Dragon P51D Mustang

[Gene]

Before the fuselage is closed, the kit’s assembly instructions require the tailwheel to be installed. (I’ll be modifying that so I can install after my NMF struggle). At any rate, a little diversion exploring the tires and wheels was initiated.

 

I really feel for the young inexperienced modeler when they assemble the Dragon tires and wheels. The box bottom, which features several CAD generated 3-D views of kit features, touts the separate tires made of ‘DS 100’ and further explains that the ‘DS’ is ‘Dragon Styrene’. Whatever that is, it has no memory – when stretched over the wheel for final fit – it remains stretched. I was not able to make the tires conform to the wheels.

 

I tried heating over a low heat hoping maybe they were some form of ‘shrink’ vinyl that is so nifty for sealing wire connections in electronics. But no, it just further deformed. In the end I tried filling the gap with white glue and that has some promise (and goes to fill some of the interior cavity that is sure to cause further problems as the finished model sits). It is a shame because the tires, mains and tail, have pretty good appearance. I’ll replace the mains with the True Details offering, but with the tailwheel, I’m on my own.

 

Just because I know the tailwheel yoke will not survive very many of my ‘touch – and – goes’, I’ve replaced it with one fashioned out of brass that can be posed in any swivel position.

[rafju]

Hi Gene -

 

1/ Does anyone knows if there may be some interior colour difference between planes which were from the Inglewood plant or from Dallas production?

 

2/ i've a DVD with a good film from Inglewood plant' latest P-51D Mustang production, and what you can see at using frame by frame? it suddenly appears with a little help from a sun ray, the floor through the pilot legs, and it is really black.

 

I did some screen shot, look at this real Beauty!

 

lot of information to the old time colours

 

ps: of course this is a factory fresh bird, may be becomes different when delivered to the Air Force? but not sure it was really easy the interior to be repainted...

 

Enjoy

 

raphael, an other P-51D' fan from France.

[Gene]

Hi Raphael!

Wow! Great shots of the P-51 and with such amazing color quality coming from WW II era (in fact the best I have ever seen). Don’t know what to think of that interior side console color – it appears to be Chromate Yellow, which I have never heard of being used in the cockpit. Very curios. As for the floor, I’ll stick with the comment in the book quoted above.

 

Thanks for posting!

[rafju]

Gene -

 

No pb with the choice you did, this is highly recommended too!

I also have started some works with this beautiful kit.

And to not pollute your post, I'll open (have to get some free time...) a new topic in the "Members build" or something like this ;-) as i cannot put it in the PTO GB, as I planned to finish the bird as new, delivered from N.A Inglewood Plant 1944 (45?) inspired from the film.

 

Thanks for sharing, i'll follow you with the highest interest

 

raphael

[Gene]

Thanks Raphael! I look forward to seeing your build – if anything like the one in your film clips, it will sure be a beauty!

 

With a few things on hold before closing up the fuselage, I’ve moved on to setting up the wings. The kit supplies some very nicely detailed .50 calibre ammo belts and 3 machine guns per wing, so to compliment the exposed engine on the starboard side, I decided to also open up the starboard wing gunbay.

 

The kit it very alluring to do this also with deep X-acto width panel lines and a depression in the underside of the wing mold exactly where the gunbay access would be. The cutting went very easily and cleanly. The gunbay was glued to the bottom wing, but before gluing in the ammo belt tray, I did a test fit and a good thing too –

[Gene]

As seen in the previous post, there would be some serious misalignment of the cut opening in the upper wing half and the gunbay details in the lower wing half. Shame on me!! The instructions never say cutting the wing open was part of the kit parameters!!

 

At any rate, I cut out the offending pieces and fixed the ammo belt tray to the underside of the upper wing half, added a few pieces of Evergreen milled styrene for more detail and in short order recovered from the misalignment problem. Next, paint the gun bay, assemble the wings and prepare for paint.

 

Which brings me to a dilemma; were the wings on Shomo’s ‘dress’ plane painted silver metallic as from the factory or had they been field stripped and polished as some P-51Ds had been during the war?

[Gene]

Rummaging through a box of ‘good intentions’ (a.k.a. ‘stash’) a little set of Moskit exhausts jumped out and demanded ‘use me or loose me’. The kit, 32-04, was intended for a P-51B/C/D/K Mustang “without fairings.” Until this project, ‘without fairings’ didn’t really mean much to me, I was just awed by the Moskit’s thin wall representations of aircraft exhaust pipes.

 

With an engine under the cowl, I soon realized that the Moskit piece would have to be modified if they were to be used (that is, fit). Pics can be found of P-51Ds without exhaust fairings, but most have the fairing and the specific bird I’m modeling does have the fairing. Further, I anticipated displaying the engine with cowl removed on one side; this presents two ‘opportunities’, either removing the fairing and showing the exhaust pipes on the engine or showing the fairing still attached to the cowl sub-frame, which would hide a lot of the engine.

 

Looking over the Moskit’s exhaust, I foolishly estimated the individual stacks were rigid enough for me to separate with a razor saw. With my first stroke with the saw, a switch to micro-scissors seemed to be more suitable. As can be seen in the pic, I cut away in stages with uncertainty, eventually getting down to individual stacks. The copper material of the Moskit is very, very thin and malleable, which makes it easy to gently push them back into form. Then I filled the bottom of the pipe with epoxy so I would have something rigid to work with (in the pic it looks sloppy, but there is so much oxidation on the stubs that the overage easily popped off at the point where the stub met the mylar barrier in was sitting on). In retrospect, the rigid filling should have been done before any cutting.

[Gene]

Next problem, i.e. opportunity, was making a fairing that captures the appearance of an exhaust pipe passing through the sheet metal fairing. My direct approach was to fabricate a sheet metal fairing. A paper template was made with holes cut out to test the fit over the row of pipes. This was cyanoed onto a thin piece of aluminum (although thicker and stiffer that the Moskit copper, only by chance). A Waldron punch was used to ‘double-hole’ each oblong port and then the points were filled flat.

 

The fairing was scored and bent along the length. It took a bit of massaging to get the shape so it could slip into the cowl opening. Then that was back filled with epoxy and when set, sanded and filled to shape. Some Model Master Aluminum Metalizer was brushed onto the exposed epoxy ends, polished and sealed. With the port side presentation well along, it was on to fit the individual stacks to the exposed engine on the starboard.

[Gene]

And the application of Moskit exhausts to the exposed engine on the starboard —

[Javlin1]

Gene shes looking real good those Moskit exhaust give it that little extra.I was reading over at ARC an article about the wings and the filling of certain seams from the factory for the laminar airflow to work.The article is about 5-6 pages long lota of questions and answers a definite read,heres the link

 

http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index....showtopic=21362

[AngoMango]

Bloody brilliant work Gene! I was fascinated reading/looking how you managed that potentially tricky exhaust assembly.

 

That engine has turned really well. I love what you've done with the coolant pipes and the whole power plant area looks so realistic.

 

Great stuff mate...thanks for sharing

Ango

 

PS. Great work on the ammo bays too...very neat work, can't wait to see that area painted!

[bcauchi]

Great work Gene, your idea for the exhausts worked like a charm. you are doing great stuff to that model. got to keep my eyes peeled i have one up next.

[Gene]

Thanks Javlin, and thanks for the ARC link – interesting and useful info! A nice job Greg had done contrasting the silver lacquer wings with the NMF fuselage – all in paint!

 

Thanks Ango, glad you enjoyed the build – I’m expecting a puff of start up smoke to come out of the engine, but first I have to find some 32nd scale 130 octane! Hard enough to find in full scale!

 

Thanks Brian, I’m especially looking forward to your build of this kit – sure to be stunning!

 

Ammo bay is painted but the cover panels are waiting for some detail – thus far:

[ChrisS]

WOW, that looks great! I love the gun bays and the stacks. Simply excelent work.

[Gene]

Thanks Chris! Any encouragement is welcome!

 

Finally received my Eduard 32515 P-51D interior placards (a prepainted PE), which are intended for the Hasegawa kit, but I have found them useful in most areas. The radio tray is shown loose, but is suspended above the fuel cell when assembled. So now I’m ready to put the fuselage halves together.

 

The full port side and a detail of the port cockpit: