North American F-6B Mustang – Accurate Miniatures 1/48
I began this kit only a few weeks ago, and given that this was my second go at an AM Mustang, the build went fairly smoothly, but not without some hiccups.
Firstly, I built this kit out of the box, with only the addition of Eduard belts to dress up the cockpit a bit. The IP was done using the decal behind the clear styrene, as AM intended, it it actually looks quite good, I am pleased to say. Vallejo painted used throughout the interior.
As for the fuselage, I mistakenly glued the kit provided cowling on (from an early P-51), and only realized the error after it was all together, and after I tried to fit the snorkel to the intake.. How could they botch that up? Fortunately, my high-stakes game of cut and pry allowed me to [fairly] cleanly break free the cowl from all bondings of Tamiya extra-thin.. Unfortunately it wasn't perfect, and the spare cowl borrowed from a P-51A (which is what the F-6B was convert from) didn't align quite so perfectly. No worries though!
For paint, I laid a light green base layer on the upper surface. After this, I pre-shaped panel lines, then blotch a light grey between panel lines on both upper and lower surfaces, before spraying a thinged an modified OD on top, with straight thinned Neutral gray on bottom.
At this point I future'd only where the decals were to be, set them with no issues, and matted the whole a/c. I then oil washed it, which over the matt coat gives a grimy look, and a satin sheen if polished enough, however great care has to be taken not to rub through the matte coat and the paint. When doing this, I accidentally popped the rear lading gear off, which required me to drill the struts and pin it through the center with super glue, just to be extra sure it won't break free.
For the invasion stripes, I carefully masked a loose profile around the fuselage decals, and then sprayed white, then the black. After unmasking, I "roughed-in" around the decals with a brush to give a brushed look, and then added some brush strokes over the white and black for a bit of a texture variation. A slight wash was finally applied over just the invasion stripes, just enough to get the panels lines back. I wanted them to still look pretty fresh.
For the rest of the details.. the whip antennae is stretched sprue, the gun-port covers is red painted kabuki tape, and the exhaust is Tamiya weathering chalk.
I selected this bird, with full D-Day stripes, because the 107th celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2017 by painting their MI ANG A-10C's OD with D-Day stripes, as a heritage paint scheme. I have these decals, and would love to have these two birds sitting side by side. Unfortunately, it will be a while before the A-10 will be built.
I really enjoyed this quick and easy build, ham-fists and all!
Without further ado, F-6B-1 NA #43-6046, "Little Sir Echo II", flown by Major Russ Berg, 107th TRS, 67th TRG, England 1944.
Nice job on the weathering
Thank George!
Great build. I really enjoy Accurate Miniatures kits.
So do I! I've got a few more for a rainy day. Can't go wrong with their simplistic builds. Thanks!
Now you know why that collection of clucks who bought Accurate Miniatures went out of business. Putting the early P-51 nose in this kit instead of the correct P-51A nose was merely one of their dumb bunny moves. They also screwed up their release of the Monogram/ProModeler SB2C-4 as an SB2C-1, with the wrong parts. I doubt the two that ran the company into the ground (who I met) could find their way to Monday. Sad, because the original Accurate Miniatures was a good company, till Tamiya decided to "gut" them as the result of a business dispute (Tamiya released their "lacking" Beaufighter when they did deliberately and specifically to wreck A-M's Beaufighter project, after A-M had invested all their profits from the B-25s, F3Fs and P-51s in the project, which led to their having to declare bankruptcy and lose the company).
Beautiful result on your part with this model, you'd never know you had that problem of having to change the nose. The legendary Rev. B.C. Reed, who flew that particular airplane, always said the Allison pony was the best flying of the line (as long as you stayed under 12,000 feet). He'd definitely like what you did here.
Thanks Tom, that means a lot. Your explanation of AM later years helps to frame the how's and why's too. I seriously was left thinking, that they threw the kit together, and never test built it out of the box before shipping every one they made...
They were trying to stave off bankruptcy, after they wrecked their reputation by selling all the short-shot first run of the Vindicator, which was seriously "unbuildable" even when I tried to fix those fakakte gouges from the short-shot. I think they literally were tossing parts in a bag and boxing them.
Eehh yeah, sad to hear, but I'm at least glad their molds live on. I've got the TBM, Vindicator, and one of their B-25s, all Academy boxed.
That's a fantastic job, Andrew. Got the AM A-36 to build "some day". Wouldn't do any research for it, as I considered it definitive. Will do it now!
All the best!
Spiros, i'd love to see what you do with your A-36. There are many good marking options out there, and a lot of freedom to do some weathering.
Fine job on this one Andrew, I've built several AM P-51 kits and have always liked them. Quite a lot of nice detail for it's time. Well done.
Thanks Tom! I remember seeing a few of your fine Mustang of late.
Excellent Mustang - well done! Paint and finish work look fantastic.
Thank you Greg, I appreciate it.
Masterful Mustang! Nice work.
Quite the compliment, thanks!
I didn't notice till the third run-through how you did the fuselage D-Day stripes - doing them after the decals! - that's a real commitment to accuracy. Well done!
Thanks Tom. I thought it'd give the best effect, and feel that it paid off. I'm sure they eventually had time to perfect them, but I'm sure the first few days they didnt look too pretty, which sounds like a great way to get away with "looks good from here". 😉
Great model !
I have been researching my family's history, and my uncle, 1st Lt. Raymond J. Doyle, flew with the 107th TRS, 67th TRG, out of Middle Wallop and LeMolay-Littry, from around November 1943 until his death on 26 July 1944. The plane he was flying when shot down over Periers was serial number 42-103134.
I am contemplating building a model of his plane, but have no pictures that would give me any real clues as to the paint scheme, invasion stripes, or other markings on the plane. How would one research that?
The one picture I have, from June/July 1944, shows my uncle and one of his wingmen, Lt. Charles Easley, sitting on a plane's wing, front view, with the invasion stripes visible. Nothing else. Nopt sure if plane is painted green or silver/grrey.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Martin