This is what was done over the past few days. I have not had too much time at the bench, but progress is progress, and I'll take it.
Remember a while back I talked about starting up a 5th Airfix P-51D for the Kindergarten ?
This is what the cockpit looks like for it. I still have to cut a set of anti slip items for the floor like I have on the rest.
The wing was also painted and assembled. On this one, I wanted to make it look like a later Mustang, when they went to the clear anodizing on the aluminum parts instead of painting them in the various shades of Zinc Chromate.
I decided to keep the main wing spar in a Yellow Zinc Chromate though.
I left the wing ribs in an aluminum color too.
This is a temporary mock up I did for photo purposes only. This part is only held in place by friction. It will pop off easily.
This shows how the main gear wells look on the last Airfix Mustang.
Going back to the Airfix cockpits now... This shows one that is almost complete. It is only missing the pilot's seat.
There are 5 Airfix cockpit's almost completed now. They are almost the same, but I painted the rear cockpit wall in a different color on some of these.
-
1. Black
2. Lighter ZC Green
The one on the far right side is a lighter Zinc Chromate Yellow Green. The one next to it is Black. The remaining three are Interior Green.
The Tamiya cockpits were worked on too. This shows how they look now. The seats are still not installed on these either. I will be using the two extra seats from the Eduard Mustangs on two of these Tamiya cockpits.
This shows the cockpits as they are right now. Airfix are on the top, and Tamiya are on the bottom. The far right side Tamiya cockpits have also had the rear cockpit walls painted using Flat Black. Chances are these areas will not even bee seen once the fuselage is buttoned up.
This last photo shows some of the propellers. The top three are the ones provided in the Eduard kit. The five lower ones are Airfix props. The Eduard props need some touching up, as I sanded down a very small / faint mold seam that was visible along the sides of the propeller blades near the base.
The Eduard F-6D "Overtrees" kit arrived on Saturday. I ordered it from Sprue Brothers and it showed up a few days later.
This is the new dedicated fuselage halves for the photo recon version of the Mustang. This will make it a lot easier to make a good looking recon bird.
This shows the details of the camera lens'.
There is a well known color photo that shows a P-51A-10NA, a P-47D-4, and a P-38H flying in formation "somewhere" over Florida. I wanted to replicate this picture someday.
In the stash, I have the P-38H kit by Tamiya and the correct decals. It's the special edition version in a plain white box. I plan on converting a razor back Tamiya P-47D into an earlier version by modifying the engine cooling flaps. This should be a simple thing to do. I was missing the early Mustang.
Since I was on a P-51 kick, and I saw this 1/48 Accurate Miniatures on EBay, so pulled the trigger. Turns out it was from the first release, so I'm even more stoked !
Did I need another Mustang or two ? No of course not... but I wanted another Mustang or two. You fellow plastic junkies know the deal... 😉
Now I can someday build all three planes seen in the original wartime photo.
That's my excuse. I mean story, and I'm sticking to it. 🙂
I'm calling it a night. Thanks for stopping by, and as always comments are encouraged.
