Revell Desert Rat P-51D

[CANicoll]

Made progress today, but quite the way I was expecting!

 

So decided to give the kit decals a try, since they have a set of the correct nose checkers that should fit, right?  Yeah, no.  The checkers from the Revell kit have a cutout for the front of the exhaust opening.  The problem is if you apply the decals so the opening is correct, there is a substantial gap at the top: 2-3mm.  Tried every which way to get them to line up properly (they ARE the kit decals afterall!)  Just for grins, since I didn't a have anything to lose, I tried the Kits-world nose checkers.  Not a perfect fit, but about 95+% the way there and as you can see from the picture below, there still is a bit of adjusting to do.  Chin scoop needs some touching up, and in order to get the checkers to lay down properly had to do some cutting along the checker lines in several places, but overall, not bad.  Bonus is the red turns out to be REALLY close to the MRP-299 Insignia Red (FS-11136).   We will see if I can match the yellow properly.  I'm still really reluctant to get into painting the spinner.  I can't seem to get the masking quite right for the three bands.  

 

The CMK landing gear is together and I'm not sure if it is much of an improvement over the kit gear, other than being a stronger resin than the kit plastic. The tow ring is nice detailed.  Neither set has the nice plumbing found in the Tamiya kit and I found it extremely difficult to try and open up the insides of the resin hinge.  However, they fit well with one small exception, they are a bit loose front to rear meaning if you glue them into place so the round pad on the top of the gear is touching the inside of the landing gear bay, the gear is almost vertical under the wing, instead of having the distinctive front rake.

 

I seriously thought about masking and painting the red 'do not step' areas for the flaps, but went with the kit decals anyway.  I would have had to mask, lay down a white base then paint the red.  If I had thought about it early enough, that would have worked since I used a white primer as the base.  Next build!  Dont worry about the nasty painted bits at the center - that part is under the wing root fairing.  Looks pretty nasty here actually so that will have to be fixed.

 

Last is working on the exhausts.  Will see if this is the direction I go, but these are ok for now.  I've had to cut/sand the back/bottom of the resin exhausts to fit into the enclosed wells in the Revell fuselage.

 

More to come!

Chris

[Out2gtcha]

 Nice Chris!!

[CANicoll]

Made progress on the markings.  Huge difference between the Revell kit decals (kind of thick, inconsistent with setting solution) and the Kitsworld decals - thin, respond very well to setting solution.  Found a problem with that lovely Eduard Brassin spinner set. Crap.

 

Have not put the top clear coat on yet.  Why didn't anyone tell me that when you get a cat, especially a short haired tabby, the hair is EVERYWHERE.

 

Reference photos show both the black information panel with white lettering, as well as the black stencil with the nose are feet painted over the top.  The black stencil decal is one I liberated from a different aircraft, cutting off the top part that had the serial number.

 

Best as I can tell, there are not a lot of stencils on Passion Wagon so I've only applied the ones that I've been able to see.

 

I've seen some pictures of the tape over the gun ports so took some decal and applied it to the gun muzzles.  The taping is usually not consistent, hence the kind of random application.

 

Have also seen the canvas cover over the tail-wheel but can't remember the last time I saw it on a model, so thought I'd give that a go to see how it might look.  This is not exactly perfect - the actual canvas has the zipper up the middle, but with the aircraft on a base, this won't be seen anyway.  Valleo sand painted on one layer of a facial tissue, then white glued into place.

 

Testing fitting the Eduard spinner base onto the fuselage showed a problem.  Here is the Eduard Brassin spinner base painted red, sitting on the Revell spinner base and it is easy to see the Brassin base is noticeably smaller than the Revell kit piece.  Unfortunately, on the aircraft, the Brassin spinner base shows a 'step' down from the fuselage.  I've sent a message to Eduard to ask if they've released an update to their Brassin piece.  The Eduard prop does not come close to fitting onto the Revell spinner base, unfortunately.  Each part of the Eduard spinner and prop looks to be about 2mm too narrow.  Sigh...

[Out2gtcha]

That looks awesome so far Chris. Too bad about the spinner though. I'm glad that is one piece of AM for my Revell kit I skipped.

[CANicoll]

So, working out of order, as I usually do I sometimes mess up and forget to install part 2 before part 3, etc.  We've all been there, right??  SOOO, having finally painted the canopy I removed the masks from the windscreen (revealing the aforementioned problem) and the canopy.

 

First the good - the Aerocraft canopy fits beautifully.  I used the HGW masks for the Tamiya canopy and the only big adjustment I had to make was cutting the inside rear canopy mask in half to make it fit.  Otherwise, the inside and outside masks fit perfectly.  Pictures show the canopy frame is darker than the fuselage so I painted the frame with a black primer, and then the British Dark Green over that.  The primer also helps seal the clear plastic from light shining through.  Now have to touch up the fuselage cockpit opening.  Notice what is missing??

 

Where is the IP shade??

 

Took a bit of fitting, but was able to retrofit the sunshade with a fit of cutting and sanding...

 

Had to cut the back off the shade, then significantly thin down where it was cut.  The good news is the fix is very quick and easy.  Now just some touch up paint and attaching the gunsight, which I usually leave off until just about the end to make sure I don't knock it off...

 

There we go!

[CANicoll]

11 minutes ago, Out2gtcha said:

That looks awesome so far Chris. Too bad about the spinner though. I'm glad that is one piece of AM for my Revell kit I skipped.

 

Thanks Brian.  The prop, etc are beautiful, but noticeably undersized.  Not thrilled that something so easy to measure is that far off.  I really don't want to go back and use the kit pieces (not to mention what I paid for the Brassin set) but hopefully Eduard has a good response.  We will see.  In the meantime I guess I'll be prepping the Revell parts, and getting that clear coat to seal the decals, then get that wing polished up.

[dennismcc]

Looking good, will have to bookmark this as I have two Revell kits to build and the Aerocraft resin canopy so this is a great reference.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Edited June 21, 2020 by dennismcc

[CANicoll]

Update on the Eduard Spinner and Prop:  Eduard customer service responded promptly and are sending out a replacement set. Yay!  Gives me time to perfect my spinner painting, which on the first go round was an unmitigated disaster.

[Out2gtcha]

27 minutes ago, CANicoll said:

Update on the Eduard Spinner and Prop:  Eduard customer service responded promptly and are sending out a replacement set. Yay!  Gives me time to perfect my spinner painting, which on the first go round was an unmitigated disaster.

 

Did they say what the issue may have been?

Did they indicate it was a 1 off issue?

 

Just seeing if it was a mold problem being too undersized or if it was a 1 off issue with this particular copy.

[CANicoll]

33 minutes ago, Out2gtcha said:

 

Did they say what the issue may have been?

Did they indicate it was a 1 off issue?

 

Just seeing if it was a mold problem being too undersized or if it was a 1 off issue with this particular copy.

 

Hey Brian,  

 

No explanation, just an apology and that they are sending a replacement.  When it arrives I'll measure and compare the two.  I don't think resin really shrinks and molds don't either so not sure what to think at this point.    I've not seen anyone else mention this as a problem, and with the kit piece fitting perfectly I'm sure (for once!) it is not something I did during the build (unlike the fuselage width issue...).  Hopefully a one-off issue.

 

FWIW, the Eduard Prop set is from Jan 2019 (thank you Spruebrothers for putting the date on the label on the box!) so not sure if they fixed the issue way back then, or if this is one-off.  

 

Will definitely let you know.

Chris

Edited June 22, 2020 by CANicoll

[Out2gtcha]

Kewl, thanks Chris.

[Rick K]

Really nice finish on this Chris.  I dare you (think nose art) take to ODO 2021. 

[CANicoll]

3 hours ago, Rick K said:

Really nice finish on this Chris.  I dare you (think nose art) take to ODO 2021. 

 

Thank you! 

 

Ha!!  I'll put it right next to my Air-a-Cutie P-39. The good news is I believe that particular judge has either retired from judging or moved to a different category where his sensibilities are not offended.  That was a ridiculous episode.  He was going to judge Model Classic last year or the year before, but in the Automotive category to avoid the problem.  And if he thought WWII had racy nose art, his head would positively explode over the Vietnam war nose art!

 

You joining us for the July 1st meeting?

[Out2gtcha]

3 hours ago, Rick K said:

Really nice finish on this Chris.  I dare you (think nose art) take to ODO 2021. 

 

12 minutes ago, CANicoll said:

Ha!!  I'll put it right next to my Air-a-Cutie P-39. The good news is I believe that particular judge has either retired from judging or moved to a different category where his sensibilities are not offended.  That was a ridiculous episode.  He was going to judge Model Classic last year or the year before, but in the Automotive category to avoid the problem.  And if he thought WWII had racy nose art, his head would positively explode over the Vietnam war nose art!

 

 

Whats this then?    An IPMS judge offended by nudity on a model?   I thought all the virgins in our hobby were more relegated to Gundam models and such? 

[CANicoll]

35 minutes ago, Out2gtcha said:

Whats this then?    An IPMS judge offended by nudity on a model?   I thought all the virgins in our hobby were more relegated to Gundam models and such? 

 

How about that?  And personally deciding to disqualify entries because he was offended, IPMS National rules be damned.  I don't think we will see a repeat at ODO, whenever the next event happens to be.