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This is the Hasegawa kit in 1/72. It's not a bad model, although I did have some issues fitting the engine nacelles that required a bit of filling and sanding, otherwise things went together well. Chinese markings come from the spares box with the fin flash being masked and painted. Surprisingly, the colour picture which my build is based on shows the aircraft in a reasonable condition, thus I chose not to highlight all the panel lines, just those around the engines as they appeared a bit grimey. I am lacking some white numbers on the tail, I couldn't find small enough decals in the spares.

Hi guys and gals, I'm contemplating building another P-51D this time from the Pacific or China theater. I know there were some differences in equipment – notably radio and navigation – between the machines used in Europe and those used on the Pacific front. I can also use some input about the F-6D/K recce variant. Will you Mustang fans and experts care to give me some pointers? Thanks a bunch, Quang

Hi, After the P-6E and the P-36A (still in progress) I continue my Curtiss series. In fact, i've started this build more than 1 year ago, maybe even more. But i swore to finish 2 builds for 1 started until i empty my shelf of doom. So i'm back with this one. Once the cockpit will be built and the fuselage enclosed, it would not be too long i guess. I use the hasegawa old BF2C kit, with the Lone Star Model Hawk III conversion (3 blades propeller + engine cowling + a few fuselage parts around the tail wheel) and resin cockpit. For some reasons, i rebuilt the instrument panel from scratch and will certainly be detailing a few parts in the cockpit (at least the throttle handles). First here is the instrument panel. This picture is one from a F11C, but i assume it is the same : And my own version : After a coat of paint and a few dial decals, i'm pretty sure it would look good. I've also started to work on the engine. Unfortunately, there is an important mould offset. I have a nice Vector resin engine, but i prefer to keep it for another build (F11C and BF2C to come next....) where it will be more visible. Indeed the Hawk III engine cowling is more "wrapping" and hide a bit more the engine. So i am going to use the kit engine. I had to use new push rods as the kit ones also suffered from the very important offset = unusable. I will have to make the ignition wires, too. ANd with the cowling slide on it (one has to cut the cowling for it to fit over the engine. The engine also has to be heavilly sanded to reduce the diameter because of the rockers casings) : The strange engineering for the lower wings also had to be corrected. Instead making simple 2 half wings as usual, Hasegawa chose to make this strange cutting. It just makes a bad joint in the middle of the wing. And because of the wing details, it's not easy to sand it clean without damaging everything. I used rolls of sanding paper. I will get back to the P-36. More to come later !

Thanks for the support, gents, during the WIP. This was a fun build, a great kit, great fit, sufficiently detailed, and time to try out new techniques. I'm quite happy with the way this turned out……. Ki-84-g by Saaffan, on Flickr Ki-81-a by Saaffan, on Flickr Ki-84-b by Saaffan, on Flickr