Airfix 1:72 P-51D Mustang refurb

[tor lives]

Hi guys,
Yep....at it again.
This time it is an update on an ancient, little old banged-up and beaten Airfix 1:72 P-51D Mustang.
Following recovery from the depths of the old RAAF blue trunk (my Davis-Monthan AFB "bone-yard" for all my old models),
this was how she looked after her caustic soda bath, general clean-up, and some preliminary installation of refabricated parts:





As can be seen, many original parts were missing and had to be replaced with refabricated and after-market parts. Additionally the model had to modified to more accurately represent true P-51D spec, (cause many key "D" features were either missing from the original kit, or very poorly represented).
So after quiet a bit of work here is where we are at now:













Obviously still much work to do, but she will eventually be wearing a really cool WIF red/white air racer "Marlboro Racing Team" colour scheme, (custom decals)....in my minds eye I can already see her screaming past the crowd-line at Reno with that Rolls Royce Merlin just howling
Ray
(see...I actually do make some progress on all these refurbs )

[Cap'n Wannabe]

Great stuff, Ray...I'm likin' all these refurbs of yours!

[Knotty]

Coming along nicely Ray , good to see you back in the model room mate

[Adam the Akrodude]

Inspirational work Ray.

There is a lot to be said for refurbishing these ol' classic kits. I think of the many thousands of these kits now gone - either set on fire, blown up by crackers, blown to pieces in mock backyard dogfights, etc. They very much represent a special time, a more innocent age.

Luckily there are those like you who choose to keep this period alive by refurbishing these classics. We all cut out teeth on these wonderful Airfix, Matchbox, Revell and Frog kits - great to see them come back to life this way.

I didn't build this Airfix Mustang, but built the Matchbox version. I remember painting it a light blue - as that was what it looked like on the back of the box. The light blue in fact represented silver/aluminium paint - not blue of course! Pretty sure it met it's fate on the fire heap (like most of my very early models), with black toxic smoke billowing from it!

I remember one of my best paint schemes - that applied to a Airfix Me-262. I painted it silver overall, then applied a "mottle" using a green texta - cool huh! My paint supplies were limited back in the early 70's, nor did I really care what the hell I painted my models way back then - had more fun too!

BTW, this is a good little project as a lead in to your RB!

Cheers

Adam