Airfix 1/48 North American P-51D, 352nd Fighter Group, August 1944
Herewith I present you my first ever full metal colored model.
The model represents the North American P-51D flown by Major George Earl Preddy Jr., 328th Fighter Squadron, 352nd Fighter Group, USAF, Norfolk England on August 6th, 1944.
This build is OOB and I used it to experiment on how to deal with aluminum schemes.
The Airfix tool to me was much beter to build than I expected, this because I remembered Airfix in the past as not being that great on fitting.
The biggest issue I ran into were the decals for the invasion stripes. Although the decals got on pretty nice, there was one area where no decals were provided for, the wingroot end and some areas at the bottom of the fuselage. So I had to paint these by hand and this unfortunately remained visible. My learning here is that for next time I will try to create those invasion stripes by airbrush.
Another thing I learned is that with an aluminum scheme you see each imperfection clearly, so I noticed that for next time I have to improve my grinding.
For the rest it was a pretty nice kit to build, really enjoyable.
I used Vallejo aluminum and silver acrylic to represent the metal scheme.
Other colors, primer and varnish are also Vallejo acrylic.
This is such a beautiful build, John!
Congratulations on your first Natural Metal Finish: it looks perfect!
I hate painting or decalling invasion stripes! Yours look good, though, the issues you mention are not obvious at all.
I love your cockpit too: you put a lot of quality work in there!
Waiting for your next build...a second NMF maybe?
Thanks a lot Spiros. @fiveten
I think I will park the NMF for a moment.
Next build will be a P40 in RAF colors.
Great job. I'm using Vallejo Metal Color more and more. I've given up using stripe decals and now airbrush them on. Having said that, I really, really try and avoid aircraft with stripes
Thanks, George.
Fully agree with you and Spiros on the invasion stripes.
For some reason it looks easy to apply them but at then end it's a lot of work.
Nice work on this John. I'm along with George on decal stripes, painting them is usually easier than messing around with decals.
Thanks, Dale.
Will try painting them next time. A combination of decals and painting is not ideal.
Nice work for a first NMF. Your D-Day ID stripes look quite good.
For your "scraping," just use a very fine grit sanding stick over the "scraping" to remove signs of it.
One thing (easily fixed) is that rudder is way over too far. That rudder only turns 1/4 of what you did, but re-setting it should be a breeze.
Yeah, new Airfix kits are not what you were used to - they're very good nowadays with new design and production.
Thanks a lot for your advises, Tom @tcinla.
Will try to set the rudder in a more logical position.
Airfix definitely have made great progress on their current moldings.
Great work, looks great!
Thanks Robert.
Looks great John! NMF is tough. I usually prime in black first so I can see all the flaws. It take so much work but sometimes they come out great. I like the invasion stripes too. Cheers
Thanks, Jeremy.
I saw indeed a lot of people prime in black. Since I had no experience at all doing NMF, I just used the primer which I had, Vallejo surface primer white.
Beautiful job, John! Doesn't get better than that!
And, BTW, many of those invasion stripes were brush painted on D-Day aircraft in a huge hurry, so many of them weren't straight at all!
https://i2.wp.com/theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/InvasionStripes_10.jpg?resize=706%2C509&ssl=1
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Lockheed_F-5_Lightning.jpg
Thanks a lot for the striping info, Jaime.
Maybe even better to paint them free hand as well next time.
This is an immaculate build, John (@JohnB). The natural metal finish is perfect, interior is great. You have clearly mastered your airbrush.
Thanks a lot, George. @gblair
Likely it will not be my last NMF, but for the moment I will give it a rest.
🙂 ... Greetings ... 🙂 :
A very much pleasant Mustang too see John.
Nice work on the cockpit. Good clean and sharp work.
Thanks, DE4EVER
Very nice first NMF John - and the learning is one of the great parts of the hobby! I rather like the busy cockpit.
Thanks for the compliments, Erik.
Looks fantastic! Love the blue-nosed Ponies.
Thanks Greg, the blue nose is indeed an eye catcher on those P51's.
Great Pony John - I do like the finish and the cockpit - nice work!
@johnb - this looks great!
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