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Tamiya 1:32 P-51D Mustang


Mensaboy322

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long time viewer, first time poster...

 

Hello all, short history i have always been interested in models and military aircraft - but i usually only built Star Wars models, kits and scratch. I have also always been a big fan of Tamiya, so finally my favorite airplane, hobby, and kit maker converged on this subject i started researching techniques on building aircraft models and quickly found this site.

 

I did burn through a small pile of inexpensive aircraft kits to build up to this job, IMO one of the best plastic model kit ever made, but i will save those (not large scale, for the most part) finished training dummies for a later thread

 

this is OOB, save for the BarracudaCals decals

 

since i did not make a WIP thread i will throw a few in this thread

 

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here just before starting with the weathering i dumped a small cup of laquer thinner on the wing - it was very discouraging but as you see the post fix result is definitely acceptable

 

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Guest Peterpools

Nice progress on the P-51. What's the scoop with the lacquer thinner spilling on the wing? With my luck, it would have been a total disaster.

Peter

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Excellent start!

 

That would be VERY hard to see, having lacquer thinner spill on my model! Looks like you have it sorted out though.

 

After it happened i tossed it in the trash, having calmed down a bit an hour later i started the rescue process, which really didnt take any time at all thankfully.

 

 

 

 

Now for the finished model, some pics at the ends show the gear up and gear down parts in place.

 

One thing that does not seem to register well in photos is the difference between the polished fuse and painted wings...it is more striking in person - i will have to do some testing to see if there is a really good way to photograph it.

 

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thanks for your comments, for any mod this thread can go in "ready for inspection", i got messed up with the first couple posts since they required approval / photo limit (weird since they are links anyway)

so it probably seemed like a WIP at the start

 

great build, the fit of the cowlings look better than i had heard

 

 

about that, if anyone is going to start one of these,

in almost all cases on this kit even a layer of paint will make fit tight due to the ridiculous precicsion

 

however with the engine and supporting framework there is enough play to have the front either askew of the fuse or slightly twisted, making the ultra thin cowling parts just not fit well and look as though some radial fracture has occured - this happened to me so after the front was totally complete i had to wedge and shatter apart the entire front end and then rebuild it constantly putting the cowling parts on and off again to check...the fit at that point was still not perfect so some tricky sanding and flexing of the cowl parts was required to get it right

 

for Tamiyas part this is not a failing of the fit - a dry fit of the frontend before painting/gluing was shockingly flawless so the error was forced in by me

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  • 5 months later...

Here is a little trivia on the Millie Gs. I was friends with Jim 'Skunky' Marine, crew chief on all of Major Giller's planes. He told me that they didn't want a blotchy plane due in part to the browning of Olive Green, and often the unavailability of the same. So they painted all of the Millie Gs British Dark Green. Also, if anyone wants to make an accurate diarama, I don't remember what page, but in the book, "The Mighty Eighth", there is an unidentified Mustang with a wooden work platform on the port side of the engine. That is the Millie G, the only A/C to have one. One of the men in the photo is Marine.

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