Tamiya 1/48 P-51B Mustang

[Airframes]

Nice work John.
Most, if not all US fighters in the northern ETO had a yellow (sometimes white) tape outlining the 'basic six' flight instruments, to assist the pilot, and this was there to help concentrate on these instruments in the generally poor weather conditions, when instrument flying was often the norm.
Here's a P-51D panel - the B/C had the same yellow tape.

 

[Wurger]

Terry, the enlarged shot shows that the tape outline could be running in a little bit different way..

 

[Crimea_River]

That's because the IP for the B model is completely different than the D. I'm not sure it would be wrong to leave the tape off for the B in any event as all the references I have showing the B instrument panel do not have the tape.

Also, I would have made the switch panels below the IP black, not green. Otherwise, looks great. The kit dials look pretty good the way you used them.

 

[JKim]

Leaving off the tape was a practical decision since it would be very difficult to mask a stripe in between the gauges at this scale. The switch panel in green was something that I saw on a restored aircraft and so I went with it...

 

[JKim]

Did a bit of work on the Mustang over the past few days. The cockpit bits are coming together. The battery panel has some wiring added to it.

The fuselage interior has been painted. I've added some decals and spare PE bits to add some clutter to the walls. Some of the placards have been brush-painted.

The cockpit floor and control stick have been painted and are assembled first.

The radiator hot air vent is painted and glued into place on the bottom of the cockpit tub.

The rest of the cockpit components are put into place including the wood floor panels.

A dry-fit of the cockpit tub into the fuselage.

I've painted the kit gun sight and have added a piece of plastic for the reflector glass.

Before moving on to the wing surgery to accomodate the resin wheel well, I've cleaned up the machine gun barrels and hollowed out the tips. Doesn't look too impressive... would aftermarket gun barrels be worthwhile here?

 

[JKim]

Ok... here is the biggest modification required on this build. This is the kit wheel well. Nicely detailed but unfortunately it is not accurate. The rear wall of the wheel well is actually the main spar and is straight and should not follow the outline of the wheel well opening as it does on the kit.

Here is the Vector resin wheel well. It corrects the kit wheel well and adds a significant amount of detail too.

In order for the Vector wheel well to fit, some major surgery on the wing parts is necessary. All of that raised detail must go!

Starting on the wing bottom, I used Tamiya cutters to cut the wheel well sidewalls piece by piece like a row of hedges. A curved x-acto blade was used to scrape down the remnants and coarse sandpaper to finish it off.

The narrow strip between the left and right wheel wells is cut away.

A quick check to see how the resin wheel well fits.... so far so good!

The raised details on the inside of the wing tops need to be cut down next.

Nothing will be glued into place until I verify that the wing tops fit onto the wing bottom and that the wing assembly fits onto the fuselage. Once that is verified, I will take the time to glue on the detail bits to the wheel wells and paint it properly before putting it into place.

 

[Wurger]

Looking great. But the gunsight seems to be of different shape I would say.

Here is enlarged part of images of Horbaczewski's Mustang III where you can see the gunsight in . Also please make a focus on the lack of the tape line on the indicator panel.

 

[Crimea_River]

That's a British Mk II gun sight appropriate for RAF machines. If John's going for a US plane it would more likely be a US N-3A or B sight.

 

[Wurger]

Yep.. another sets of the British Mark II Gunsight. But it seems that the USA Mustangs that came to the ETO could be equipped with the sight too. As memo serves it was considered better than the US N-3A and B ones. The bigger 3,5 inches aperture and better optical performance. The most of P-51B&C arriving in Europe was modified at Air Depots with the British Gunsight before being delivered to active units.

 

[Airframes]

Nice work, and good point re the yellow / white tape on the instrument panel. Apart from being a different shape, the practice of adding the tape was only becoming 'the norm' by the time the 'D' model was introduced, and many B/C models did not have it, unless added at unit level.
For future reference, if adding it to a 'D' model, paint the panel gloss white or yellow and when dry, paint it matt black, scratching the paint when not quite fully dry, to reveal the colour beneath.
The resin wheel well makes a big difference - nice !

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far John!

 

[JKim]

Looking great. But the gunsight seems to be of different shape I would say.

Here is enlarged part of images of Horbaczewski's Mustang III where you can see the gunsight in . Also please make a focus on the lack of the tape line on the indicator panel.

Thanks Wojtek! think Andy answered the question about the gun sight. The kit part is shaped like a N-3 gun sight and that seems to be the correct choice for a USAF P-51B that I am modeling.

As far as the tape line on the instrument panel, I don't think it was present on all P-51B's. Both the Eduard and Yahu PE instrument panels for the P-51B lack the tape line.

I wanted to portray this because it looks neat but I just couldn't see a way of masking it without infringing upon the gauges.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

It can actually be neatly done by cutting thin strips of white decal so still salvageable if you want to do it. Easily removed if it doesn't turn out to your satisfaction.

 

[fubar57]

Some nice work going on John and some nice references.

 

[JKim]

Thanks!

It can actually be neatly done by cutting thin strips of white decal so still salvageable if you want to do it. Easily removed if it doesn't turn out to your satisfaction.

I'll give it a shot. Yellow or white or were both used?

 

[Crimea_River]

I've seen both.

 

[JKim]

I am still trying to decide what particular aircraft to portray. I do have some wish list stuff that I want this aircraft to have. Those would be:

1. Malcolm hood
2. Some NMF (fuselage and bottom of the wings, for example)
3. Kill marks

My candidates so far are:

Capt. John England, 362nd FS, 357th FG
G4-H "U've Had It"

Capt. John Cearley, 374th FS, 361st FG
B7-D "Queen Jean"

Lt. Victor Bocquin, 361st FS, 367th FG
E9-R "Impatient Virgin"

Quote from the internet... "P51B 42-106638 had been with the 361st for over a year, clocking up very nearly 700 hours flying time, she can be seen in the background of a colour shot of the group taxing out for take-off on D-Day. Assigned to Lt John Bricker she carried the official squadron code E9-R and the unofficial name 'Impatient Virgin'. Later in her life the original hood was changed from the factory birdcage to the British 'Malcolm Hood' a one piece sliding blown Perspex canopy that afforded far better visibility and improved head-room for tall pilots."

I'm leaning towards Impatient Virgin. There is a restored P-51B with the Impatient Virgin markings. It has a Malcolm hood, which I think is a possibility given the internet data that I've seen (see above). It also has kill markings, which I'm not sure I can confirm.

AMDG has a decal sheet with both U've Had It and Impatient Virgin so I'll probably be ordering that. Hopefully it comes with stenciling because I'd like to avoid the thick Tamiya decals (verified when I was doing the instrument panel dials) as much as possible.

 

[JKim]

I forgot that I had already buttoned up the fuselage... so I'm going to leave the IP as is.

So where are we at? The rest of the plastic surgery to fit the wheel well insert was performed on the upper wings.

Trimming was needed on the inner surfaces of the wings as well as on the non-detail side of the resin wheel wells to get the piece to fit between the wing halves. Once that was done, I dry fit the wings onto the fuselage. A bit more shaving was necessary on the center portion of the wheel wells to get the fuselage/wing connection together.

The fuselage halves were glued together with Tamiya Extra Thin cement.

The wheel wells were given a coat of Alclad Aircraft Aluminum but I didn't like the shade as it looked too metallic and not painted aluminum so it has been re-done with Alclad White Aluminum. I'll set that aside for more intense painting later.

The tires have a nice diamond tread that is unfortunately marred by the mold seam running through the middle of the tire. But it looks like the tread pattern lines up well so I carefully shaved off the seam and then re-established the tread pattern through the middle with a scribing tool.

After cleanup, the tires were given a light coat of Tamiya Extra Thin cement to "eat" away the excess plastic shavings. The Tamiya stuff is great for this type of cleanup. You can compare the finished tire on the bottom to the untreated tire on top.

 

[fubar57]

Looking good John. Any theories on why Tamiya treated the nose that way. It's the same on the D version. I can't see any rhyme or reason to have the upper cowl as a separate piece