@johnb
First, using a toothpick and a magnifier lens I painted the lightbulbs (Eduard made them tiny circumferences within each len) then I sprayed the aluminum over. Easy and simple.
As for the pilot figure it’s under progress, I had a hard time finding a beige that could pass for the US pilot over the pacific uniforme

Tom Cleaver (@tcinla)
Hey Tom. Thanks for the input. I was not aware of the difference between the fin fillet from the P-51C when compared to the P-51D. You are correct, there is a small difference.

Here I took the separate tail section from one of my Accurate Miniatures kits and placed it over the top of the grafted on Tamiya tail section. You can see there is a small difference, and it's enough to notice once you know to look for it.

I'll use this AM tail section as a template / guide when I sand down the previously grafted Tamiya one down later. It should be a simple fix. Thanks for pointing that out.

As far as my building Miss Cochran's "Beguine", that wasn't my intent.

I was planning on building her Race 13, which was painted in what some called "Lucky Strike Green". I wanted it to match the Paul Mantz all Red race plane. I think it will look great sitting next to "Thunderbird" too. Both the Paul Mantz Red Mustang and Miss Cochran's overall Green Race #13 decals are included in one of my AM Mustang kits.

In the future I will hopefully get the chance to build up "Beguine".
@jimh Jim Harley

I'm going to wait until Jim Harley gets done with his version. He has launched his website offering aftermarket conversion things. So far he has specialized with primarily Mustang stuff, but now he also has a very nice conversion of a cream / red colored racing Corsair available now called the "Lucky Gallon", and this set has been very tempting... 🙂 It's designed to use the Tamiya 1/48 Corsair.

His website is called Black Magik Resin. Since he flew the Colling's Foundation Mustang regularly, he is very well versed with everything related to Mustangs, and it has carried over to his model work.

Looking forward to your next update, my friend @lgardner!

Great progress, my friend @lgardner! Love how these bays look!

Cool! Regarding signal lights I recall I have been informed in one of my builds that some had the lightbulbs colored, others had the glass colored. Please correct me if my info is wrong, after all I mostly dig into 109's and their positon lights sometimes had colored plastic, sometimes colored bulbs.

Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Erik Gjørup (@airbum)
George R Blair Jr (@gblair)

Thank you gents for the kind words. Over the last few days I have not had nearly as much bench time as I would like. Even so, I have made some progress with the Mustang Kindergarten.

I added some plastic strips to the sides of the pilot seat on the Tamiya Mustangs. This support bracing was missing.


I sprayed the modified seats using Interior Green. The joysticks were also painted. Here you can see a pair of Airfix Mustang seats and control sticks in the top of the photo.
Tamiya items are lower. There are a total of six Tamiya seats and control columns.

This shows how the added plastic improved the look of the Tamiya kit supplied seats.

Next it was time to paint the non skid floor covering on the cockpit floor of the Airfix kits. I was not at all happy with the end results. Then I had an idea...

I took a stick it post it note, and made a template of the non skid areas for both the Tamiya cockpit, and the Airfix ones.
Using these templates, I used some very fine wet / dry sand paper and cut it to shape.

These sand paper pieces were glued in place on the floor. This is the end result. I like it much better now.

Sharp eyed viewers will notice there are now four Airfix Mustangs in the "Kindergarten". These all received the non skid floor treatment.

Another paper template was made for the Tamiya cockpits. I ended up cutting out six sand paper floors for the Tamiya Mustangs.


I like it a lot better now on the Tamiya Mustang too.

This shows the Tamiya cockpits as they now look.


This shows the Airfix version...

The Airfix kit has a lot more detail in the radiator and oil cooler areas. But it should, because this kit is around 20 years newer.

This next photo shows all of the Mustang cockpits in the Kindergarten so far. I still have to build up the Eduard kit, so I can use the Donald Duck decals on it. This plane was flown by a pilot with the last name of Emerson, and he was killed on Christmas Day in 1944, just as George Preddy was.

If things work out, I hope to have his Mustang completed in time to post as a tribute to him on Christmas Day.

Freedom is not free. Lest we forget...

The corresponding Airfix Mustang fuselages were prepped and painted, and are now awaiting the detail painting.

I also built up two more Airfix Mustang wings.

These with the Yellow ZC paint were previously assembled.

These two are the latest additions. You will see how one of them has a Dark Green color, while the other is mostly in bare aluminum color. The main wing spar was painted using Yellow Zinc Chromate on the Dark Green wing interior.


Here are a few close-ups of the aluminum one. I painted the main wing spar and wing ribs using the same Dark Green as before.

The Mustang was painted in various ways depending on when and where they were built. What I am showing here is an example of how they could have been painted in the wheel well areas.

This last photo shows the completed wing sections. The darker gray plastic wing is a Tamiya Mustang, after I modified the main landing gear well.

I still might assemble another Airfix Mustang wing, and paint it with the bare metal treatment. However this time I might paint the main wing spar using Yellow ZC.

Not all of these Mustangs will be built as a part of this group. I'm getting them ready for future builds. I want to build up a Mustang for Bud Anderson, Chuck Yeager, and another one for George Preddy, the last Mustang he flew and was killed in on Christmas Day, his last "Cripe's A Mighty" with the Red rudder and "Barber Pole" markings.

In a perfect world I could get all of these done soon. But I am not planning on that to happen.

I hope to get more work done tomorrow. Soon I should be assembling the Tamiya fuselages.

as always, comments are encouraged.

Thanks for stopping by.

This is excellent progress, my friend @lgardner! Your kindergarten looks awesome!

Louis @lgardner

Wow this is an amazing production run. Sandpaper, never thought of that.

Bullseye has a decal sheet with Chuck Yeager's -5 Mustang in 1/48 scale.