Revel P-51D Lou IV: Blue and Green

[CANicoll]

Wow, you guys are something else (in a very good way!).  OK, here is what I found.

 

Quang - I have to give it to the EagleCal folks, they did their homework.  Here are the two sets of decals (EagleCal on the plane, Revell's decal sheet):

 

 

The difference is VERY subtle, but the added black shadow inside the U and on the right side of the V is clear on the Revell sheet but not on the EagleCal decal.

 

If I substantially enlarge the scan from Dana, here is what you see:

 

 

No black as found on the Revell decals.  So chalk another one up for EagleCal.  Does anyone have a spare EagleCal Athelene they want to part with?

 

AND, if you look the right, I also added in the machine gun ports.  Clearly they are not yellow, but actually look on top as another shade of blue but the reflection of the light on the machine gun barrels (and the gun camera opening) leaves a red ring around the white light. I think this is a film anomaly and not a true color indication.  When I look to the top of the enlargement, it is pretty easy to see a lot of red edging  most of the bright white light.

 

But back to the gun ports... Does look like the top side was painted (Frig - what color, looks blue in the pic above and on my screen with a much larger image) and wraps around and the bottom was mostly metal color.  NOW, can we just keep this secret amongst ourselves?  Just kidding!

Chris

[Flipper]

Hello CANicoll, I went through your whole build and I like it. I would like to know, if you can clearl specify, where are the demarcation lines between the blue and green on fuselage. Especially between the cabin and stabilizer and stabilizer itself.

 

Thank you!

 

Juraj

[CANicoll]

So the latest in the paint saga and 'what color is that'? I was really thinking about the stabilizers stripes.  It seemed to me that a unit would not likely change colors during the war so I went looking for a period picture of the 361st group Mustangs at Bottisham.  Here is what I found:

 

 

The picture comes from the Imperial War Museum's photo archives - which are VERY interesting.  Here is the caption with the photograph:  P-51 Mustangs, including (E9-S, serial number 42-106707) nicknamed "Sleepytime Gal", (B7-E, serial number 42-106839) nicknamed "Bald Eagle III" and (E9-K) nicknamed "Vi" of the 361st Fighter Group line up for take off on D-Day at Bottisham. Written on slide casing: '361 FG, 6/6/44 At Bottisham.'

 

I think pretty clearly this shows black stripes on the stabilizers, and the picture comes after the conversion to Mustangs from the P-47s and there is even a P-51D among all of the B/C's on the airfield.   The yellow noses are there as well and an interesting array of rudder tab colors including yellow striped on E-B7 and solid black on the others. This also seems to show pretty well done invasion stripes on all of the aircraft - at least at Bottisham.

 

So I'm going to just leave the black stripes as they are for the time being.  

 

Chris

Edited June 29, 2018 by CANicoll

[MikeMaben]

Hi Chris , yeah those black stripes were a standard recognition marking

when Mustangs first started arriving in England. The nose was black and

with a stripe on the vertical tail as well.

 

 

Some were removed later as all the markings evolved , some weren't.

 

hth

[quang]

Recognition bands were black on natural metal finish a/c, white on ETO camouflaged planes and yellow on MTO a/c. All the more surprising that on LOU IV they would leave the black bands when they put the camouflage on.

My guess is that they overpainted the stab bands with the same color i.e. blue they did the D-Day bands on the wings.

This may help for positioning the ID bands:

Edited June 30, 2018 by quang

[CANicoll]

Mike and Quang:  you are totally destroying my attempts to NOT over paint the black stripes with blue or some other color!     Ugh.  Ok, more to think about....  I do appreciate your comments and mine back are in jest (FTAOD).

 

Last night worked on the plumbing for the landing gear brake lines and started on the plumbing for the drop tanks.  The detail in the Eduard Brassin wheels is amazing.  Also got the nose piece and the windscreen attached (Yep, the clear part is maybe 1-2mm too narrow) and attached the decals on the props so making progress.  Almost had a minor issue: I had masked the inside of the windscreen and forgot about the masks when I glued in the instrument panel shade with the gunsight attached.  That sat for a few minutes before I realized what I had done.  Fortunately, used Gator Glue inside and was able to pry that apart, peel off the interior masks, and try again.  Crisis averted!

 

Did put a gloss coat over the decals and am falling in love with a nice, shiny Mustang.  Still need to lay down a flat coat before I get the drop tanks on, but kind of waiting until I decide what to do about those elevator stripes - not that they can't be taken care of later.  After the flat coat goes on then can pull the canopy masks off and get the canopy bracing etc attached.

 

Over painted the gun ports but not thrilled with the result - I think they are still too bright.  I started w Dark Aluminum Vallejo Metal Color then added about 30% black metallic to it after I had sprayed about half of the Dark Aluminum.  SO maybe 60% black metallic - still looks too bright to me.  I'll post pictures later and let me know what you think.

 

I don't know why Revell goes through the detail of painting the propeller hub and all that unless you are planning on leaving the spinner off - when the spinner is attached you don't see any of the interior bits.  Time saving tip, I guess.

 

Once the landing gear gets plumbed and attached (thinking of turning the tail wheel....) then I can get the landing gear doors, the flaps and the underside vents, etc attached.  THAT will be major progress!

Chris

[66misos]

Hi CANicoll,

Mustang of 354th FS, 355th FG, probably late 1944:

Seems that there are overpainted invasion stripes - note darker area on the both upperwings.

More important - panting OD over NMF is very similar to the Mustangs from 361st FG - and ETO marking is according to the instructions - white stripes over OD.

 

And here is another one:

 

So it seems that one can safely assume that if they left old or paint new ETO stripes over OD surface, the made them white, or they did not paint them at all, like here:

 

Black ETO stripes were used only over NMF surface.

 

Therefore I think that your Mustang LOU IV had also white stripes over OD upper surface on the horizontal stabilizer, that were together with invasion stripes latter repainted with the blue paint:

 

I know, neverending story...

   66misos

Edited June 30, 2018 by 66misos

[CANicoll]

66misos:

 

Thanks for your comments.  One thing I am fairly certain of is that the stripes were not white.  Also Kit Carson's plane seems to have the black strip on the back of the canopy frame, which was non-standard (See my picture from the IWM above, the canopy frame does not carry the stripe) but by the time of the picture of LouIV, the tail/rudder stripe was omitted as well.

 

E2S also had the 'old' paint scheme without any blue on the aircraft (even the wingtips are not blue) and the gun ports are yellow and red so this is probably not the best reference aircraft to uyse.  E2A Sky Bouncer has the blue, but the wingtips are washed out in the sun and it is impossible to see the top or bottom of the stabilizers.

 

Hard to see in this picture but look at the following one.

 

If the stabilizer stripes were white, they would contrast much differently than they do here.  IMHO.

 

I'm sadly leaning to the conclusion that Quang is right, and the stripes on the stabilizers were blue.  The ONE thing I am hanging on is the following picture where if the undersides of the stabilizers were blue, then they don't look anything like the blue on the fuselage or the rudder, which admittedly is in the full sun and not full shade.  But the coloring seems to match the black of the invasion stripes on the bottom of the wing.

 

 

I THOUGHT I had done a lot of research before starting this build.  But that is nothing compared to what I've been seeing and hearing the past few weeks!

 

One thing to remember is that Lou IV was the first aircraft to sport the full yellow cowling so I'm thinking it was a bit of a 'test' aircraft for the new squadron colors.  It may not have lasted long enough ( a couple of busy weeks ) to carry over to the rest of the squadron.

 

And something else I just noticed.  Does not look like the white was applied to the land gear doors.  Sigh....

Chris

[quang]

Hey Chris,

A wee bit of friendly persuasion 😜

Here are some simulations of LOU IV done by John Terrell. Believe me, JT knows A LOT about Mustangs. Note how the stab ID bands are overpainted with the same color as the D-Day stripes.

 

[66misos]

...Therefore I think that your Mustang LOU IV had also white stripes over OD upper surface on the horizontal stabilizer, that were together with invasion stripes latter repainted with the blue paint:

 

 

Hi CANicoll,

 

I am sorry I was not clear enough.

I meant that LOU IV had originally white ETO stripes over OD upper surfaces (wings + horiz. stabilizer). Just prior D-Day the invasion stripes were added, while white ETO stripe on stabiler was (probably) left. And after another several months, at the time of the photosession, black&white invasion stripes on the upperwings together with white ETO stripes on stabilizer were all already repainted with the blue color.

And your kit depicts LOU IV at this last stage with all stripes on the uppersurfaces (Invasion + ETO) repainted blue - as Quang wrote above "...stab ID bands are overpainted with the same color as the D-Day stripes..."

 

EDIT: Underside surface in NMF had black ETO stripes.There is a lot of photos on the web showing Mustangs with NMF undersurfaces with black ETO stripes while uppersurfaces in OD with white ETO stripes. In case of LOU IV IMHO only upper originally white ETO stripes were repainted blue, while black ETO stripes on the NMF undersurafce were left black.

 

  66misos

Edited June 30, 2018 by 66misos

[MikeMaben]

Chris !  started pulling any hair out yet ? 

 

I took some shadow out of your photo above ...

 

 

There are toooo many possibilities to deal with logically here.

The a/c arrived NMF so the recog stripes would have originally

been black all around. The OD is obviously brush painted so

likely all the subsequent markings as well (white stripes on top

with blue added later to cover stripes). It seems logical that blue

was the color used to cover all the stripes on top.

 

 

 John Terrell. Believe me, JT knows A LOT about Mustangs.

 

This is true .

 

Keep on truckin' Chris 

[CANicoll]

Quang,

 

Thanks for sending over the SIM pictures - John put a LOT of effort into his sim and the pictures are among the best I've seen. Do you have contact information for him?  Really nice work! 

He missed a couple of minor details: the mast was definitely painted the same color as the fuselage (not silver/aluminum) which is pretty easy to see in the photographs but also that the landing gear doors do not seem to have the white paint of the invasion stripes.  I think his fuselage camo colors are off by a little but, However I WISH my camo pattern was as accurate as his is!  

 

I'm coming around to the blue stripes on top but repainting the black strips is an issue.  The blue is so dark I'd have to do at least a dusting of white and then the blue, which means I'd probably have a paint lip (and that's before the discussion is my blue too dark or not). 

 

Thanks for your explanation 66misos.  Black underneath, blue on top.  What a combo of colors this aircraft was.

 

Seems like we have a lot of info we could share and maybe to get a consensus on what Lou IV actually looked like (blue paint, various stripes, color of he machine gun covers,etc).

 

I'm halfway thinking I need to 'start over' esp with the painting now that I have even more information than before.  The color of the blue is still an issue - I'm in-between on whether I have it too dark or not.  

 

Chris

[Guest Peterpools]

Chris

OMG, nothing like a stress free, smooth sailing Revell build. Your diligence and perseverance on getting the colors and marking correct are extraordinary. I tip my hat: an outstanding build and a fantastic tutorial on how to research, research and research the colors and markings until satisfied the answers and results are correct.

Awesome work !

Keep 'em comin

:popcorn:

Peter

[CANicoll]

Yeah Peter, no stress!

 

Thanks guys - here is where I am at the moment - have not resolved the stabilizer strips at the moment, but got the landing gear and the drop tanks plumbed ( and attached ) and did lay down a coat of clear matte and then took off the canopy and windscreen masks.  First time I've used the inside masks as well as the outside.  Still a bit more to do (antenna for instance, mirror, canopy hand hold) but seeing the finish line - even if it still has some unresolved issues.

 

Test-fitted the Eduard exhausts with the kit shroud on the left side (sorry for the blurry picture).

 

Not the best pictures, but gives an overall look.

 

 

The Tamiya tape dispensers ensured the dropped flaps were exactly the same.

 

Drop tank plumbing is some old solid-core wire I had and also used on my Tamiya P-51D Mustang.  Seems to be the right scale. The plumbing is not glued in actually but fitted into the holes in wing and in the drop tank itself.  The insulation was stripped out for the holes, and then painted black for the 'rubber' hoses.

 

Apologies for the poor photography, busy weekend and tomorrow our club treasurer and I are setting up a model display for the local base's 100th anniversary dinner so been working on getting that together.

 

Thank all and hope everyone had a good weekend.

 

Chris

Edited July 2, 2018 by CANicoll

[quang]

Chris,

 

Looks VERY good! Colours still look fresh but I guess you'll weather them down at a later stage.

Which wheels are you using?