Louis , what a great show , I am really enjoying ! And a clever designed/money worth kit as well . Please , keep coming !

You're right, there is no way I would attempt to make my own tread pattern on wheels. If it takes more than dragging a saw blade or hobby knife through the old tread pattern to restore the treads, I probably wouldn't consider it. Looking forward to seeing how they look when completed. They look great so far. You will have to share your technique for uniformly cutting the small pieces of tread in a hexagon.

I decided to pull the trigger and ordered a set of these hexagonal wheels in two scales, 1/48 and 1/32.

I plan on eventually building up another plane flown by Major Preddy, in 1/48 scale. This time I'll be using the new tool Airfix or possibly the older Tamiya offering. I haven't decided yet.

This would be the plane he was killed in on Christmas Day. It's called "Cripes A Mighty" and has a red rudder. This plane was a newer Mustang and had the fuselage fillet ahead of the fin. The nose lettering on the name is also slightly different, as are the kill markings on the side of the fuselage. It's a very good looking plane, and probably my favorite Mustang offering.

Ironically his "last" Mustang also had the hexagonal tire tread, so I purchased the 1/48 set made by Barracuda Cast at the same time I bought the larger 1/32nd scale offering.

Here's the larger set in 1/32 scale for the current build...

I'll try to use the wheel hubs from the Revell kit supplied wheels. I will probably have to do some surgery to remove them from the tires. Besides the fact that I needed a set for the smaller 1/48 Mustang for a future build, I simply don't have too much extra time to devote to scratch building at the moment.

If the surgery fails, I'll have to locate a set of resin center hubs for these wheels, as they're designed to be a drop in replacement for the 1/32 scale Tamiya Mustang.

Maybe someday I'll give it another try...

As always,
Comments are encouraged.

Thanks

I was reading your Random thoughts on Japanese colour schemes, excellent article and has really helped me for a future build Tamiya 1/32 Zero A6M2. I joined this group to see more of your articles.

I'm building this same kit atm (Lou 4 after Chritian's daughter, I like the Athelene after his S/SGT Jameson's partner), I went with eduard wheels, hubs included. I tried to drill out exhausts but my kit has a plastic problem and some parts crumble instead of sand or drill cleanly, so was forced to go Eduard exhausts...to maximise postage and for a small extra cost bought the prop (why spend £13 poastage for just £9 of items?). BTW I contacted Revell UK about these problems with crumbling plastic (about 5 weeks ago) the UK branch didn't have sprues (discontined kit) but the main German branch mailed me replacement parts that I recieved today 🙂 FREE of charge 🙂 🙂

Liking your build, you go to more detail than me, I was happy to have yellow zinc chromate (This ages brown not green as most people weather, myself it's a simple brown oil wash) for the wheel wells, never mind foil for extra detail you've achieved.

Kudos to you and wish you well with this build

Keith (UK as the £ might have said)

Louis if your planning on doing Lou IV ...Dana Bell's research ergo looking at the standard photo that we all know and have seen and loved...depending on the negative or a very good reproduction has shown that some areas over the stars and bars (fuselage) where painted in blue. Some folks think that the strips covering the top half of the wings where also, painted in blue. While others think that the stripes where painted over using fresh O.D., Still others dispense with the blue theory and paint the thing O.D. .

Here are some great photos provided by Mr. Bell.

http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/showandtell7db_1.htm

Good on you Louis, history is always changing based on the evidence and if Mr. Bell has found better slides that show blue than what better to acknowledge the info than to model it. The modeling community what with the advent of the internet has helped to muddle and prejudice folks into believing somethings about P-51s that aren't always historically accurate. Then they become "un truths" or "facts" or if you keep repeating a lie it becomes "true". For several years everyone though that "Bird caged" Corsairs had salmon color gear bays and the modeling community took that to be gospel and perpetuated that belief until they pulled out the real deal out of Michigan. I've seen Waterbird's ...P-51s painted with that Blue covering what would have been O.D. . Historical accuracy is suspect but, when your footing the billing you can paint what ever you want...

Hello Keith, @keithwaterhouse

First off, let me welcome you to Imodeler, and I am very happy to hear that you enjoy reading my articles. Thank you ! That was the nicest compliment that anyone could get, and I sincerely mean that.

After reading your comments on how the exhaust cracked on your model as you attempted to drill them out, I thought I would save myself some grief and I ordered two sets of Eduard exhausts from Sprue Brothers. These items should be arriving soon, and look to be a major improvement over the kit supplied parts.

Since I was going to pay shipping charges, I said "why not" ? and added two replacement props to the order as well.



I have read on other forums where these kit supplied parts are not as nice as these Eduard items. I have been around numerous full sized 1 to 1 scale Mustangs, and the kit parts look OK. The thing I immediately noticed was the parting line between the cuff and the actual propeller blade isn't too defined. I'm hoping this will be taken care of, and that the new props were not a waste of money. I'll snap some pictures of these items sitting side by side next to the kit parts once they arrive. Then I'll post my findings here.

Lastly, I have future plans for building a P-51 B model air racer that was sponsored by none other than Jimmy Stewart... It has a fin fillet added from a later "D" model and looks very nice in a bright blue metallic color. This future build also needed different prop, and Ultracast makes exactly what I needed in 1/48 scale. So I decided to pull the trigger on this item too.

Please stay tuned for a future Air Racing Mustang... and it's a B model razor back to boot.

To answer your question about what shade of blue I will be using on "LOU IV". I am most likely going to use US Insignia Blue, FS 35044. There's also a possibility I might use a US Navy color. That would be FS 35042 and is Dark Sea Blue. Both of these colors could have been available for use by the Squadron.

I couldn't agree with you more when it comes to the crazy things you see printed by the media... and we are of similar "vintage". Believe me, what you wrote didn't offend me at all.

As far as your choice of decals, Barracuda makes some very nice stuff. I have used them on a few other projects and I can highly recommend them from personal experience. I think you will also be pleased with how well they work.

Hello Stephen, @stephen-w-towle
I have a little more time now to make a decent reply back to you. I saw the article you posted a link to, and knew right away this was how I was going to paint mine. I also have the same kit in the stash, but this other one is in smaller form as a Tamiya P-51D in 1/48, and it comes with the decals for "LOU IV" in the box.

I can paint that one using two shades of Greens so I'll be covered both ways. I'll have a blue one and a green one...

That specific 1/48 Tamiya kit I have the Ultracast replacement resin tail without the fin fillet.

Years ago I purchased it for a specific purpose. I had plans to graft the tail section removed from the Tamiya "D" model with the fin fillet, onto a Tamiya 1/48 "B" Razorback version. This will in turn end up as an Air Racer that was sponsored by Jimmy Stewart in 1947.

It's a very nice looking plane with gold / yellow stripes and checkers over an overall bright blue metallic main color. The decals I have for this model are something I have never tried before and were made by Draw Decal. Here's a picture of the set.

It should be a cool looking plane once done. I have never seen a B model Mustang with a later model fin fillet added...unless you count the Accurate Miniatures #3419 kit. This fin feature combined with the cool race colors should make this one stand out from the crowd.

Since I happen to have the AM kit in the stash, I'll look into it and see if things might just be a little bit easier to just build that kit instead the Tamiya ...but Tamiya stuff builds so easy. The surgery on the tail removal might outweigh the other option though. Time will tell.

As always, comments are encouraged.