303 squadron last stand – Mustang Mk. IV from Dallas Factory.

Started by capt. R · 127 · 2 years ago
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    capt. R said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    Fuel tanks are ready.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    The decals came out great, @lis. The overall metal texture and decals look perfect.

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    capt. R said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    @gblair filler caps are painted. I bought set och technical stencils for P-51. I never had so plenty very small decals on plane! I think I set sth about 70 little stencils! Drop fuel tanks had three stencils each!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    Drop tanks look perfect, Lis @lis
    Painting is mostly nicer than stencils.

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    @lis, you need to build an F-4 Phantom, which is known for having more stencils than you can count. But any stencil in either 1/72 or 1/48 can be very small.

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    capt. R said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    @gblair @johnb @fiveten Position lamps. I had some problem with red light. Unfortunetly mould was not good in area of position lamps. The concavities for the lights were as if cast crookedly and one edge was shallower, which unfortunately caused a bit of a problem with keeping the red color within the given range.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    capt. R said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    @gblair I was completely unaware that the Mustang required so many descriptions! At the pylons under the wings, there were a dozen of them! Unfortunately, some are so small that they cannot be read. These completely small pixel sizes. I skipped... In NMF tecnical stencils are visible, but in dark green or ocean grey color I think you can't see them.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    All looking great, my friend @lis!
    Yep, as our friend @gblair said, you should build a Phantom and apply ALL stencils. With some effort, you will be able to see the plane behind the stencils 🙂

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    John vd Biggelaar said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    Nice work on the position lights, Lis @lis

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    capt. R said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    @gblair @johnb @fiveten I made some weathering yesterday. Today final coat of Clear.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    Coming along nicely, @lis!

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    Your model looks terrific, @lis. The metal finish is still one of the smoothest applications I have seen. A quick note about the lights under the wings. The three lights under the wings were recognition lights used to identify friend from foe. You could turn on specific combinations of lights, which helped ID friend from foe. The lights on the wingtips and tail were the position lights which helped other planes figure out the orientation of the plane in weather or night. Position lights were red on the left wing, green (sometimes blue or other color) on the right wing, and there was usually a white light on the tail. I think that some versions of the P-51 also had formation lights on the fuselage whose purpose was to aid in maintaining formation in weather and during night. Today, all airplanes also have anti-collision beacons, which is a red flashing light usually on the top and bottom of the fuselage which makes it easier to visually see other airplanes and avoid collisions. When I was flying T-37s, I can tell you that all of these lights were very useful maintaining formation in the weather. When I was flying C-141s, we would fly formation visually when we could, but at night and in the weather we would use station-keeping radar. If you go online to research all of these lights, you will find that there is a lot of confusion about aircraft lights in general, and especially identification lights and formation lights. In any case, your lights look great.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    capt. R said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    @gblair I'm so glad that you like my work! Your information about position lamps are very usefull! Thank you! It is interesting, that P-40 didn't have position lamps in that type.

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    George R Blair Jr said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    I am amazed at how immaculate and clean the surface of your models come out, @lis, especially this natural metal P-51. The P-40 had position lights, but they used a small light on the top and bottom of each wing near the wingtip. Same function, just in a different place. Styles of lighting change with the manufacturer and with era. I learn new stuff about lights all the time, sometimes it is hard to keep up, but Google solves all (or most) questions.

    2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    capt. R said 2 years, 6 months ago:

    @gblair Your words are really nice. they motivate me a lot, but this time it will probably not be the NMF performance (surprisingly! :-)) but the finish of the US Army Forces from 1941 -I purchase new Olive Drab and neutral grey. ;-). It cannot be denied that my last three models (i.e. the Spitfire IX Mustang MK.III and especially the Mustang MK.IV) gave a visible increase in the professionalism of my workshop (although at the expense of another gray hair). I believe the secret to the Mustang MK model. IV (which has definitely turned out to be the best in NMF painting so far), is polishing with polishing paste before painting with metallic. I think that Mr Color lacquer Paint from the super Metalic II series are also worth recommending.