Looking superb, my friend @lgardner! I believe the "mistake" will be effectively covered.

Its all looking good Louis @lgardner that attention to detail is going to pay off!

Blue nose Mustang is looking so great! Iconic aircraft.

Tom Cleaver (@tcinla)
I have to respectfully disagree with you about the Dark Green color on the Mustang. To me, (at least on my computer monitor), the Dark Green base color looks to be more like faded or older typical US Army "Olive Drab", since it has a brown base to it.

But to be perfectly honest, it's hard to say exactly what color it "could" be or is. The newer / fresh paint does indeed resemble RAF Green. But this color too could have been a US color, since there are so many different variations of OD Green.

There were a lot of OD Green color variations during the war, and even variations between batches of paint from the same manufacturer. Add in exposure to the elements, age of the paint, UV lighting at altitude, background color and even the brightness of the sun / natural / ambient lighting, and it's next to impossible to say what paint was used with 100 percent certainty.

So I have been going with George's method of "TLAR" (That Looks About Right). 🙂

I have also simply started calling it "Dark Green", and letting others decide how it looks to them. US Army OD Green or RAF Dark Green, it could have been either I guess.

If it looks more like RAF Green to your eyes, then I'm perfectly good with that too. This is what makes our comments and suggestions / feedback great. You might have came up with a color I didn't think about, just as Dmitry did with adding the Yellow into the Dark Green mix to lighten it up some. I never would have thought of doing that, but I am going to try it out and see.

@tcinla
Thanks for the feedback Tom, and I do sincerely mean this.

Dmitry Stropalov (@starfar)
Thank you for the suggestion to add Yellow to the Green. I definitely will give this a try, and I will report the outcome here soon. I also appreciate the compliments on the Blue nosed Mustang. It happens to be my favorite all time paint scheme for any P-51. I know that many others have built models of this very same plane, so it's nothing new. But I like it... a lot.

Thanks again for the recommendation to add Yellow to the Dark Green in order to lighten it up some.

Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
Thank you for stopping by, and for leaving the nice comments. Your completed Stormovik looks great in the headlines section. I hope to have "Cripes-A-Mighty III" there soon, hopefully on Christmas Day. I have made more progress, so please check back again for updates.

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Thank you for the kind words. I do think the extra work to polish the wings was a step in the right direction. The aluminum color looks much brighter now, and I'm very pleased with the outcome. Yes, I am happy to provide more information on the Malcom Hood. I might even someday build a P-47 with one. I definitely have plans to build up Hoffer's "Salem Representative". When I do, I will make another build journal for it.

Thanks for the kind words my friend.

David Mills (@davem)
Thanks David ! I sincerely appreciate the compliments. I have done a lot of research / online digging and reading on these two Mustang builds. Thankfully I have been fortunate to have been around a lot of the full sized versions too. It all seems to all be coming together in the end.

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Once I run out of the metallic paints, I will have to make a decision. I have received several really good replacement paint recommendations that will deserve a second closer look, with yours included in this little group. Thank you. I will definitely be getting back with you about this subject. I didn't want to get a paint that required a specific thinner though. I started using the Mr. Color Leveling thinner when I spray Tamiya and Mr. Color acrylics, and boy this stuff is fantastic. It works exactly as the name implies.

Once my Model Master "Metallizer" is gone, I will likely avoid BMF aircraft for a little while, until I find a suitable replacement, (and I get proficient with it). I really do like how the Molotow sprays (and looks), but it has two drawbacks. It takes forever to dry, and it's expensive. I still enjoy using my Bare Metal Foil, and these two work together very well.
One of the main things I liked about the MM Metalizer is that you could buff it to a high shine using a T-shirt, similar to what you described.

I know that our models really don't take into consideration all of the thought and care that we give them... How dare they ! 🙂 They know how many hours we put in trying to make them look good...

Stephen W Towle (@stephen-w-towle)
Hello again my friend. The first picture you posted, the illustration on how the Mustang wing was filled and smoothed, is a great resource. I have seen it before. However, the second one you posted is brand new to me. It looks like it's a factory assembly line photo, since you can see the number on the wing.

Very cool ! Thanks for sharing that with us. I have been spending a lot of time online over at Air Corps Aviation and browsing / reading the stories on their restoration work. There's a ton of information there, and I wouldn't have known about this, had not you mentioned it a while ago when we were discussing "Sierra Sue". This website is a gold mine / treasure trove of information.

I think I have the wing on Major Preddy's Mustang as close as I can get it to looking like it would have sometime in 1944. Tonight I repainted the flaps. The original finish I sprayed on them a few years ago had cracked and wrinkled up in a few locations, so I ended up stripping them down to bare plastic and starting over again. I used the wrong thinner and it reacted with the paint. This time they should be good to go.

I'm also getting ready to cover the ailerons and outer sections of the flaps using foil.

Thanks for stopping by gentlemen, and please stay tuned for another installment. It's coming right up !

What more to say, my friend @lgardner, they look stunning!
Keep up the fantastic work!

Looks great, Louis (@lgardner), and the overspray should work fine. I have done similar on some of my previous models. I had the paint really thin, so I sprayed really thin layers using low air pressure, with some drying time in between. There is so much thinner in the mix that if you put it on too heavy you will flood the previous paint with thinner, which can have some bad results. The low pressure also really helps control the amount that goes on. Looking forward to seeing the magic at work on the invasion stripes.

Good luck on your search for NMF replacements. Some of my decisions are based on what I can get around here. One of these days I will get brave enough with these metals to try an entire model. Nice picture of you fur-buddy. Remember not to try to lift...

Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
Thanks Spiros !

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
I can't wait to see how it turns out either. I will follow George Blair's advice and do it in thin layers. Thanks for the compliment on my big girl dog. She really liked to have her picture taken. It seems as if she knew when you were getting ready to take a picture of her, as she would stop what she was doing and automatically pose for the photo. She was really good at catching a Frisbee too. She made me tired and had non stop energy. I never once saw her miss a catch either. Boy she could run ... Thanks 🙂

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Thanks for the advice on how to spray the Dark Blue color on top of the Invasion Stripes. Using a lower PSI will also be a good idea. Thanks for suggesting this.

I think I might have had too much thinner (or I possibly might even have used regular automotive acrylic enamel paint reducer in the mix), when I sprayed the Black stripes on the flaps. It likely caused the Black paint I used for the stripes to wrinkle, which in turn caused me to eventually strip off all of the paint on both flaps. There was likely a reaction with either too much thinner as you mentioned, or possibly the acrylic enamel reducer was too "hot", and it could have lifted the White base coat under the Black stripes. So I have to be vey cautious at this point in the game. I don't want to ruin all of the work I have done so far.

Yes sir, I am still being very cautious with my back. We are not fortunate to have any local brick and mortar type hobby shops near us anymore. So chances are I will have to make some online purchases for my next paint choices. I would much rather deal with a local business, but anymore that's not going to happen. The closest hobby shop is well over an hours drive away.

My big girl was special, and a real cutie too. Thanks for the compliments on her.

Stephen W Towle (@stephen-w-towle)
I think you are spot on with your thoughts about the various different colors of Dark Green we see on "LOU IV". Never say never is a great way to think about things.

I actually think the wing root filets could possibly have been painted using a Black paint. It's also possible this location was painted using a brush. This would explain the sharp edges we see on the sides of the fuselage.

"LOU IV" went through a series of gradual changes once it was placed in service. On the earliest photo I posted of it, the compound curved metal fillet located just ahead of the wing at the wing root was also painted just like the rest of the wing root. Later on, we can clearly see it has either been replaced or stripped of paint and polished.

The same thing goes for the Yellow nose and spinner. In the earliest photos, you can still see the Dark Green anti glare panel ahead of the windscreen. The Yellow on the nose was no where as big as the last pictures we see where the majority of the nose was painted Yellow.

I believe it also sported full wrap around style D Day Invasion Stripes at some point, but I have never seen any photos of it in this configuration.

Yes, I do think anything is possible as far as the use of British paints.

He also has this excellent reference for RAF colors.
http://www.ratomodeling.com.br/articles/RAF_skies/

Rato is a good fellow. I sent him some of the childhood pictures I had (that both my Dad and I took), of Harry Doan's F4U-1 Corsair and this along with what I told him about the airplane during the 1970's and early 1980's helped to fill in the blanks on it's missing history. He has that story listed on his website too.

But like you mentioned, once any aircraft has been in service, and especially in harsh environments, all bets are off as far as the use of colors, sanding / polishing etc.

A great example of this is to look at some of the photos of Corsairs as they served in the South Pacific islands.

Thanks for commenting, and I hope to hear from you again soon.

Now I have another update coming right up, so please stay tuned. Thanks !