Duchess Arlene Tamiya P-51D

[CANicoll]

10 hours ago, Out2gtcha said:

Wonderful Chris! 

 

Thanks Brian!  Good to be back modeling!  Hope all is well in Nebraska.  Crazy stuff going on here.  Wondering if Nationals is going to happen...  Chris

[Wolf Buddee]

What Brian said.........

 

Wonderful Chris!

 

Cheers,

Wolf

[MikeMaben]

17 hours ago, markiii said:

                ..., are you going to paint that line below the data placards?

 

Looks like it 'could' be the cockpit color ...

 

 

Yeah, it's a restoration .

 

 

 

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by MikeMaben

[CANicoll]

9 hours ago, Wolf Buddee said:

What Brian said.........

 

Wonderful Chris!

 

Cheers,

Wolf

 

Thanks Wolf!  Good to be back and hope you are well!  Chris

[Out2gtcha]

Yep, me too. I'm not very confident that any major events are going to happen this summer.

[CANicoll]

5 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

 

Looks like it 'could' be the cockpit color ...

 

 

Yeah, it's a restoration .

 

 

 

 

 

One of the first things I noticed was the plane in the picture is in a museum - I usually refer to a few different sources: esp Squadron's Walk Around which has period (some color) pics.  Page 48 seems to show that conduit attached to the fuselage panel is painted black, as is the panel itself and that the fastener does not have a rubber gasket attached.

 

For visual and scale effect sometimes I will either paint or do a wash on a feature such as that conduit just to give it a bit more visual differentiation.  I may do that here as well.  I was planning on attaching the throttle cables and the cables for the gunsight as well but have to consider what will actually be seen.

 

Now I'm annoyed I didn't see that picture sooner or I would have painted much more of the cockpit black.  Well, I DID see that picture but was looking for the color of various switches and such.  For all the Mustangs I've seen (and built),  everyone has had a predominantly interior green cockpit.  Something I will look into for future builds as I have two Revell 1/32 Mustang kits in the closet.

 

Live and learn!

[CANicoll]

Making a bit of progress, got the landing gear wheel well together but my compressor pressure regulator failed today so won't be spraying anything until I get a replacement.

 

Apologize for the poor lighting on the photography.  Just don't have that set up yet.

 

Found two more cockpit decals that I missed, however one will end up behind the seat so not doing that one.  I did put on the one for the map case.  I don't think I have ever seen that sign in a cockpitThe Barracuda sidewalls are really detailed and look terrific paired with the Barracuda cockpit stencils:

 

Also got the gun sight together, first time I've put all of this into the K-14 sight.  This is also the Eduard resin and PE sight.  The reflector glass is actually cut from the clear acetate sheet from the Barracuda instrument panel sheet.  There is plenty of clear sheet left and there is a black border around the sheet that makes measuring and cutting much easier.  Can't see that black line here though as I used it at the base. And actually, in the right light, the ''glass" really does reflect the image below it!

I have seen pictures that show 'No Handhold' on top of the gun sight sunshade so will look to see if I have a decal that will fit.  This is the first time I've used the PE adjustment chain on the left side of the sight - bottom picture.

 

Working on the elevators and wings tomorrow. I think I'm going to use the AMUR Reaver resin flaps.

 

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Chris

[CANicoll]

Latest update and tried something I have never tried before: Spraying Mr Surfacer.  

 

Trying to replicate the puttied wings on the Mustang I thought I'd give spraying Mr. Surfacer 1500 a try.  Reading the thread on the topic on LSP, cutting it with 50% Mr Color Self Leveling Thinner seemed like the way to go.  

 

Here is the prep:  I used Mr Hobby Mr Mask on the fuel caps and the inspection panel on the top of the wing as well as on the gun bay panels and the lights on the bottom of the wing.

 

The 'strakes' (for lack of the correct term for what they are called) were not puttied so covered them in Tamiya tape.

 

The Mr Surfacer went on heavy and wet but it leveled off amazingly well.  Maybe too well!!  Over three sessions I laid down about 20 coats of 50% Mr Surfacer 1500 and Mr Color Self Leveling Thinners.  When it was wet, the rivets were completely covered.  When it dried, I'm hard pressed to see that it made any difference.  

Does not look too bad in the Mr. Surfacer gray - wait till you see it back in Gloss Black Primer.

 

 

I may have wasted half a bottle of Mr Surfacer...

 

 

I literally puddled Mr Surfacer on the leading edge and top chords of the wing!  No clue where it went off to.

 

AMUR Flap vs Tamiya Flaps

Next is working on using those terrific AMUR resin flaps.  In my Lou IV build I showed the difference between the Revell, Tamiya and AMUR flaps.  Both Revell and Tamiya have their issues but the AMUR flaps are amazing.  

 

I wanted to see if I could get the resin flaps to articulate the same way as the Tamiya flaps but that meant getting some pins into the resin flaps.  (No clue why, but the photograph makes the resin flap look short, but it is perfectly the same size).

 

 

I tried using a pin vise to drill into the AMUR sprue and found the resin is actually pretty soft and was very easy to drill into. I was concerned that if the resin was brittle that it might not take the pin very well as it had to go in very close to the edge of the flap.

 

First I drilled a #64 hole, then used a larger drill for the final hole.  I found that a pin from an interface connector (remember the V.35 interface?) is exactly the same diameter as the pin on the Tamiya flap - and I have maybe 15 of those pins.

 

What I found is that I have the angle of the pin in the flap off by about 5 degrees so will have to see if I can finagle it into the slot.  Worst case I'll just glue it in place.  But thought I'd give this a try.

 

Barracuda Resin Wheels and Tires

Last up are those beautiful Barracuda wheels and tires.  Used a pointed punch push the flash out from between the spokes which worked really well, as well as around the tires.

 

 

First coat was Vallejo Gloss Black primer, followed by spraying the wheels in Vallejo Metal Flat Aluminum and then used my go-to color for tires which is Vallejo RLM66 Black Grey.

 

 

Lots of building this weekend (and actually started a 1/144 B-58 Hustler as well!). Going to let this dry for a day and come back to it on Tuesday.  Hope everyone had a good weekend - be safe!

 

Chris

[MikeMaben]

Hey Chris , looks like fun. I think the problem with the MS1500 is that it's too fine (particles very small).

I've thinned MS500 with 91% alcohol and used it as a primer / filler.

Give it a try on a mule to see if you like it.

 

  

 

Just don't fall off 

 

[CANicoll]

Thanks Mike - I wondered about that too.  Just ordered the 500 from SprueBrothers.  I will give it one more go, thanks for the recommendation.

 

Says a lot that I can actually puddle the 1500 on the surface (with 50% self leveling thinner) and there are no streaks or runs or anything.  Perfectly flat and took a 12000 grid sanding pad to the wing and it polished up nicely.

 

In the meantime will work on closing up the fuselage and playing with the flaps and landing gear.  Still lots to do.

Cheers,

Chris

[markiii]

Hey Chris, just a reminder.

The decal for the sunshade is on the kit decal sheet.

Happy modeling! Keep cranking away.

[CANicoll]

25 minutes ago, markiii said:

Hey Chris, just a reminder.

The decal for the sunshade is on the kit decal sheet.

Happy modeling! Keep cranking away.

 

Thanks Mark!  I actually had one from another Barracuda stencil set that I used - fit perfectly and same font/etc as the one on the pad on the front of the gunsight.

Cheers, Chris

[CANicoll]

I'll try and do a few updates tonight.

 

Here is my attempt at making the drop tanks removable using magnets.  After having done this I'm not sure how useful it is, other than if you want to be able to display the aircraft without the drop tanks.  But it was an interesting exercise...

 

Here is the set up:  3mm x 2mm magnets (yes, 200 of them....)

 

 

First step was seeing how deep I could thin the plastic so I used the paper 110 gal drop tanks as a test.

 

 

One of the Dremel bits was perfect for this job:

 

I dry fitted the wing attachment to the tank to see where the magnets would go, then marked out the locations with a Sharpie.

 

 

This was the result, used thick CA to install one (at a time!)

 

Next up was to fit the other pair of magnets into the wing attachement.  Started with some cutting using the fine-tooth razor saw

 

 

The cuts on the right side are about a mm too deep which I corrected in the other piece.  Note the pieces are actually hollow, making gluing the magnets a bit easier.  Here is what the magnets look like in the wing attachment.  The magnets are just a bit wider than the base itself so I used some putty to fair them in after this picture.  The bases look a bit thicker, but it is not that noticeable.

 

 

They hold very well actually.  I was able to get rid of about 100 magnets to members of my club, leaving me with, oh, like 90+.

 

More to come!

Chris

[CANicoll]

Next up is working to get those gorgeous AMUR resin flaps working on the Tamiya Mustang.  I've used these flaps before on a Revell P-51 but they were not articulated - just glued into place.  On this build I wanted to see if I could get the flaps to actually move.  Earlier in this thread I inserted a couple of pins into the resin flaps,  at it turns out, I didn't get them drilled in exactly the right place.  So I replaced the pins with solder that I could bend as needed.

 

I straightened out that bend in the left flap.

 

On the other end, there is a very small pin that I duplicated by cutting a small drill bit.  Originally cut it a bit long - could have drilled a bit deeper or just cut the pin.  I didn't want to risk coming through the flap so shortened the pin.  The red arrow on the right shows the gap.

 

After shorting that pin, the fit is much better:

 

And they move!  I closed up the wing gap close to the wing root by maneuvering the flap a bit.  Soft-ish solder helps.  Just love the look of those flaps.

 

More to come.  Be safe everyone.

 

Chris

[MikeMaben]

Neat