North American P-51B Mustang, 1/48, Tamiya TAM61042
Received this amazing kit as a Christmas present from my good friend Spiros @fiveten. Together we started a groupbuild of a P51 and A36 which ended up in a group with lots of enthusiastic members taking part as well. A lot of techniques and ideas were raised and till now a lot of nice models were presented and are still on the way. I even learned that paper fuel tanks were used during the war after some interesting research by George @gblair.
This Tamiya kit was build mainly out of the box with some additions to make it look a bit more realistic,
- Seatbelts created from masking tape
- The elevators were seperated to be able to mount them in lowered position per idea of Spiros @fiveten
- Removed the "zits" on top of the wing which were present on a postwar configuration of a restored warbird used by Tamiya as a reference, thanks for notifying this Tom @tcinla
- Added brake lines using soldering thread
- Drilling the machine guns and exhaust pipes to add some more realism
- Adding the fuel pipe system between the paper fuel tanks and the wings per idea of George @gblair
It was chosen to build this kit as the "Shangri La" flown by Capt. "Don" Gentile but he unfortunately crassed this aircraft during a low pass show off. The red/white pattern on the nose is similar to the flag used by the state I live in, so I thought it would nice on the shelf.
The kit did go together very nicely, no fitting issues at all and a few touch ups to be done. Only issue I ran into were the decals, they were very brittle and did crack easily once placed on the kit. Moving them around was very tricky. In the end, besides some small missing pieces, the decals do look good. The weathering makes the imperfections nearly invisible. The white identification stripes were present as decals but I preferred to have them painted.
In general this is a very enjoyable kit and even more because it was a gift from a good friend. I would like to thank all who participated in the group build and provided some excellent ideas to improve the outcome of the build.
Greetings to all,
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- 1. seatbelts from masking tape
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- 1. fuel pipes added
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- 1. decals did not behave that nicely
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- 1. machine guns opened
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- 1. exhaust pipes drilled
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- 1. elevators lowered
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- 1. ID stripes painted
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- 1. brake lines added
Looks great John! The refinements you made in some areas really enhanced the outcome. Your OD also looks very good from here 😉
@holzhamer, thanks, Pedro. It is always nice to add some 'easier' modifications. The OD is the best OD I achieved till now, no idea what I did differently. Maybe some more patience in between the layers.
Great work John @johnb. Looks like the real deal and the cockpit is stunning. Now for a Le Mans car?!
@rory, thanks for the compliment, Rory. Would be great to join the Le Mans group. I will do some searching for a great kit. After my recent experience on a two wheel kit, a four wheel kit would be a nice addition.
That's a lovely build John with an excellent finish. Nice one 👍
@thom, thanks a lot, Guy
Nice Mustang!
@rfking, thank you, Russ.
That turned out very well!
Like the details of the cockpit. Very nice work.
@johnb
@alfred, dank je wel, Alfred. Thanks a lot. It is always nice to give a bit of extra attention to the cockpit, even though it will be hardly visible later on.
It's like Christmas in April!
Nice Mustang John, and a great GB log.
@georgeswork, thank you, George. Being a modeler is like having Christmas every day.
A wonderful result out of the classic Tamiya kit, my good friend John! Your excellent building, painting and weathering skills, combined with the extras you added, resulted in a truly excellent Mustang!
An equally wonderful build thread too, where I was also honored to participate.
Congratulations!
@fiveten, thank you very much, Spiros. Especially for giving me the chance to build this kit. It was a pleasure to have you and all the others following and participating the groupbuild. Very learningful.
One fine looking P-51, John. I like the paint job.
@gwskat, thanks a lot, Gary.
What an absolute beauty.
@alistairfgauld, thank you, Alistair.
Very nice work on this @johnb. I particularly like you got the fuel feed pipes on the drop tanks, a detail most of us forget.
One minor point that Tamiya got wrong. The white nose marking was used by Gentile for the first two missions the 4th flew in P-51s in early March 1944. Blakeslee then made him paint the whole spinner red. Since the decals are of the airplane with its final score (mid-April 1944), the spinner should be red (easy fix). Tamiya based this on the famous photo of Gentile and Godfrey together standing under Shangri-La's nose on March 5, 1944. There are a ton of color photos taken of the airplane just before the final mission that clearly show the nose all red. Tamiya blew it (I know, I know, it's shocking but true 🙂 )
@tcinla, thanks a lot, Tom. Your compliments are appreciated a lot. Incredible I overlooked the incorrect color of the spinner. Indeed shocking if you try to add a bit of realism and miss this element. Nevertheless, as you said, an easy to correct 'error'. Thanks for pointing this out.
John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Here are a few of the color pictures that Tom is talking about. You can see the ragged edges between the white and red paint on the spinner. I'm sure that at one time it was nice and neat, just as your model depicts.
Personally I would leave it alone as is. Both ways are correct based on the date and time the aircraft was at. The number of kills displayed on the fuselage side shown here clearly show the spinner was in service with the same number of "kills" at one time. There are 4 miniature German "crosses" on the bottom row.
Later on like Tom said, the number of kills rose after the spinner was a solid red.
3 attached images. Click to enlarge.
Excellent Mustang! You knocked this one out of the park, I'm going to need to add one of these to my collection asap after seeing this
@dbutlr, thank you, David. Glad you like this one. It was an enjoyable build and would love to see one being build by you.
That's the best looking Tamiya B model build I've ever seen. A real beauty!
@chasbunch, thanks a lot, Chas. Your words are very generous. The credits are valid for Tamiya as well.
Nice work, John! You really captured the look of this one well.
@j-healy, thank you very much, John. Those razor back Mustang are the most beautiful ones to my opinion.
This one really came out well, John (@johnb). It was a pleasure following along on your WIP.
@gblair, thank you, George. Also for finishing yours prior to mine which did help me a lot in getting some ideas.
Looks great, John. Excellent paint work and weathering and flawless work on the decals, in spite of the problems they gave you. Personally, I wouldn't worry about the white nose (just my 2 cents worth). I have seen several pics of the white nose paint scheme and, as Tom said, the kill count is a bit lower at the time, but how closely does anyone observe that when they are admiring your model?
@coling, thanks a lot, Colin. Regarding the spinner, it is not a problem, I think I might leave it just as it is currently. As you said, most people wouldn't even notice. Just a pity I missed the information about the red spinner in an earlier stage.
This turned out great, John @johnb !
Nice workmanship !
@ssgt, thank you, Jay.
Fabulous Mustang, John, your extra detailing and the great paint job, have really enhanced a classic kit.
@chinesegeorge, thanks a lot, George. A classic, but still a kit which has a lot of potential in it.
Superb outcome sir looking at it relaxes me
@markh, thank you very much, Mark.
Beautiful work John @johnb! She's a great looking Mustang, well done.
@v1pro, thanks a lot, Bob. Glad you like this Pony.
Beautiful work, John!
@guitarhack5, thanks a lot, Scott
Very nice work
@blackmopane, thank you, Rafi.
Wonderful work, I saved this article for inspiration when I will tackle the same kit, thanks!
@georgedamian, thanks a lot, George. Really appreciated that you will use it for inspiration.
Good work John,liked it a lot!
@mvtb, thank you, Marcus
@johnb - Fantastic work John. All the detail you've added is really amazing. The weathering all looks great as well. I'd go with the idea that the challenging decals are actually just part of the weathering. It all combines to look incredibly realistic to me.
@brithebuilder, thanks a lot, Brian. Glad you like this Mustang. Weathering can be very helpful in hiding minor imperfections.
She's a real beauty! Excellent work.
@gkittinger, thank you very much, Greg.
Excellent build John. The best that modelers can do is their interpretation of what a kit should look like in a given time frame. If your using a photo, your doing a snap shot of a given aircraft in a given time, day, month and year. Its a slice of time. How fast is the shutter speed of a brownie camera? We know that the pilot and aircraft have a time line and finite time but, representing all of that time in one kit is impossible. You really own this kit, its say's John vd Biggelaar (@johnb) did this.
Two thumbs up.
@stephen-w-towle, thank you, Stephen. You are fully right. Although I try to make it look as much as possible like the real one, I do know it is not that easy. Havenig enjoyed the build en liking the outcome is the most important.
exellent work! Cockpit looks impressive!
@lis, thanks a lot, Bernard. I'm glad you like this Mustang. Really appreciated.
John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
This is EXCELLENT ! I sincerely think this is your best build yet.
I'm happy to see you have it finished and in the headlines section. I'm sorry I have not been around here too much lately. I have missed a lot and now I'm playing catch up.
This is also my very favorite Razor back Mustang paint scheme... Shangri-La was the first Pony model I built as a kid. Mine was the larger 1/32 scale version that was made by Revell, and it was a fairly new kit way back then when I built it up. Believe me, my Mustang didn't look anywhere near as nice as yours does. I simply built it and slapped the decals on it. I didn't take the time to paint anything either.
I recently picked up a set of "Kits World" decals for Shangri La in 1/32, to build the ancient Razorback Mustang Revell kit all over again... I have one in the stash from the mid 1990's. It was from the Revell "Lone Eagles" series and has the Mustang flown by Duane Beeson on the box art. One of these days I will eventually build it, the Good Lord willing that is.
I definitely clicked on the "like" button. It was a lot of fun to watch you guys build your Mustangs together. Too bad I couldn't join you all.
Take care my friend. Sandy says hello.
@lgardner, thanks a lot, Louis. Your comments are appreciated a lot. Glad to see you back online, I hope all is getting better now.
What a great build John. The scheme and razor back Mustang you chose gives it the “original “ look, before bubble tops came in. Somehow I like it better. I have seen the later versions live but yet have to see one like this up close.
Glad to be back on the site that is oh, so cool !
@bernardbedeur, thank you, Bernard. Good to see you back. Those razorback Mustangs do have a certain look which is missing on the bubbletop variants.