DesTROYers 1/32 P-51D Mustang

[DesTROYer]

Good evening gents. With the Cat and B737 finished, here is my next project. About three weekends work so far.


A lot of after market and a bit of scratch detailing involved in this one.

As per the instructions, I started off with the Merlin. Have to say I am really impressed with the details in this kit.








Then I moved onto the cockpit.
















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Some test dry fitting of the parts. This indicated that one of the cables I had added was stopping the floor from seating properly, so I removed it.




Parts are now all in a clear gloss coat and over the next week I'll begin applying the placard decals. Taking my dad to see Dunkirk tomorrow, so I don't know if I will get anything done for the rest of the weekend, but I'm very happy with my progress to date.

[BradG]

Cool, although wasn't the floor of the cockpit wooden; so no paint metallic paint chips?

[DesTROYer]

Yes wood painted black. Good spot young Brad.

[DesTROYer]

Here is where I got to today. Finished the placard and instrument decals on the instrument panel.


Then using my die punch set, made some masks for the dials so when I apply the clear matt coat, they will stay shiny.


Then I went on to the two side walls of the cockpit.

(a bit out of focus this one, sorry)


The cockpit floor and fuel tank got attention next.


I've just sealed all of the decals under a gloss coat and packed everything away for the night. Tomorrow I'll apply a wash and see how it all looks. I'll be sure to keep you all posted.

[hrtpaul]

Great work mate. Coming along nicely I must say. Instead of the gauge masks, you can put a few drops of future in each gauge after the flat coat is down. Less risk of the tape pulling up the gauge decals which would suck.

[DesTROYer]

The gauge decals are actually mounted on the back of the clear piece, so damage to the decal is not an issue for these ones, I will be doing that however for the gauges that are decals on the surface though.

[DesTROYer]

A big day today. Oil wash applied to cockpit and engine, matt coat applied, Oil cooler assembled painted and installed, fuselage buttoned up and new battery mounting bracket discovered and installed. That's it for this weekend. I'd better go clean the kitchen, fold the laundry and get ready for the work week.

[DesTROYer]

It's time for this weekends update. I got the battery mounted in the engine bay, the pipe work installed and the engine cooling intake installed.








Then I got started assembling the wings and landing gear bays.






Today I was back onto the wing assemblies and they're well underway now. Many components are together and in paint but there is still a lot to do. Thats it for this weekend though. Hopefully I'll find some time to do more during the week, but for now thats it.

[DesTROYer]

Evening all. Slow start today, but still made a bit of progress. I started off with a task I was not looking forward to. Not because it was going to be difficult but because it involved removing so much beautiful detail. As most of you are no doubt aware, most of the rivets and seams on the Mustangs wings were puttied over to make the wings as smooth as possible. These means painting of Mr Surfacer 1500 over most of the seam and rivet details, then sanding back the filler until the surface is smooth.




That done, after assembling the wings, heaps and heaps of surface prep, sanding, a wash and masking, I then headed out to the garage and laid down a coat of silver to the wings.



Tomorrow I'll take the masks off, get out the micro mesh and give it all a polish before going onto the undercarriage, flaps and tail assemblies. The fuselage will resprayed in Alclad II NMF, so I won't be ready to spray that for a while off yet.

[DesTROYer]

And thats another weekend done with. I started the day polishing up the wings I sprayed last night. They look great.


I then spent the rest of the day assembling the control surfaces and landing gear. With all the pins and photo etch this was no quick task. Easy enough as long as none of the photo etch pinged off into the never never. Lucky for me only one piece nearly got away, but amazingly I found it where it had landed at the back the bench on a bottle of thinner. More surface prep followed before I went back into the garage and sprayed some more AS12 onto the fabric coated control surfaces and landing gear.


I then went and dry fitted the wings to the fuselage to see how the fit was. Tamiya sure do know how to make a kit.




Then back into the cabinet with the Tracker to await the next session.




Next up I will start getting the fuselage and remaining parts prepared for painting with Alclad II polished aluminium, before bringing together all the assemblies for the first time.