there isnt a bunch available, and certainly not for "Jan", so I will be printing up my own for this build. Here is a photo of "Jan" Here is the kit, and a quick photo of its contents, still in their packaging. As I unwrap the sprues and wipe the drool off my desk I will post up more pics of the plethora of parts included. I have been reading up on some of the kits shortcomings, and some I will live with and some I will do my best to rework. Anyway, thanks for looking in and putting up with my indicisiveness.....at least you dont live with me

Aside from all of the prep work I've been doing, the following has taken a long time to evolve to get to this stage. Hopefully future efforts will move along more quickly. Otherwise I may miss the deadline. I reworked the right and left edges. The rod goes into the edgework of the instrument panel. I needed to trim away the sidewall structure under the rod so the rod would set properly when the sidewall was dryfitted to the floor/i.p. assembly. The insulation is from a solid core wire. I threaded .5mm wide insulation onto stripped wire taken from a hard drive parallel data cable. .010 or .015 solder wire. I needed to replace the outermost terminal with rod. I replaced the canopy retraction handle to complement the throttle handle. The throttle handle is a kit part and really stood out, detail wise. The canopy handle was molded into the sidewall. It looked flat compared to the throttle so I chiseled it off and made a new handle. I domed the end of a piece of rod to make the base, flattened the end of a rod with a plier and sanded the result round to get the handle base, and cut some rod for the handle. Wiring configuration is made up, although the rod that runs the length approximates the real deal. I needed to remove some of the bottom of the first and second structure. Home made springs and mounts. Springs aren't glued in place. This spring is a little short, oh well. I'll just glue it against the high tab. The spring is compressed. Here you can almost see how the rods would go thru the side openings I made in the panel. Without removing some sidewall structure the rod configuration wouldn't work. I had to weigh one effect against the other. More work, but I chose this effect. Rudder pedal linkage is good, with the spring and everything, but the wire connection isn't accurate. This was an easier connection to make. It is pinned with .010 rod so it moves around. Same thing here concerning removal of the first two structure bottoms. I wanted to see if the rudder pedal junk would look effective. Not such a hot shot. I don't know what those two rods are on the left, but they are in every photo I have of that area. Thanks for looking in. Sincerely, Mark