Revel P-51D Lou IV: Blue and Green

[Out2gtcha]

Looks great Chris! Here's hoping you get the match you are picturing in your head

[CANicoll]

Making progress slowly, as I move to address the funky coloring and the camo scheme unique to LouIV.  First a couple of small items:

 

Cut off the kit 'glass' and put in a plastic piece which was much thinner than the kit piece on the gunsight  Really does not look like much actually, compared to what the Tamiya sight looks like.

The brown crash pad does not really show up in this picture - need to lighten it up a bit.

 

Added the identification lights under the wing.  Just had to see what they looked like with a light behind them!  Looks pretty good actually.

 

That is the kit piece dipped in Future, then the inside was painted with Tamiya Clear colors (Red, Orange, Yellow).  Sadly, when closed up in the wing the colors will hardly be noticeable.  Need to mask the wingtip for the blue to come, but that won't impact the lights.

 

On to that funky fuselage camo.  After making a full size copy of the squadron and national insignia markings and placing them carefully on the plane, I enlarged a photo of the left side of the fuselage - 171% in this case - and cut out the unique fuselage camo scheme.  It only took five tries to get the size right. Fortunately two easy locating items are apparent in the picture, the hard left line by the 'firewall', and the little square access panel just below and to the right of the '2'.  With those two things identified, it was easy enough to verify placement of all the pieces:

 

Now that I have the shape correct I'll transfer to tape. The edges seem pretty sharp (as opposed to the tail).

 

Here is the photo that was pulled from:

 

I still need to do the other side (took me about an hour to get everything in the right position on the left side) hopefully tomorrow night and hopefully Saturday will get the fuselage/wings assembled and then lay down the topside colors.

 

Has anyone attached the top wing to the fuselage THEN attached the bottom wing?  Just asking.

 

Thanks!
Chris

[Gazzas]

It is a great scheme.  Can't wait to see you pull it off.  I like how the light comes through the light.

 

Gaz

[Guest Peterpools]

Chris

Nice progress and the small details add up in a big way

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

[Out2gtcha]

Looks great so far Chris! 

 

 

 

Has anyone attached the top wing to the fuselage THEN attached the bottom wing?  Just asking.

 

 

Honestly, that is the way I planned on doing mine. I based this off of being able to potentially clean up wing half seams easier than I can fill or clean up a wing root gap, or worse yet, a step. 

[CANicoll]

Brian,

 

Thanks!  I'll let you know how it goes.  The fuselage is still maybe a mm or 2 too wide so involves a bit of squeezing to get the wing/fuselage to line up without a step.  Still seeing if I can make the cockpit narrower by a bit so help relieve the stress on the joint.  Planning on using Tamiya Extra thin cement if I can reduce the stress, otherwise extra thin CA.

 

CN

[CANicoll]

So here is the first take on the blue.  Moderated the color a bit, but basically 80% Vallejo Dk Mediterranean Blue and 20% Black.  Over a white base applied in several layers.  Stabilizers is simply black over the base green.  The flaps look weird here but wait till you see them dropped.  And the lines on the right elevator looks crooked but I swear I measured it!

 

 

I have a few touch ups to do and the sharper-eyed of you will notice the battery vent on the front of the fuselage has been removed. Thanks Mike!

 

We will see what I can get done tomorrow - Sunday I leave for about 2 weeks on business travel but at least that will give the paint a lot of time to cure...

 

Chris

[CANicoll]

Ok, last update before my two week business trip.  Did some touchups on the paint - including the fuselage invasion stripes and various places where I had nicked the paint with my fingernail.  Tamiya tape does not seem to do any damage, but my fingernails (taking the tape off!) certainly does.

 

Also thought I had a minor mystery on my hands as I looked very closely at the pictures of Lou IV from the war, and THOUGHT the tail numbers were solid - not the usual military split-style. A careful look at one of the blow ups I made from Dana's scans revealed they are, in fact, the usual split numbers that come with the kit and Eagle also provides.  Whew!

 

Since Steve at Model Monkey has shrouds now for his Revell exhausts I've placed an order for those and will see how they fare versus the Eduard exhausts+kit shrouds.  They supposedly install from the outside (since I jumped ahead in the steps that is kind of mandatory for me!) so we will see how they do.  Stay tuned.

 

Not sure if this is a function of gluing the top wing on first, then the bottom, but there appears to be a nasty step to address with the radiator scoop.

 

Right now the scoop is only press-fitted in place (it takes a bit of pressing to get it into position!) but I don't see with addl pressure that the joins line up so when I get back will be seeing about sanding down the mating surfaces between the scoop and the bottom wing to lower the scoop into place.

 

Checking the fit of the squadron codes and national insignia as I go.  I keep going back and forth on what is blue and what is green but I think last night I figured it out.  There is green behind the cockpit and the leading edge and base of the tail onto the fuselage (it takes looking at several different pictures to figure this out).  Some edges look pretty clean, others look rather soft.  That will be a challenge to do given my skills with the airbrush.  But I keep practicing.  I've laid down some blue on top.  The bit of tape on the tail is to recreate the characteristic gap in the camo found on pictures of Lou IV's tail.

 

The (well masked) canopy is actually from the Tamiya kit.  I use it as a mask for the cockpit.  I do have Eduard masks coming although mostly for the windscreen.  P-51D Canopies are actually pretty easy to mask using tape and I have both Revell and Tamiya canopies dipped.  I have also ordered replacement Revell clear parts, but like a few of us here, I have not heard back yet from Revell so not sure if they actually got my message or not.

 

Bottom view as she sits with her blue wingtips. I am assuming that the gun ports are natural metal below as well as above.  Lou IV's guns were not painted yellow, but perhaps were metal as they are lighter than the surrounding blue wing:

 

And current topside view with two of the picture references and the right flap sneaking into the picture on the left:

 

What I have not seen in my pictures are the characteristic black anti-slip wing-walks alongside the fuselage on top of the wings.

 

Ok, that's it for a couple of weeks.  Off to the UK on a business trip (and Photographer's Day at Duxford on Friday!!).  Will keep you posted.

 

Chris

[Guest Peterpools]

Chris

Fantastic progress on figuring out where all the various colors go and which is blue and which is green. Even on the Tamiya Mustang (I've built three so far) and all had some form of an issue getting the under wing scoop to fit flush. I found that I needed to remove a lot of plastic to get the scoop to fit flush. I'm sure it's something I did wrong but three times in a row!? I'm not sure if you can sand the portion of the scoop that fits into the wing or if it best to just glue in in place and then sand the outside until smooth and flush - surely a judgement call.

Have a safe trip - looking forward to the photographs from Duxford

Peter

[quang]

Nice progress Chris.

 

As for the step behind the radiator, I have the same problem. The only solution is to sand the outside of the entire scoop after the final assembly. Annoying, I know.

 

Have a good trip!

 

Quang

[quang]

 

What I have not seen in my pictures are the characteristic black anti-slip wing-walks alongside the fuselage on top of the wings.

 

AFAIK wing walkways are present only on post-war machines.

[Uncarina]

Great work and attention to historic detail Chris! Have a safe journey.

 

Cheers, Tom

[Gazzas]

Looks great Chris!

[CANicoll]

Making some progress with the blue on the fuselage and the tail.  I go through periods where I think the blue is too dark but then looking back at some of the color pictures, I think its pretty close.  Also received the Model Monkey shrouded exhausts ( I bought them ) but am less happy with those - more later.

 

 

Might have to so something with those machine gun ports - They seem too bright so need some toning down...

 

The large tape is holding the rudder one, a close look shows a bit of tape used to create the cut-out on that side of the tail.  Ditto on the other side but you can see where the tape was removed already to create the cut-out.  Still have to do some paint clean up on the tail and rudder

 

 

Added the ailerons which are painted a slightly less dark green but have not added the flaps just yet.  Good shot of the black anti-glare panel and the windscreen fitted into place. Still need to paint the sliver frame on the front windscreen (still have the masks in place).  Ditto on the canopy (which seems too narrow at the back to display closed so glad I'm displaying it open).

 

On to the shrouded exhausts.  First surprise is that they are printed as one piece - the exhausts and shrouds are one piece which makes them much harder to paint and weather than two pieces.

 

Here are unpainted shrouded exhausts:

 

 

And painted.  It is a real challenge to paint the exhausts from the shrouds so I am not a fan.  I think a two part solution, painting the shroud the usual aluminum or steel and the exhausts their colors is much easier and more accurate.

 

Here you can see that the Eduard exhausts/Kit Shrouds are much narrower than the Model Monkey exhausts.  Kit shrouds are not fully painted yet.

 

As much as I like the Model Monkey exhausts, I'm having a hard time fitting them to the fuselage.  Still a bit of work to do before I throw in the towel, and I'm talking with Steve from Model Monkey, but I have the Eduard Exhausts and the kit shrouds ready to go just in case.  Would really like to use the MM exhausts however as I think they just look better.

 

Thanks,

Chris

Edited June 24, 2018 by CANicoll

[Guest Peterpools]

Chris

Paint work looks fantastic and is turning into some project. Agreed the machine gun shrouds/ports seem a bit bright and some MG exhaust staining should do the trick quite nicely.

what a saga on the exhausts - who would have thought they would have become so much work. Looking forward to seeing your solution and seeing them installed.

Keep 'em comin

Peter