Airfix 1/48 P-51D

[turbo]

Nice work Chad, great job on the drop tank

 

[Luftace43]

Nice work Chad, great job on the drop tank

Thank you turbo!

 

[Luftace43]

Hi everyone! The mold came out pretty decent. Not perfect but usable. Here are the results.

Mold secured with cardboard and rubber bands, resin poured.

Mold opened and new part extracted.

Two casts completed, compared to original.

The next step will be to fill in air bubbles with putty then sand everything smooth. More progress soon. Feel free to ask any questions, I will be happy to answer them

Chad

 

[JKim]

Wonderful work on the drop tanks, Chad. You really are a master at using those long snakes of Milliput! How do you roll them to get them so uniform and then keep them uniform during handling?

 

[Luftace43]

Wonderful work on the drop tanks, Chad. You really are a master at using those long snakes of Milliput! How do you roll them to get them so uniform and then keep them uniform during handling?

Hello John, and thank you! I will do my best to explain how I roll milliput into uniform lengths.

I first make sure I have a clean flat working surface free of dust and debris as much as possible. For me this is just my green self healing hobby mat that I have brushed off and wiped down with paper towels. In the corner of the mat I place a small pile of baby powder to have handy. I then mix up milliput as normal, two equal parts. Once thoroughly mixed, I pull off a piece about the size of a BB, so maybe 3mm in diameter. I roll this between my thumb and index finger to form a cigar shape, then place it on the mat.
The next part is very important. Touch the tips of your fingers and thumb into the powder that is on your mat. Basically you want any part of your fingers that will come into contact with the putty to have a coating of powder so that the putty will not stick to your fingers because of sweat or oils.
With your index finger, start gently rolling the putty back and forth. I keep my finger/hand as level to the work surface as possible, especially as the putty begins to lengthen and get thinner. Pay attention to how the putty feels while you are doing this. If it starts feeling tacky or sticky to your fingers at all, apply more powder to your fingers. Occasionally check your progress and look for any places that are fatter than other areas. Work these areas by applying extremely light pressure and moving your finger down the length of the snake as you roll. This is very intuitive As you almost feel that you thinking about the action does the work rather than applying pressure. It is that light of a pressure being applied. Very much something you understand and get a feel for once you start working with the putty.
As the snake gets longer, use your other fingers to support it so it all rolls as one piece. You do not want one end to stay stationary while the other is rolled. This will cause the putty to twist, thus weakening it and breaking off. Just as you don't want your fingers to stick to the putty, you don't want your putty to stick to the mat. If you notice it sticking to the mat, work a little powder into the work surface with your finger. The powder coating on both your fingers and mat should be very thin. You should be able to feel it, but not see it except that the coated surface and fingers should be dull, not shiny, almost as if they have been Matt coated if you think of it as a painted surface. So basically, to achieve good results, don't let the putty stick, and keep checking for uniformity in girth of your snake. The longer the snake gets, the more difficult it will be to control, i.e. more prone to twisting and breaking.
Depending on how long you need your piece to be and how thin, you can break off lengths of the snake to a more manageable size and continue rolling them thinner. Use a sharp blade to cut them to length once rolled to the desired diameter. With the tip of the knife slightly damp, you can pick up the putty and place it where desired. A dampened paint brush works as well. Once placed, use a dampened brush to tweak the position of your snake and push it into place as desired, gently stroking down the length to straighten.

I hope this explanation is clear and helpful. If anything is unclear or you have a question about something I may not have mentioned, please ask, I enjoy helping others.

Chad

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!

 

[JKim]

Thank you for that detailed explanation. Milliput has many uses but I rarely see this type of fabrication. Good stuff!

 

[fubar57]

Great mods

 

[Airframes]

Nicely done.

 

[Wurger]

 

[N4521U]

Eggsellent idea for the milliput.
Nice work.

 

[Luftace43]

Thank you all for the kind words. I've been away from the bench for a little while and from here. Getting back to work on this now and have to catch up on your builds as well. I'm starting to get a little burned out on this one to be honest, its mostly the seemingly endless imperfection fixing on the drop tanks. Anyways, to stay motivated I took a step back and looked at the project overall. I realized I am basically ready to paint the whole aircraft so am going to start making that happen. The drop tanks will have to be added after everything else is painted anyways, so I will finish those up later. I really want to get this one finished so I can start my next project, but I promised myself I wouldn't start anything new until this is wrapped up. Will post some progress pics later, not much done except masking canopies so far. Thanks for stopping by, and check back soon, this project is rolling again!

 

[Luftace43]

As promised here are some pictures.

Canopy masked. Reflective sight glued to instrument coaming. It is very hard to see from this angle, but if you look closely between the left side of the coaming and the sight, I added the electrical wire to the gun sight behind the toggle switch. Also the sliding canopy brace has had the lightening holes drilled out and lightly drybrushed neutral grey. I also gave the reflective glass and lamp lense a brush of future to improve clarity.

Using the kit dorsal antenna as a guide, I scratched a couple antennas for the "Uncle Dog" homing radar from styrene strip that was close to the desired width. There are two holes seen forward of the tail fillet either side of the centerline that these will be glued into. The kit antenna will be relocated under the nose just forward of the wheel well later.

Here the windscreen has been glued in place and the rear canopy tacked down with testors clear parts cement. The uncle dog antennas halve also been glued in place. I need to add some sort of filler around the base of the antennas to fill the edges of the holes. Should be ready for primer pretty soon. Hopefully there will no blemishes to fix, but will only know that for sure later. Next part is masking the wheel wells and checking things over before spraying commences. See you guys soon.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[turbo]

Coming together nicely Chad

 

[Luftace43]

Thanks for the compliments!

On the bottom of the strut opposite the wheel hub is a towing eye. Airfix represents this with a half round blob. I think I can do better.

I took some thin wire I had in my junk box. I folded the wire in half with a #79 drill bit at the bend. I then twisted the tails together with tweezers.

This is what I ended up with. An eye bolt shape. I have it on a #11 x-acto blade so you can gauge the size.

I trimmed off the blobs on the struts, and drilled a hole to receive the new towing eyes. I trimmed the wire pigtails, dipped them in super glue and put them in the holes. Tada! Much better, and should be fairly secure since they are essentially pins.

That's it for now, just thought you guys might want to see this. Back to the bench I go.

 

[Wurger]

 

[N4521U]

Great little detail.

 

[SANCER]

Hola Chad
I am enjoying the journey and details, I will keep an eye on what is still coming from your bench.

Saludos