Tamiya 1/48 P-51B Mustang

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Yep, that's it. From memory, they were twelve inches wide, but check on this before painting them. Originally, there was also a stripe across the fin and rudder, but these were later removed - I'd need to check the date for this, and not all aircraft had the band removed either.
 
Yes that''s it. From my memory these stripes on wings were of 15" in width and those on the tails could have been of 15" or 18".
 
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The decal sheet arrived the other day. The Super Scale sheet comes with complete stencils so I can completely ignore the Tamiya kit decals.



A few odds and ends that occupy my time before I start painting. I've verified that Geronimo has the shrouded exhaust pipes so I can hollow them out.


The exhaust pipes and shroud are painted.


I highlighted the repaired treads on the wheels.


The clear parts have been glued into place. The frames were painted in the interior green color and then covered in black paint to ensure they are completely opaque.


Painting is coming up soon but I still need to find a way to mask off the wheel wells. I usually use wetted pieces of tissue paper but I'm afraid of leaving lots of tissue fragments behind. So I'll think about maybe using tape, even it'll take more effort.
 
Looking good John. Remember that the sliding hood did not have vertical frames.
Any tissue 'dust' should blow out of the wheel wells, but you could try using kitchen foil, pushed in to the recess, maybe with small strips of tape to hold the edges in place.
 
Thanks guys! Rolling along here. The prop blades and spinner have been painted.


I've decided to paint the olive drab areas first and then the NMF. This would be the easiest to mask but I'm not sure it is the best choice when it comes to Alclad finishes but we'll roll with it and see how it turns out. First I preshade the panel lines on the upper surfaces.


To give the camo coat a bit of tonal variation, I apply fine black scribbles to the upper surfaces.


For my preshading to work, I use a highly thinned mixture of paint (4:1 thinner to paint ratio). The olive drab is a 50:50 mixture of Gunze Sangyo (which is very brownish) and Tamiya (which is very greenish). Spraying such a thin paint requires constant movement of the brush and coverage is tedious and requires lots and lots of passes with the brush. The plus side is that the finish is very smooth... no grain at all.



Close-up of the olive surfaces showing the filled panel lines and the preshading effects.



I'm going to let this dry and then I'll mask off the olive in preparation for the metal surfaces.
 
Good work John. The rule of thumb for paint layer order is lacquer on the plastic, then acrylic or enamel on the lacquer. If you're painting enamels, the enamel on the plastic and acrylics over the enamel. As you have put the acrylic layer down first, be sure to use a very thin layer of the Alclad over it to reduce the chance of a reaction.
 
Looking good John. Bear in mind that the Olive Drab was painted over the NMF in preparation for a move to the Continent, in order to reduce visibility, on the ground, from the air. therefore it was new paint, and not very weathered at that time.
 
I hear ya Terry but I can never resist the weathering bug. I'll leave the "clean" look to others.

The NMF is going to primarily two colors: Alclad Aluminum for the lower fuselage and Tamiya AS-12 Silver for the puttied areas on the lower wing. In preparation of the metalized finish, the Alclad areas are primed with Tamiya Black. To ensure a smooth finish, I sealed the Black with Alclad Aqua Gloss thinned with Mr. Leveling Thinner.



The Alclad Aluminum is sprayed over the black.



After masking, the Tamiya Silver, decanted from a spray can, is sprayed on the puttied surfaces to simulate a painted metallic finish.


The masking over the Olive Drab is removed. Surprisingly, very few mask leaks and oversprays to correct.




I'm going to depict Geronimo as the Superscale decal instructions describe her, which is pre-D-Day. I got lazy with the white ID stripes and got a bit of overspray that needed to be corrected. You can also see the panels around the exhausts were painted in a slightly darker metallic color (Alclad Aluminum mixed with Steel).




The majority of the camo paint is now done. I'm going to do minor touch-ups and then maybe add a couple of contrasting metal panels before sealing it with a gloss coat. I've started the weathering process by spraying a very subtle brown onto some of the panel lines.

 
A gloss coat is applied in preparation of decals.


I should've started with the nose checker decal but I was hoping it would fit like a glove... not! The other decals were flawless and reacted beautifully to the Microset/Microsol system.



Multiple applications of Microsol didn't settle the decal down adequately. Cutting the decal into parts didn't help either so I decided to scrap the decal and try to paint the checkers myself. I masked off the nose with Tamiya white tape. It's flexible so it's a good choice for these types of applications. I used a Post-It to protect the decals already on the nose.


The nose was painted yellow.


The front row of squares was masked off first and sprayed red.



The back row was then masked off and painted.


Not perfect but it's better than what I could achieve with the decal.


Now that the nose checkers are done, I can continue the decals. It's late now so decaling will probably be spread out over a couple of evenings.
 
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