Ive ordered the Duralumin version of this Alclad. should I be considering more. I was planning on using primer and gloss black and some greys all in Tamiya, as my pre-shading bases. Any advice?
For the grease stain coming from the exhausts, how best to emulate that? I was thinking a base pre-shade of gloss black with no defined edges, perhaps even just apply carefully with the airbrush?????
For the top deck staining, given that its not as pronounced as near the exhausts, I was thinking of pre-shading in grey, or should that be in black do you think?
Ive made some progress, but no photos just yet. Detached the wings and fuselage halves from the respective sprues. Lots of flash, and I have fit issues at the wing root. There are alignment lugs to join the wings to each respective half at a certain dihedral. The fit should be snug so that the dihedral is sorted by the kit itself, but in fact the holding lugs are too small, or the recesses too large for a tight fit to be made. The wings just flop around. Moreover, despite my best efforts to sand back the wings so that they fitted snuggly to the fuselage, I have a gap of up to 1mm along all points of the join. I cannot locate the reason for the wings sitting so proud to the fuselage body.
I think I will have to make some sort of jig to align the wings and hold them in place until the adhesive sets. I will have to mask about 3mm from the ing root seam and then fill that gap with filler, trying to keep the join as clean and smooth as I can. This is an outcome the experts specifically say is a downer when using this Alclad lacquer, because it will highlight every imperfection under the sun. Im just going to have to try and do the best I can.
Ive also painted the pit area, completed the painting of the IP. For the IP I decided to use a variation to the technique I used on my last build. Basically use the pin vice to drill out the dial holes. On the reverse side of the IP, attach a clear cellulose backing face to simulate the glazing of the dials. Then on the far side of that face paint my dial colours, basically white, off white, irridesent greens and reds. No dial details, the gauges are just far too small for me to handle that, but the mix of drilled out dial holes, clear facing and colours at the back looks pretty good to me.
For the cockpit walls ive just basically limited the bling to painting a base colour of grey green, the detailing has a first pre-shading layer of black and then a light application of aluminium. There just isn't the detail available to do much more, though I concede it may well have been useful copy a p-51 pit. What stopped me in the finish was that none of it will be visible once I button this pit up. The cockpit aperture is just so tiny
Ive also started to finish the cockpit fllor, the stick and the pilots seat. Pilots seat was really basic, so I decided to try and emulate some cushioning vaguely similar to a P-51. Ended up quite different to that but better than the bare metal finishes shown in the oob kit.
Im currently preparing foil strips for use in making some sort of harness. Ive tried a few alternative, including
Painted insulation wire….wrong profile.
PE sprue cut in narrow strips…okay but the paint I apply is likely to come off as I fit the belt. If I wait until ive fitted the belt, paint will go everywhere. A possibility though.
Aluminium strips cut from the foil test wrappers from my glucometer. The foil is a bluish purple, sort of blue and tan really. Probably nearest equivalent would Tamiya Deck Tan. This bluish harness was sometimes used in older style cars of the 50's and 60's in Australia and im thinking it may have been used for aero harness. You see the finish Im looking for in the harness fitted to Andy's pictured P-51 above, but more detail (looks like a 1/48 scale to me). Again, for this aircraft there just isn't the detail to be too fussy about interior details. This material im experimenting with could be installed with no painting at all and look very convincing IMO