N.A. P51C Mustang III

[FlexiBull]

Not sure if this should have gone in the start to finish. But here goes.

Tamiya 1/48th Mustang

Built almost from the box, seat belts courtesy of a bottle of wine

Fitting out the fuselage. I took a lot of time to complete this model and when I saw the oil wash here I was not too happy. I change from oil paint to Indian ink later.

Now for some pre-shading.

I enlarged the colour scheme to 1/48th and applied these to the wings. Never tried this before, with the addition of some Bluetac it seemed to work well. On the fuselage I simply filled in between the Bluetac with Copydex (latex solution). Don't think it is quite dry yet!

After a struggle with the decals, I mixed up my Micro Sol and Set, the transfers adhered reasonably well. Although I was a little disappointed by the Tamiya decals. Some of the red and white were not printed very well. If you look at the RWB stripes on the tail, you can see the problem with the white extending under the red. Also a small part of the Polish checker board seemed missing.

Still I'm pretty pleased with the finish. Had a brain fart and glued the canopy closed - never mind at least the seat will be dry if it rains

Just to mention I used White Ensign Model enamel paints.
White Ensign Models White Ensign Models Products

Can't praise these products enough, really smooth, need only a small amount of thinning, cover very well with a slight satin sheen.

Hope you like it.

FlexiBull

 

[B-17engineer]

Wow!! That is awesome!

 

[Wurger]

Another Mustang III of the Polish 315 Sqn. Looking very nice.

 

[Airframes]

Very nice job mate. I wouldn't worry about the canopy. The Tamiya ''Malcolm' hood doesn't fit very well over the fuselage spine anyway; on a couple I've built, I either used an old Monogram hood, or moulded my own.
Think I'll have to give those WEM paints a try, now that good old Bumbrol - sorry, Humbrol, have gone awful.

 

[DBII]

HOT BIRD!

DBII

 

[imalko]

Beautiful work mate.

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done!

 

[vikingBerserker]

I agree, beautiful job!

 

[ozhawk40]

Definitely a great result Flexibull - very nice!

Cheers

Peter

 

[rochie]

very nice, might have to get me one of them

 

[FlexiBull]

Thanks everyone, I enjoyed making the Mustang. It was a nice kit to build with the common undercarriage bay faults which I decided to ignore. My only beef was the decals as I mentioned above. The tail stripes show the problem

It's as though the white central area, which is also the base colour doesn't extend far enough, giving the blue and red a dark edge. I also had to apply decal softener about eight times over the upper surface roundels where they cover the raised ribs by the ailerons.

Thanks again

Roger

 

[Crimea_River]

Stunning work Roger. A beauty!

 

[otftch]

Very nice work.
Ed

 

[Airframes]

I've found that red/blue register problem pretty common lately - printers must be using a cheaper DTP package I think! No excuse for such a simple undercutting and/or register problem, especially the prices charged for decals, even to the kit manufacturers.

 

[antoni]

Another Mustang III of the Polish 315 Sqn. Looking very nice.

Didn't say 315 squadron last night. FB353 was a transfer from 316 squadron where it was flown by F/Lt Majewski as SZ*H. His score was seven V1s (later downgraded to five and one shared) and an Fw 190 shared. In late 1944 it was transferred to 315 Squadron where it was flown as PK*H by squadron OC Sgn Ldr Andersz. The 316 Squadron badges were removed but Majewski's score remained.

The chessboards had the red squares in the top left hand and bottom right hand corners with the legend "POLAND" underneath in white. Under the nose would be a black letter H. The colour of the bombs (ground attack mission markers) was yellow not white and and the rear fuselage band was white not Sky.

 

[Wurger]

Didn't say 315 squadron last night.

You are correct. The Mustang was a transfer from 316th Squadron to the 315th one. With the PK code it was of 315th unit and that's way I edited my post above.

 

[Wurger]

And here another pic of the Mustang I found some time ago. Source - "Polish aces of World War II"

 

[FlexiBull]

Nice image there Wurger, highlights the white wing bands - a feature missing from the Tamiya kit!!

 

[javlin]

Very Nice there Sir.Cheers Kevin

 

[vikingBerserker]

Very nice.