AndrewR's 1/72 Revell P-51B/C - Tex Hill

[AndrewR]

I'm now moving along to the Revell kit I brought to the lake. This one's to prove to DirkPitt289 that I don't just do Spitfires...

Here's the boxart. The sprues say Revell 1996.

You can do this as either a USAAF aircraft in olive drab/grey, as flown by "Tex" Hill, or as an RAF Mustang III based in Italy with ocean grey/dark green/medium sea grey paint (at least if I decrypt the arcane Revel paint mixes correctly! )

As you can see, shark's teeth are in fashion this year. Every fashionable P51B is wearing them...

I'll be doing Tex Hill's plane, as I already have built a model of his P40B when he was flying with the AVG, so this will be a nice partner.

Anyhow, two and a half sprues of dark green plastic. The half sprue has the underwing stores on it. Two drop tanks (either version) or two triple bazooka tubes (USAAF only). There's more flash on than I would like for a tooling from the mid 1990's. Some cleanup will be needed. The upper wings are quite bad, although it's not obvious until you mate the upper and lower wing halves.
The plastic is not very nice to work with, the dark green crazes up to a light green whenever you cut or scrape it.

I painted the interior bits with Vallejo Yellow Olive, which is the closest match I have to US Interior green. It's a bit on the light side. Oh dear. How sad. Never Mind.

More later...

 

[Coors9]

Lots of love for the P-51B here. Nice choice.

 

[dirkpitt289]

Great choice Andrew. How long you planning to stay at the lake, my friend, the whole summer? It must be good to be king.

 

[AndrewR]

Great choice Andrew. How long you planning to stay at the lake, my friend, the whole summer? It must be good to be king.

It's a long weekend here, but we have to head back to town tomorrow for the week. David has his therapy, and I have to go and sort out the paperwork for my new job. Hopefully, I'll get back here next weekend. In the mean time, I still have to finish that F-15...

The last Mustang I built was the Sweet 1/144 in Swedish markings. This one is a bit easier to manage

 

[Airframes]

Look forward to the progress on this one. BTW, the flash can be explained, as this kit originated under the Monogram label in the mid 1970s, re-boxed by Revell in the 1990s.

 

[dirkpitt289]

It's a long weekend here, but we have to head back to town tomorrow for the week. David has his therapy, and I have to go and sort out the paperwork for my new job.

NEW JOB?!?!?!? Now that's great news.

 

[Wurger]

Looking forward to this build. The kit is one of nicer models of the P-51B/C of the 1/72 scale.

 

[AndrewR]

Look forward to the progress on this one. BTW, the flash can be explained, as this kit originated under the Monogram label in the mid 1970s, re-boxed by Revell in the 1990s.

Now that explains a lot. It does have an "old-fashioned" quality about it. Thanks for that.

 

[AndrewR]

NEW JOB?!?!?!? Now that's great news.

Teaching first year mechanics and thermodynamics to engineering students.

 

[Wurger]

BTW, the flash can be explained, as this kit originated under the Monogram label in the mid 1970s, re-boxed by Revell in the 1990s.

I don't think so I'm afraid. I believe that it is derived from a Tamiya 1/48 scale kit. I have checked on the Tamiya kit at close quarters, and a great amount of detailing and construction in the Revell kit is obviously inherited directly from the 1/48 kit.


..

 

[Airframes]

Ah, OK. It's just that Revell have re-released a lot of the old kits they originally produced under the Monogram label. I had one of these 1/72nd scale Mustang kits from the mid 1990s, and it was identical to the 1970s moulding.

 

[Wurger]

I see Terry. I have had a look at the kit ( kits) I have in my stash. All of them look very good. All parts are moulded clean.There are small overflows at edges of the fin and rudder and the gunsight which has been moulded with one of the fuselage half. No cavities or flash on all surfaces that are of just a little bit more than semi-matt texture. All panel lines are thin and nicely engraved. The main landing wheel bays seem to be a little too shallow. So my grade for the model is 6 before assembling. As far as the model dimensions are concerned ... there are differences at the rear part of the fuselage and the front one comparing to P-51B line drawings. The wingspan is slightly too small. Most of guys here who made the model, haven't encountered any of significant problems when assembling as OOB models.

 

[AndrewR]

On the moulding I have, there is a significant amount of flash on the upper wings - it's very subtle, and you don't see it until you try mating the wings. Nothing that can't be fixed, but more than I would like!
One of the exhaust manifolds is also very encased in flash.

Cheers

Andrew

 

[Wurger]

Andrew, would you be so kind and could post a few shots of these areas with flesh ? But please try to take them with sunlight if it is possible. These images above aren't enough bright to notice details.

 

[AndrewR]

Andrew, would you be so kind and could post a few shots of these areas with flesh ? But please try to take them with sunlight if it is possible. These images above aren't enough bright to notice details.

I'll do my best, but I'm working in the basement Also I have already sanded and filed the flash off.

Filling is now complete. It took longer than I had anticipated.

The wheel wells are boxed in, but shallow. I believe that the earlier Monogram kit didn't have boxed in wheel wells. Can someone confirm that?

Now all I have to do is find some time to start painting...

 

[woljags]

i've one of these in my stash as well and i agree the plastic used isn't that good

 

[Nxthanos]

The project is moving right along.

 

[Wurger]

Anyway a good job so far.

 

[bromo]

Mustang is looking very nice so far,and great news about the job.

Martin

 

[AndrewR]

After a few days of inactivity (owing to a bad back, ouch! ), I made a bit of progress on the P51B Firstly, primed with Tamiya medium surface primer, as I didn't like the way the plastic looked when it was filed, scraped or sanded.

I painted the upper surfaces Vallejo Grey Olive - it's quite a bit lighter than the Vallejo US Olive drab

It looks a bit shiny because I was experimenting with a dark wash (1 part Pledge, 2 parts water, dab of black paint). I'm not sure it was worth the effort.

The underside is in Vallejo Neutral Grey. I might lighten this a bit next time, for the scale effect.

As this is the first time I've done the OD/Grey scheme, I'm quite pleased with it.

cheers

Andrew