Airfix 1/48 P-51D

[Airframes]

Good stuff.
Just a quick note of caution for the Fantasy Print Shop decals, as I've just used some of their Luftwaffe code letter decals on my He-111 in the last GB. Whilst they perform very well, care is needed, as each letter / number is an individual character, that is, it is not on a rectangle of carrier film, but has the film closely following the outline of the character. This means that extra care is needed when handling / applying each decal, to avoid it folding over on itself or otherwise creasing.
They seemed to take some time to settle, but did eventually conform very well.
However, even though I applied these to a very glossy surface, once settled and with a clear matt coat applied, some very slight silvering could be seen around the thin carrier film edges, which was not evident on the gloss surface !
This can only be seen at certain angles, close up, under certain lighting conditions (camera flash shows it up at some angles), and it was on a dark background, which probably didn't help. (the other decals, a mixture of kit decals and from the spares files, did not show any silvering).
On a 'bare metal' finish, this might not be a problem, although with time, some discolouration may show the thin film outline.
The pics below show this before the matt clear coat, and after, with the black letter 'S' showing slight silvering.

 

[Luftace43]

Thanks for the heads up on the decals, I will take extra care now that I know what I'm dealing with. Hopefully the silvering will be minimal with my NMF. Nice looking He-111, turned out well even if you had some decals that didn't want to play nice.

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[JKim]

Good to see the gloss black on the P-51D. Looking forward to the metal!

 

[Luftace43]

Thanks John! I shall keep you waiting no more. Here she is guys, (Al)clad in her shiny metal finish. I still have to darken the panels around the exhaust, forgot to do that. Please excuse the messy work station.

This was my first time using Alclad and I really like the stuff. There are a few blemishes I can see, but they aren't bad enough for me to go through the whole sanding, priming etc. that would entail. Next step is to paint the anti glare panel as well as the unit markings on all the wingtips and tail. More soon, lemme know what you think.

Chad

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

You've done very well and the fit and finish are immaculate. Personally, I tend to fill all the panel lines on the upper wings except for the gun access panels and then paint the wings a dull aluminum colour. This replicates how the wings were actually made since they were puttied and smoothed out to preserve the laminar flow characteristics.

 

[Airframes]

Nicely done. I agree with Andy re the wings, but it still looks the biz !

 

[Luftace43]

Thank you guys! About the wings. Truth be told I was tired of the repeated sanding and filling of the normal seams on the model that I really did not want to mess with any more putty. I was reaching burn out and just want this off my bench at this point. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work so far!

 

[Luftace43]

Well, got the blue and black markings painted on. Upon removing the masks, I only had one major area of paint lifting. The underside of the port wing had about a 1/2 inch area lift off to the bare plastic. Dunno what happened, maybe I was careless removing that particular mask as I had no problems anywhere else. I'm pretty disgusted. I tried touching it up, but the paint left a very prominent edge that showed up and looked like crap. So, I have sanded down the area to the plastic and repainted the outer half of the wing in gloss black again. Might be another couple days before I can get this back on track. I really just want this thing done, it is becoming a headache.

 

[Luftace43]

Figured I'd at least post up some pictures of where its at for now.

Showing off the colors added. The prop and spinner are not glued together, hence the gaps.

The offending wing area. The damage was actually between the wingtip and and first panel line inboard from that, but I masked to the next line for a smoother transition. I found more paint remnants that hadn't feathered in with sanding after spraying, so I scraped them off with my knife. The area will be polished and touched up accordingly for recoating with alclad.

Chad

 

[Crimea_River]

What a pain. You'll prevail though.

 

[Wurger]

Agreed.

 

[Ron Pearcy]

Brilliant build.

 

[fubar57]

Looking good. Hopefully the repaint takes

 

[Airframes]

Yep, hope the paint repairs go OK.
Whenever possible for a bare metal finish (or any other metallic type coating) I try to paint the 'solid' colours first, then mask these and spray the metallic.
This prevents lifting, and any possibility of the metallic 'grain' showing through the 'solid' colours.

 

[Luftace43]

Thanks for the encouragement guys, I really appreciate it. It does help me stay motivated.

You're right Terry, I should have done the other colors first. At least I can mask the outer wingtip this time around before the alclad. Another lesson in the books now.

 

[N4521U]

Brilliant work Chad, great save.

 

[Wayne Little]

Looking good.