I built this for the Mustang group build and figured I’d share the finished project here.
This is the Tamiya 1/48 kit with the Eduard color PE cockpit set. I removed the kit guns and replaced them with brass tubing from Albion Alloys, drilled out the holes in the canopy slide brace, drilled out the exhaust and did everything else pretty much OOB. The decals for Petie 2nd, flown by Col. John Meyer, are by Eagle Strike (printed by Cartograf and WAY nicer than the kit markings for the same plane). This is his mount from 1944. I believe he was on Petie 3rd by the time of Operation Bodenplatte, when he got airborne during the German attack on the field and managed to blast a 190 to pieces before he even had time to raise his landing gear.
This one is finished in Alclad, mostly. I primed it with Aqua Gloss, then shot Duraluminum on the wings, gear legs, and rudder. Next came another coat of aqua gloss followed by airframe aluminum on the fuselage, shock absorbers and gun bay covers. I sealed that with Aqua Gloss and then shot Magnesium on the panels behind the exhaust ports and Polished Aluminum on the panel behind the canopy and a couple others to break up the monochromatic feel. The blue nose is Humbrol French Blue gloss enamel, and it was actually sprayed on and masked before I started playing with the Alclad. The rest is covered in Tamiya acrylics. Gun and exhaust streaking was done with a Tamiya weathering kit (the one that looks like a makeup pack). I wanted a very subtle panel line wsh, so I opted for Flory Grime, which is brownish. It sank into the wheel treads nicely, and some ground up pastel chalk did the rest.
I kept this one mostly clean since it was a late-war squadron leader’s plane. I left the drop tanks off because I wanted it to have that “just returned from a mission” look.
But I am rambling, and you all just want to see the pics anyway:
A quick tip on this kit: If you are like me, you break off things like radio masts and pitot tubes, Well, you can actually install this kit’s radio mast at the end without any mess by applying glue to the bottom of it from inside - just reach up through the rear wheel doors with a needle applicator.
Great looking finish! I haven’t built a P-51 since I was eleven. My LHS has a Tamiya bird like yours on the shelf that catches my eye. Yours is more Inspiring than the box art, so I’ll have to buy it soon.
Very nice and authentic P-51 build. How did you tape up the front to paint in the blue color? There’s no 90 degree cuts, they tend to be at a 45 degree angle. How do you make the tape round out like that?
Overall, it’s a very cool plane for a GB, I’m just glad you took the time to share it here with us.
Wow. The combination of the Mustang shape and your metallic finish amplifies the sexy in this plane. My dear old friend Bert (bless his soul), ever the Stang fan, would drool if he saw this.
That is a fantastic job on the Mustang. The nice thing about the Tamia model is that the flaps are seperate and can be displayed correctly for an aircraft on the ground. When the engine is shut down on the P-51 the hydrolic pressure bleeds down and the inner main gear doors drop and so do the flaps. The Hasagawa kit in the same scale has the flaps molded into the wings in the up possition, as does several other P-51 kits of the same scale. As a note and not a criticism, Testors Model Masters has the correct Federal Standard Number blue color for this and other “blue nosed” Mustangs of the same group. Again that is a great build job. Very realistic.
BD, you did an outstanding job on your P-51. It is one beautiful model, especially as a blue nose Mustang. One criticism that I could make is that the panel lines on the wings are rather sharp for the puttied lines that are painted over with aluminum lacquer that makes the laminar-flow wing. But then that putty and lacquer would tend to ware off of a well used warbird. The Duraluminum Alclad on the wings actually does a good job of representing the lacquer. Great work!
Thanks for the comments, all. I really appreciate them!
Bish - I love the blue-nosed … uh … buggers(?) too
Plasticjunkie - I was out flying my RC plane today. It’s just a little Cub. I have a P-51 (Horizon bird, pretty small), but I need to improve my flying a bit before I trust myself with the Mustang.
Bvallot - It sure is. I went out and bought an F-86 today so I could play with Alclad some more.
Gazza - You won’t be disappointed. This kit goes together so well. It has a couple of shortcomings, but nothing that stops it from being amazing out of the box.
Gaf - Haha, it mightbe time to change that. It’s from when I signed up and didn’t have a completed build I felt was worth posting.
Toshi - I initially used the 6mm Tamiya tape to outline the blue nose (masking the part that wouldn’t be blue). At the curved joins, I initially had them angled, and just used a sharp X-acto blade to trim the curves by hand (only at the corners). I kept the parts I trimmed off, and once I had painted the blue and it was ready for masking while I painted the airframe, I used those trimmed pieces for the corners, since they were a perfect fit.
Ranger - I didn’t know they had an FS number. I spent far too long guessing at the shade in the hobby shop. I’ll have to look that up if I do another Blue Nose. Thanks!
Shipwreck - thanks for the suggestion. I Thought about puttying it, but in the end I chickened out. This being my first real attempt at an NMF, I didn’t trust myself with putty and sanding, since I didn’t want it to show (even though I ended up having to putty the fuselage seam). Next time, I’ll smooth out those panel lines.
