Very nice progress indeed, Louis @lgardner
You removed those scoops superb, no signs left of them.

Spiros, @fiveten
Thanks for the compliments on the low spots. I have since finished the work on the underside of the nose, but still have to finish sanding the top side of the nose. Then I will re-spray most of the blue, and assemble the prop, making sure to get a little bit of blue overspray on the base of the blades just as the real plane had.

John, @johnb
Thank you for your compliments. The scoops were something I caught much later in the assembly. They would have been a lot easier to take care of in the beginning before any paint work or assembly had been done. If I were to build these over again, that is how I would do it this time.

George, @gblair
Thanks for the compliments. I added another part to the main gear well last night. It's the piece that goes in between the clam shell inner doors. I had to slightly trim off the rear most edge, because it was too long and would not allow the part to sit down flush as it should. I cut off about 1/32" and it dropped right in.

Please stay tuned as I have another installment coming right up.

Really nice work on the foil, Louis @lgardner
Agree on the belly part, quite often you see that they did not paint that area.

Very nice detail work on an area most of us ignore @lgardner - and you show why we shouldn't.

Your work on the ducting under the belly is terrific, Louis (@lgardner). I agree with Tom that most of us would ignore this area, and you have certainly shown how much detail is really there. It is very cool that Revell provided a lot of this detail in their kit. Looking forward to some more of your build, and the next round of photos. Hopefully you are also following your doctor's orders as you plow through this great build.

Here are the pictures of today's progress.
Starting out with the Eduard prop and spinner:

It comes with a stand that acts as an assembly jig. It also has some magnificent details cast into the spinner sections, that it seems a waste not to display the model in a maintenance diorama type scene.

Right away I made my first mistake, which was not reading the instructions. Who does that anyway ? 😉
This is not how you want to build the propeller assembly. Notice the propeller hub is pointed upwards. Wrong answer Private !

Luckily for me, I caught this quickly and was able to fix things before it got out of hand.

Notice in this photo, the hub is pointed down into the jig fixture. The problem arises when you look at the inner edge of the propeller blades. These are angled to clear the spinner. Had I continued on in this manner, the spinner would not have fit around the blades.

Here is the final result, showing a properly assembled propeller unit.

Here are the completed pair of propellers with the spinners installed.

Now I will now show you some pictures I took several years ago showing just how nice Eduard has captured the look of the real thing.

Here is a full sized 1 to 1 scale Mustang propeller and spinner. My hat's off to Eduard as it looks spot on to me.

Here is another close up showing the oil cooler located inside the radiator scoop. This is a very accurate rendition.

This photo shows the radiator, although it is a little bit harder to see because it is set back inside the housing farther from the opening.

This next picture shows the real thing. I think that Revell has nailed it down pretty good, as it looks really good to me when compared.


These next pictures show some other views of the radiator and exit ramp for the cooler.

This last photo shows a full sized scoop after it has been removed from the bottom of the real thing. Granted this is a restoration so I can't comment about the color of the Zinc Chromate, but knowing the quality of the work that is done in this shop, I would venture to say it is pretty darn close. They have an actual color chip book from WW2 and they computer match their paints using the samples.

Going on to the gun sight. The one provided in the kit is not correct. It should have a K-14 style computing sight. The one supplied by Revell is for a later model Mustang, and I think it became standard with the P-51D-20 and later versions.


I didn't go crazy here, so I simply cut off the clear reflecting portion of the sight, and scratch built a new set of dual lenses for it.

The fit of the windshield is not that good. It will need some work in order to get it to look as good as the rest of the model. On Cripes-A-Mighty, I used some thin Evergreen strip stock to fill in the gaps on each side. On "LOU IV:, I used some LQS and tried to blend it in a little using some Tamiya thin.


In last nights segment, I didn't get some decent pictures posted showing the end results of the foil work. So tonight I tried to show how it turned out, by posting these pictures you see here. I am very pleased with this.

You sharp eyed readers will notice that I have painted over a portion of the underwing stripes on Major Preddy's "Cripes-A-Mighty".

This was a mistake, as I thought at the time I was actually painting the wings on "LOU IV". I will be fixing this, and I plan to repaint them back on again soon.

This is a picture that one of my friends took of me when I had the wonderful opportunity to take a seat in a full sized P-51D. This had to be one of my favorite days...

That's all folks ! Have a good night, and as usual, comments are encouraged.

Excellent progress, Louis @lgardner
The close-up picture of the interior gives you the impression of looking at the real one.
Your foil work did turn out real nice indeed.

Spiros @fiveten

Thanks my friend !

John @johnb
Thank you for the compliments. I’m very happy with how the cockpit turned out. I firmly believe that the use of the aftermarket IP’s and the seat harness in each kit is what made the difference. The parts that were included in the kit are very good but I think that it looks even better with the seat harness. I probably could have got away with using the kit supplied IP using the decals and it would have been OK, but it’s a good improvement, especially in this larger scale.

George @gblair
I agree that the details are incredible with the Eduard prop addition. Sadly a lot of the details were hidden once I buttoned it up by closing it up with the spinner.

I don’t agree with the statement you made about your not being able to match your model with mine. I have seen your work, and believe me, it’s far better than you give yourself credit for. You build some outstanding looking models !
I hope that the finish line will be here soon.

Speaking of the finish:
I’m using three different shades of Bare Metal Foil for the majority of the exterior on the fuselage. I'm using "Chrome" "Ultra Bright Chrome" and "Matte Aluminum" foil. I have sprayed the cloth covered control surfaces with Aluminum Metalizer paint. This does a great job of replicating how these doped surfaces look.

I have not been very happy with how these wings are looking so today I spent a lot of time with careful sanding on the wings of Cripes A Mighty in an effort to remove the existing paint. I took the D Day invasion stripes off too, because I ran across these pictures included in the booklet that came with the decals for this Mustang.

If you look really close you can see how the stripes are not straight and this is how I had them painted on the model.

So I’m likely going to be sanding the aluminum portion of the wings on “LOU IV” tomorrow. I will probably let the invasion stripes go because they actually are done pretty good.

Please stand by and I’ll post up some photos next.