Tamiya 1/32 P-51D-10-NA Detroit Miss

[rafju]

Stunning!

[SwissFighters]

Lovely work as always.
Re the 6014 number on the radio, I wonder if that wasn't aircraft specific? The picture Barracuda uses to show positioning is a shot from a Swiss P-51D (one of many purchased after the war), I think identifiable from the style of 100 Octane fuel sign also shown and a few other features. 6014 doesn't match any Swiss Mustang aircraft number, as one might imagine however, which were eventually numbered J-2001 onwards. I don't know if  these radio numbers were used on all US aircraft and the Swiss left it, or was it Swiss practice to stencil their radios.
Anyway, I've never seen a picture of this numbering on any original US aircraft radio. It sure looks cool though.
Just some rambling thoughts John.
Thanks for sharing
Tony

[JayW]

I am no longer surprised at the magic you perform John.  What is special here, at least for me, is one - I love the Mustang as much as any modeler could love an aircraft type.  The handsomeness of that aircraft is unbeatable.  Two, your unmatched skills being unleashed on this thing, and three - Tamiya sure can make a great model to build.   Combine and it's pure joy to watch this unfold.  I'd be curious to know how much more difficult a build the Corsair was, if it was.

 

BTW - although this model has alot of parts, you are going to finish it in about the time it takes me to build up my P-47 engine cowls!  Apples to oranges, I know.     

Edited July 2 by JayW

[Thunnus]

13 hours ago, rafju said:

Stunning!

Thank you sir!

 

 

12 hours ago, SwissFighters said:

Lovely work as always.
Re the 6014 number on the radio, I wonder if that wasn't aircraft specific? The picture Barracuda uses to show positioning is a shot from a Swiss P-51D (one of many purchased after the war), I think identifiable from the style of 100 Octane fuel sign also shown and a few other features. 6014 doesn't match any Swiss Mustang aircraft number, as one might imagine however, which were eventually numbered J-2001 onwards. I don't know if  these radio numbers were used on all US aircraft and the Swiss left it, or was it Swiss practice to stencil their radios.
Anyway, I've never seen a picture of this numbering on any original US aircraft radio. It sure looks cool though.
Just some rambling thoughts John.
Thanks for sharing
Tony

Thanks for the comments, Tony!  I don't know about the validity of those radio codes on WW2 Mustangs.  Like you said, they look cool and little details like this go a long way in giving a small assembly more visual weight. My builds are typically not about accuracy but believability (is that a word?).  The one can lead to the other but they can also work quite independently.

 

 

4 hours ago, JayW said:

I am no longer surprised at the magic you perform John.  What is special here, at least for me, is one - I love the Mustang as much as any modeler could love an aircraft type.  The handsomeness of that aircraft is unbeatable.  Two, your unmatched skills being unleashed on this thing, and three - Tamiya sure can make a great model to build.   Combine and it's pure joy to watch this unfold.  I'd be curious to know how much more difficult a build the Corsair was, if it was.

 

BTW - although this model has alot of parts, you are going to finish it in about the time it takes me to buid up my P-47 engine cowls!  Apples to oranges, I know.     

Thank you Jay!  I've not yet tapped into the Tamiya magic yet so I can't compare it to the Corsair kit.  So far it has been the Barracuda Studios show and I've still got a few episodes of that to run before I get to the meat of the Tamiya parts.

 

 

Debating what to do about the engine.  Showing an open engine isn't something that excites me personally.  For me, it's all about the sleek lines AROUND that Merlin engine.  So... do I not paint the engine at all and just use it as a base to mount the exhausts?

[Martinnfb]

A quick detail, the canopy rails from the Barracuda set should be a mirror image of each other, which means the slots on the right side should have the same orientations as the slots on the left. 

[scvrobeson]

Cockpit looks fantastic John! Sure looks like you should be able to see a lot of the cockpit, far more at least than on some other cockpits.

 

 

Matt 

[SwissFighters]

54 minutes ago, Martinnfb said:

A quick detail, the canopy rails from the Barracuda set should be a mirror image of each other, which means the slots on the right side should have the same orientations as the slots on the left. 

 

🤔 IIRC the Barracuda set is not 'handed' so can't be installed in a left and right handed orientation?
Tony

[Thunnus]

Thanks for the comments and that very detailed observation about the canopy rails, Martinnfb!  I saw that and took a look at my build pics to see if I could determine how my rails were installed.

 

Based on the pics that Martinnfb posted, the elongated slots should tilted so that the higher side is forward.  The port side is correct.

 

 

However, the starboard side is not as the elongated slots are slanted the wrong way.

 

 

Without really thinking too much about it, I set this as my quickie lunch time project.  I soaked the joint in debonder and carefully pried off the rail without damaging or distorting it.  Cleaned it off and the attachment area with more debonder.  When I flipped the rail over and saw that the error was not corrected, I realized my mistake.  The Barracuda set "technically" provides identical rails for left and right.  They are mounted on the PE fret flipped from each other but if you visually take one and turn it 180 degrees, you'll see that they are identical.

 

 

Without prior knowledge of the slot orientation, I folded the two rails in the same way, with the fold guide lines ending up on the interior.  To be correct, you SHOULD fold one of the rails in the opposite way, with the fold guide lines ending up on the outside.  That would create a mirrored part.  Can I still make the correction?  Possibly.  But I chose not to.  I know, from prior experience, that it is highly likely that the fold joints would fail if I attempted to bend them in the opposite direction.  I used a significant amount of force get these rails perfectly square and I didn't want to end up with three tiny strips of PE with no solid way to reconnect them. So I am going to live with this inaccuracy.  Here is the rail after removal and re-installation.  Same as the old boss.

 

 

During lunch, I took a couple of more photos of the present state of things.  Here is a comp of the two seat cushions.  I'm going to go with the Barracuda cushion with the Barracuda decals. The HGW cushion with the masked lettering goes into the spare box.

 

 

 

 

The foot pedals have been painted.

 

 

[Martinnfb]

Sorry about the late intrusion resulting to extra headache John. There is one way how to fix it with relative ease. I would suggest to remove them both, cut the faces off and glue them to a plastic profiles in their respective orientations. Those pieces are not u-channels and shouldn't be see-through anyway. 

Phenomenal work so far.

 

Cheers

 

Martin

[Thunnus]

10 minutes ago, Martinnfb said:

Sorry about the late intrusion resulting to extra headache John. There is one way how to fix it with relative ease. I would suggest to remove them both, cut the faces off and glue them to a plastic profiles in their respective orientations. Those pieces are not u-channels and shouldn't be see-through anyway. 

Phenomenal work so far.

 

Cheers

 

Martin

Thank you Martin! I always welcome comments, late or not!  Let me stew on this idea for a while... 

 

 

In the meantime, does anyone know the disposition of this small panel on the port side of the tail fin?  My guess that it needs to be removed but I'm not sure.  My instructions say...

 

 

Option A is Mrs Bonnie, which I think is a P-51DK, Option B is Stinger VII, which I think is a P-51D-20 and Option C is Gonzales, an F-6D recon version.

[scvrobeson]

I think that panel is for the VLR Mustangs, so probably won't be applicable to your build.

 

Matt 

[JayW]

17 minutes ago, Thunnus said:

In the meantime, does anyone know the disposition of this small panel on the port side of the tail fin?  My guess that it needs to be removed but I'm not sure.  My instructions say...

 

 

Option A is Mrs Bonnie, which I think is a P-51DK, Option B is Stinger VII, which I think is a P-51D-20 and Option C is Gonzales, an F-6D recon version.

 

John - Detroit Miss does not get this door.  It is for the tail warning radar unit which came along later.

Edited July 2 by JayW

[TankBuster]

Outstanding work as allways, love the photography to. What camera do you use if I may ask. Cheers Bob.

[PHBIO]

Each time, very popular and useful history and technical modeling lessons. For the cockpit rails, there is the Eduard exterior set...... and there are some interesting parts... Cheers.  Phil

Edited July 3 by PHBIO

[Thunnus]

Thanks for the input guys!  I'll remove that small panel on the tail!

 

 

21 hours ago, TankBuster said:

Outstanding work as allways, love the photography to. What camera do you use if I may ask. Cheers Bob.

Thank you Bob! I use an old Canon S120 point-n-shoot camera for my in-progress photos.  I reserve the DSLR for the final shots.  The nice thing about the S120 is the ability to shoot in RAW format.  This gives a lot of leeway in post-production to tweak brightness/contrast/etc.

 

 

 

On 7/2/2026 at 3:11 PM, Martinnfb said:

Sorry about the late intrusion resulting to extra headache John. There is one way how to fix it with relative ease. I would suggest to remove them both, cut the faces off and glue them to a plastic profiles in their respective orientations. Those pieces are not u-channels and shouldn't be see-through anyway. 

Phenomenal work so far.

 

Cheers

 

Martin

I've decided to re-visit those canopy rails and try to correct them per Martin's suggestion.  I recently bought a tool that I thought would be very helpful.

 

 

It's a specialized cutter that makes it very easy to impart a very sharp and square cut on sheet plastic.  It was mentioned on some random thread here at LSP and I ordered it from AliExpress for $64 shipped.  Not cheap but I have a big problem getting square cuts so it well worth it to me.  I was able to snip small strips of sheet plastic that matched the dimensions of the canopy rails.  Nice and square cross-sections!

 

 

 

Again, using debonder, I removed and cleaned the rail and the mounting area.  Using a PE bending tool (Small Shops The Bug), I straightened out the folds of one of the rails.  Flipping it over and bending it in the opposite direction, it did not break, which surprised me.  I now had a corrected part!  Per Martin's comment, I know that the real rail is not a u-channel but now I feared making a mess of the rail if I tried to force it apart.  So I decided to cut my losses and simply re-install the PE rails.