Last night I sprayed on the "Black" portion of the Invasion Stripes.
I also realized that I have to swap out the two air intakes on the side of the nose. It seems that Cripes A Mighty originally was used in service with the style of breather cover that has the 32 tiny little holes in it. Had I taken the time to fully read the book that came along with the decals for "Cripes-A-Mighty" it's explained as to the date when this change was made.
So now I will be attempting to remove the solid style covers an insert these two in their place. The 32 hole version cover was used when Cripes-A-Mighty had the wrap around D Day Invasion stripes applied on it. The solid style cover was used later on, after the upper stripes were painted over (on the wings) and stripped from the upper portion of the fuselage.
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1. 32 hole breather plate is mentioned
This is what is stated in the book.
And it's backed up by this photo:
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1. small opening in plate is visible here
Here I have zoomed in on the photo, and you can just barely see one of the small round openings of the original 32 hole breather plate.
After studying the pictures in the book, and using them as a guide, I carefully applied the masking tape, trying to replicate what I saw.
The stripes under the tail surfaces were also masked and sprayed black on "LOU IV" at this time.
The stripes were listed as being 15" inches wide on the horizontal stabilizers. I did a little math and broke out my machinists ruler to cut them to the proper width.
The upper surface stripes were also masked on "LOU IV", but they were painted using "White" instead of Black. They will receive a light "Ghost" painting soon, along with the upper Invasion stripes on the wing of this Mustang.
This is how "Cripes-A-Mighty" looked after the tape was removed.
John,
@johnb
Here you can see how I inadvertently pulled up the foil that had been applied around the tail wheel opening when the masking tape was removed. I got lucky with the tape on the rest of the fuselage that covered the foil there.
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1. Here the foil came up when the tape was removed
Here is a good photo showing the rest of the underside stripes on Cripes-A-Mighty.
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1. Intentionally not even or straight.
The flaps were also painted at this time. If they look "crooked", it's because they are ! They were done like this on the real "Cripes-A-Mighty" too.
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1. Notice the different angle in the stripes line
2. Here too
One more thing I discovered while looking closely at the pictures in the Eagle Edition book, is that some of the stripes on the flaps were squared up using the trailing edge of the flaps, instead of following along with the rest of the stripe on the wings.
This tells me these stripes were most likely painted when the flaps were lowered, as it would have happened when the engine was shut down and the hydraulic pressure dropped. It also tells me this was a hurried up rush job, and they did it as fast as they could using what they had.
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1. This area would not have been painted if flaps were raised when painted
I found another picture in the book that also makes this theory more plausible, since the entire top portion of the flaps were painted, and this would only have been possible when the flaps were down.
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1. This area is not painted.
This next picture I took shows the area on the flap that I'm talking about. In this picture it is a polished shiny metal.
This picture shows how Major Preddy's Mustang model looks at the moment. The stripes are not at all straight, but this is as good as it gets using the pictures I have of the real plane... (and they were not straight).
This last picture shows the Invasion stripes on the upper tail surfaces of "LOU IV", after I removed the tape.
I hope to make more progress today, so please stay tuned for another update.
As always, comments are encouraged.
