1/32 Tamiya Mustang

[Guest]

thanks trey. i really was bummed about the flaps not staying as that would've been a great feature. i followed the instructions verbatum, and this was the first time i used photo etched parts, so i'm not sure if i did something wrong. i am going to leave the tail rudder moveable though, so that's nice...

with the amount of time, money and effort we put into these things, i don't think it's a bad thing to get wrapped up in them. i haven't lost sleep over mine yet, unless you count staying up until the very late hours of the night working on them. but that's all part of the fun.

[yak face]

Looks great jim, cant wait to see it in the paint, cheers tony

[Guest]

All glossed up

just going to let it cure for a day then hit it with the alclad. i hope to have pictures of that up in a week or so. we'll see with the holidays.

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[Vaughan]

Can't wait to see the Alclad go down Jim.

Vaughan

[Guest]

alclad down

got the alclad down. might do some touch ups. the areas around the machine gun panels seems a little off. but overall i think it came out great. i'm going to do some panel highlights with slightly altered colors to get them to stand out a little. i used the polished aluminum alclad (105 i think). i mixed airframe aluminum and some steel for the panels around the exhausts. i'll probably do some duraluminum and aluminum on the highlight panels.

it's getting there. i'm nervous about doing the red. the moving panels around the engine aren't instilling much confidence in me that i'll get the lines clean. we'll see how she goes.

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[Guest]

Jim the Alclad layed down nicely,super job!

[Guest]

thanks trey. first time for alclad. it's a process but it looks awesome.

[Vaughan]

Jim you've got a very nice finish on the Alclad.

Vaughan

[Guest]

thanks vaughan. i appreciate it.

[Guest]

Shiny

[stona]

Nice job on the Alclad.

FYI the wings on P-51s were not left in a natural metal finish.

The forward 40% of the wing was sprayed with zinc chromate primer. This was followed by enough coats of 'Gray Surfacer' No.53N5 to cover all irregularities. Skin butt joints were then filled with Red Vellunite glazing putty No. 58485. The entire surface was then sanded down and sprayed with one coat of camouflage enamel. When camouflage was deleted, the wing was sprayed with aluminum lacquer. This will still give a 'silver' finish but looks duller than the bare metal skins in other areas of the air frame.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

good to know steve. it's always interesting to see what they did back in the day.

i remember seeing something on the military channel before that they stopped painting the mustangs and left them bare metal because they could go (if memory serves) about 10 mph faster without all the paint.

[stona]

They deleted camouflage since it was no longer considered necessary,same for bombers late in the war. The weight penalty was minimal (about 30Kg for a B-17 IIRC) but it saved time in production and should have reduced drag slightly.

The Mustang wings were primed,puttied,sanded and finally sprayed with an aluminium laquer to give a smooth laminar type airflow over the wing. Spitfire wings,at least the front portion,were treated in a similar way though the retained a camouflage finish. There is anecdotal evidence from maintenance crews that at least some Mustangs were de-puttied and returned to natural metal wings in theatre but that is not how they were supposed to be and certainly not how they left the factory. I don't consider myself an expert on USAAF aircraft (by a long chalk!) but scanning the images I do have,I can't see much evidence for natural metal wings.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

professor stona in the house!

i was using these pics as reference. i don't doubt what you're saying at all, but these pics look natural to me.

i really think it makes all the rivets and personality of the plane pop out at you on the model as well. i'm not planning on doing my standard wash on this one. i'm going to make this a clean bird.

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[stona]

Go for it chap,I'm the last person to tell anyone how to build their model! I was just showing how they were supposed to be finished at the time. Anything was possible,there was a war on after all.

I do think the wing visible in the first of the two pictures you posted is painted and not NMF. It is much 'greyer' (it's hard to put these things into words) and less shiney than the rest of the visible airframe. Look at the contrast with the natural metal of the wing fillet.

Here's a nice piccy clearly showing the smooth finish on the wing and the difference from the natural metal fuselage. It should still show though I've reduced the resolution somewhat for web posting.

Cheers

Steve