Tamiya 1/32 P-51 D (but as a Mustang IV)

[scottie3158]

Steve,
All looking very nice.

[stona]

You must have a most excellent misc./spares box. Office looks very good. PaulE

There's three options in the box, actually more than three in various combinations, but that's Tamiya's examples. There's a variety of 'black boxes' to play with. I only nicked one from another kit, but it is very similar to the US version and I'm not sure why I bothered :rolling:. I must have had an attack of keenness, but it soon wore off.

There are a couple of things that a real stickler might alter to give a true British version, but not me. I mean a reflector sight is a reflector sight and I think the Americans copied one of ours anyway.

[stona]

I've now crammed everything into one half of the fuselage (the instructions would have you put different bits in the two halves) and am summoning up the courage to attempt to make everything line up and join the two halves.

Probably tomorrow.



You can't see in the photograph, but that radiator assembly is ridiculously complicated, comprising all sorts of tiny photo-etch, magnets and spindles!

Cheers

Steve

[stona]

I bit the bullet and got the fuselage zipped up. Anyone who has ever built a model aircraft knows that this is a rather important step. Mess this up and you'll be fixing the knock on effects for the rest of your build.
Tamiya have you put a lot of 'stuff' in the fuselage, requiring a lot of things to line up and seat properly as you join the two halves. With many kits this can be an interesting challenge and good source of income for the swear box. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I was very impressed by how this kit just snapped together, it would stay intact without any glue!



There's still a lot of spindles, photo-etch, grommets and magnets to go, the last of which have rather annoyingly magnetised my favourite set of locking tweezers. My old science teacher, Mr Roberts, would be interested to know that smacking them on the side of my vice has not degaussed them.

Cheers

James Clerk-Maxwell.

[Neil Merryweather]

That's looking beautifully neat and tidy, Steve.
Makes me want to splash the cash. I've never done a 1/32 Tamiya plane -they are SOOOO expensive!
Maybe when (if) I get back off furlough and 50% salary.....:thinking:

[stona]

It's been a while since I did one too. This kit was lurking in the Fuhrerin's shoe emporium until I recently rediscovered it. It is many years old, probably dates from Xmas following the release in 2012 (?). I just checked the price today and couldn't find it anywhere under 100+ quid, which is a substantial sum of anybody's hard earned cash. Having said that, I think you get your money's worth, even if some of the features are completely redundant and a bit toy like (who is going to swop between U/C down and U/C up for example?)

Next up (for the BoB GB) is a Revell Spitfire II, same scale. It's not a bad kit, but costs just 25 quid. I would say that you still get your money's worth, but of course it's nothing like the Tamiya offerings.

As the old saying goes, 'you pays your money and you takes your choice'.

Cheers

William Avery Rockefeller (I wish!)

[stona]

Close of play and I've completed all the gubbins for the oil cooler and radiator, they are all action if you want to open and close the outlet flaps (which is fun...once!)

I also completed what needed to be done at the nose to fit the cowlings. This, unexpectedly, included building the air intake duct, but it all went together very nicely.



Next up, even more spindles and photo etch for the control surface hinges :flushed:

Cheers

Steve

[stona]

I've now started on the wheel well(s).
Once again everything fits together nicely and there is plenty of room for some improvements for those of an obsessive disposition. Me? I'll just build them as they come from the kit.
There is some debate about the colour, but I have it from a couple of reputable sources that ALL P-51s sent to the UK had silver wheel wells, so I have ignored the instructions call for interior green. I have left the back of the well in ZC yellow, since this was made up of the wing main spar and was finished that way on all P-51s. You really don't want your main spar suffering corrosion!



I've also spent a while filling all the beautifully molded panel lines and rivets on the relevant areas of the wings. Large areas of the P-51 wing were filled and finished in an aluminium dope in an effort to maintain the famous laminar flow as far back on the wing as possible. None of todays warbirds bother with this, and I expect those are the aircraft from which Tamiya took their information.



I'm looking forward to picking the filler out of one or two places it shouldn't be with the tip of the scriber!

Cheers

Steve

[yak face]

Wing details on Mustangs is something that bugs me Steve. Manufacturers all have the panel lines engraved and a lot of modellers paint different panels in different shades and lather it in panel wash and it’s not strictly right . Yes ,as you say lot of restored warbirds dont bother filling the panel gaps and polish them to high hell, maybe all the kit makers just go to these for reference .

[stona]

Yes ,as you say lot of restored warbirds dont bother filling the panel gaps and polish them to high hell, maybe all the kit makers just go to these for reference .

It's the warbirds and other museum examples that they measure and note when they make the drawings for their molds.

The best representation of the P-51 wing finish I've seen is the one attached. Not all that lighter area was finished exactly the same, but it was all filled and painted in one way or another.

Cheers

Steve

[stona]

Here's an example of something beautifully engineered by Tamiya, but which will be utterly redundant for most model builders.

This is the tail wheel assembly.



You can see that it is in a sort of tub. This can be dropped into the fuselage where it is held in place with a locating pin and magnets. You then position the lower fuselage skin over it (here without the gear doors).



Why?

Because the kit includes an alternate version with which you can pose the model in flight, undercarriage retracted. If you want you can whip out the wheel down 'tub' and replace it with the wheel up version.

It's brilliantly done, but would anybody actually do this?

It might sound like nit picking, but I'm sure features like this, of which there are several, don't make the kit any cheaper!

Cheers

Steve

[stona]

This morning I got to the point where I could fix all the bits and pieces I built over the weekend. That means I've now got a model which looks like an aeroplane, always a satisfying part of any build.
All the control surfaces I built 'properly', with Tamiya's plethora of little shafts, grommets and photo-etch, which means they are all poseable, not that they will get moved much once the model is finished!
This image is as it is, I haven't even looked at tidying or sanding any seams, not that there is much to do, the fit of the kit is staggering, and shows just what can be achieved with injection molded parts. The filler is there to fill panel lines which should not be there on a wartime Mustang.



There's still a long way to go, images like that above can give the impression of a bit of a false dawn, but with more than three weeks to go until the start of the BoB GB I'm hoping to be finished by then. We'll see, I won't be rushing!

Cheers

Steve

[adt70hk]

Hi Steve

Just caught up this. It's looking very good indeed!! Should look great once finished!

ATB

Andrew

[stona]

I've now got the majority of the construction finished.



Which means I will shortly be thinking about getting some paint on. I've decided to give the MRP lacquers a go, so I started with something easy, the undercarriage doors which are constructed in another of Tamiya's modular and magnet attached units.
It looks like this (partially complete).



It's not easy to see the exact colour, it's on what is the outside of the doors, but I have to say that the paint sprayed very easily, coverage is good and it and has left a nice smooth surface. Not having to thin the product is a bonus. What's not to like? Incidentally, despite being lacquer based, I didn't find the paint smelly, certainly not compared to the Alclad II I've also been spraying this morning. So far I'm suitably impressed, I'll see how I get on with the camouflage over the next few days.

Cheers

Steve

[stona]

I've got the thing primed (weird reaction between the primer and black paint on the windscreen which was a bit annoying) and have sprayed and masked the yellow leading edge stripes. I couldn't find the specification for the Mustang, so went with that for the Spitfire, that is a 4" wide stripe (3.2 mm to scale).
I've also sprayed the US equivalent of Sky for the fuselage band. It's nothing like Sky, and why the British Purchasing Commission accepted it only they would know. That will be masked to 18" (14.3mm to scale) once the paint has dried.



I shall be giving the MRP paints a proper go on the underside later, or tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes!