Next project thats going to be a bit of a quicky. Building this little P-51 with the hopes of getting it done in time for Orangecon. Will be using Kit World decals and an Eduard mask along with the Airfix plastic.
Made some good progress right out of the gate. Got the side walls done
Also was able to do the seat and get the instrument panel ready for the decal.
Main gear bays are also done.
Lastly I got the cockpit floor parts done.
Overall a good start to this project.
Nice! Keep the pics coming. Can’t wait to see it finished.
This Airfix P-51D is a really nice kit. I built this kit several years ago. Mine was finished as “Angels Playmate”, dedicated to Col. Bruce Carr. I’m looking forward to seeing your progress and the finished build. Oh yeah, I posed mine in flight with the included stand.
Unfortunately the version I have did not come with a stand, so it will be posed parked.
Made some progress today, mainly focused on getting the internals done.
I also got the upper and lower wing attached after drilling the holes for the drop tank pylons.
Lastly a quick dry fit of the fuselage and wings
It looks like a nice, tight fit, little to no visible seam to fix.
We will see, that sometimes can be both a blessing and a curse.
More progress today, plus a little experiment.
First up i installed the cockpit into the fuselage.
Once the glue was set the other half was mated with the first to finish this sub-assembly. One thing i decided to leave off was the part the prop is supposed to seat into. Looking at the instructions and how it is supposed to attach would be a bigger headache to align then I want to deal with. So it is being omitted and ill just ca glue the prop on.
Speaking of the prop I decided that is would be a good opportunity to do a little experiment. I had heard that you can get a better finish for yellow using a pink base instead of white. Since I have some Mr. Surfacer pink i decided to give it a try.
Overall I think the results speak for themselves. The yellow has a greater vibrancy to it, giving a warmer tone. It is a trick worth playing with depending on the look you may be trying for.
Never heard of the pink base for yellow, looks good and I’ll have to give that a go, thanks for sharing that.
I usually leave it off till finish, too, or modify the parts as necessary to be able to take the prop off and install it again, for transporting the model.
And so I can spin it and make engine noises! 
Best regards,
Brad
Sont recall if it was here or a youtube video I heard to use it, but it works. As i mentioned in my post I would still use white for a cool yellow.
Thats not what i am talking about, there is a part that is supposed to attach to the back of the hole where the prop attaches. To put another way it is supposed to attach to the base of the prop shaft behind the front fuselage parts.
It sounds like it is, though. I would leave that piece out, if it means I can leave the prop off till I’m finished. The I would just use the kit shaft or some other piece of rod, and slide the prop into place for display.
Bit of a delayed update due to being out of some products.
First up i got the wings attached, using some tape to help hold the dihedral while the glue set.
Next came getting the intake mouths on and cleaned up.
By this point the prop was dry and ready for inspection.
I then painted the dash board black.
I then put the Eduard mask set into action on the bubble and front windscreen before attaching. This is where i discovered that my masking fluid had dried out. So i then decided i would go try painting some of the other parts that needed paint. Unfortunately I discovered that both bottles of Alclad Aluminum I have were empty. This delayed progress until today when I was able to get by my LHS that had what i needed.
So i was then able to mask the last of the clear parts. Regardless of the delay this Mustang is coming together nicely.
It’s soooooo tiny…..you must have great eye sight.
Its not THAT tiny, now a 1/144 version that would be tiny.
It is amazing how well high-power cheeters work. And there are discount stores like dollar tree that have them for less than two bucks each. I recently picked up a pair of 3.25 diopter to go beyond my 3.0s
Took me a minute to understand your comment, yeah having a good optivisor does help immensely.
Multi day update this time and getting paint on plastic.
Started by getting white primer on the nose as well as the spinner and tail.
Unfortunately I noticed a significant blunder on my part that I missed. A fairly large seam line down the nose. This ment a delay while i fixed it.
To fix the seam I used Mr. Surfacer 500 applied heavily with a brush, taking care of the panel lines.
Some sanding and the gap is gone, and ready for primer and paint again.
Post cleanup showing a now seamless nose.
I then proceeded to mask of the red portion of the nose. I would follow this with a quick addition coat of red along the edges of the tape to help seal it.
While that was drying I painted the landing gear and wheels in Alclad Aluminum.
Wheels were then masked of with masks from the Eduard set.
That done it was necessary to paint the canopy frames their inner black color. This was done as the Olive Drab anti-glare panel also covers the fron wind screen. This is also something I forgot to take a photo of prior to masking.
Lastly for this update, I applied the black primer over the entire fuselage assembly.
Continuing from the last update, made some good paint progress today.
To start i pained the inner wing portiong semi gloss black to use for the marking stripes.
Unfortunately i discover a sizable spot that got missed when i moved some of the gear bay mask to attached the out gear doors. So this required repriming and painting that spot. After that I masked off the stripes.
After that i applied a coat of Alclad Aluminum to the entire fuselage.
Then came masking and painting the ailerons dark aluminum. This was all the work I was able to do on the fuselage today. Do plan to mask off a couple more panels for a little more variety and visual interest.
While working on the fuselage I got the majority of the other components painted.
Another longer update post.
Following the last post and in an effort to make sure I dont have to rush the finish i decided to not do any additional panel difference and just start unmasking. Thankfully i did as i did find some issue.
Biggest of these issues was the red nose. One of the sides was way off, and needed a correction. Not pictured but i also discovered along the back spine i had for got to sand down the filler. A quick fix but one im glad i caught.
Wheels were next to get unmasked and found no issues.
I then mover to painting the tire on the tail wheel, another quick job.
I also applied a glave of AK Dark Rust to the exhausts.
At this point we were ready for decals.
Which brings us to tonight’s work starting on the decals.
