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P-51B Betty Jane

Started by Jim Harley · 28 ≡ · ↻ 5 years ago · Mustang, P-51 Mustang, Tamiya

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Louis Gardner said 5 years, 4 months ago:

I saw your old girl earlier today.

She's doing fine and is getting some TLC.

The model is looking fantastic !
Jim Harley said 5 years, 4 months ago:

Thanks Louis! We really wore her out...5000 hours of flying in 8 years, I know they will bring her back up to spec. I'm polishing away on the model...a lot easier than the full size 🙂
Julio Contreras Martínez said 5 years, 4 months ago:

Dan ganas de hacerse uno viendo lo bien que está quedando...
Jim Harley said 5 years, 2 months ago:

Well...back to Betty for a bit. Got a lesson in Alclad black base primer today. I watched a few tutorials and read several comments about application issues. The bottle says two medium coats after 30 minutes of drying between. Sooooo I did that...the finish looks like 120 grit sandpaper, meh. It is lacquer so I know I can wet sand it. I started with 6000 grit and worked up to 12,000. After about an hour of rubbing on the left wing it started looking like glass. Tomorrow I'm going to Hobby Town to get some Tamiya polish to help expedite the process and get in to some of the crevasses a little better. Overall I'm happy with the way it went on...but next time I'll go a bit thinner on the coats. I shot it from a gravity feed Iwata at around 15lbs.
2 attached images. Click to enlarge.
Louis Gardner said 5 years, 2 months ago:

I have never tried using Alclad before. I have used black to help find faults with the surface though. Does the black act as a primer? Or is it used to detect blemishes ? Or is it a little of all the above ?

Your P-51 is looking good. The WB Gee Bee turned out fantastic BTW... 🙂 I'll be looking forward to your next installment.
Jim Harley said 5 years, 2 months ago:

Hey Louis, glad you like the Gee Bee...I'm really happy with the way it is turning out. I'm still waiting on my Tamiya polish...that'll really bring the finish out. I learned a hard lesson with the Alclad. I bought the filler primer thinking it would be like the filler based laquer I've used on full size cars. Well, not so much...it goes on gritty, and it does fill scratches. It drys rock hard and is a bear to sand. I'm hoping the polish and dremel buffer will bring it all to a high shine. Although it is tedious to sand, the finish it produces is flawless. I took a lot of time to put this together clean with a minimum sanding. I should have used the Alclad gloss black base instead of the filler. I learned a lesson and didn't do any permanent damage...just added a week to the build 🙂 . I'm kind of at a standstill until my polish shows up...had to order it off of Amazon. I'm really looking forward to wrapping up both of these. Thanks for following along!
Jim Harley said 5 years, 2 months ago:

The polish showed up today...and what a difference. I swabbed the entire airframe in the coarse grit and it smoothed out beautifully with no loss of surface detail. I cleaned it and went back over it with the fine grit and I'm back in business. I would be lying if I said I wasn't concerned I thought I ruined any chance of a smooth finish for metal. I plan on doing a Shangri-La at some point...but not this one 🙂 I'll clean it up tomorrow and shoot a coat of gloss black Alclad primer on the bare spots. I was pretty discouraged with the way the filler primer went on, but now that I understand how it works it will only be used in limited quantity. The Tamiya polishes are awesome...I worked some in to the Gee Bee and it is night and day versus the wet coat of varnish. cool stuff! ...went through about 30 cotton swabs though 🙂
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
Tom Bebout said 5 years, 2 months ago:

Looks like a lot of your work is going to turn out well Jim. I've never used Alciad before to achieve a NMF. I generally use a combination of Tamiya's TS-Gloss Aluminum, TS-30 Silver Leaf, and AS-12 Bare Metal Silver straight from rattle cans. Goes on smooth, dries really fast, and it looks the part. To out line the panel lines I fill them in with a Faber-Castell Pit Pen. Use a cotton swab to wipe off the excess. Works for me.
Jim Harley said 5 years, 2 months ago:

Thanks Tom, it's going well so far. I picked up a couple Faber-Castell pens tonight...sounds like a great idea. If anything this can serve as my newb introduction to Alclad. I used a soft bristled toothbrush to clean the polish residue from the nooks and crannies. Once the water dried I went over it with an alcohol bath. I shot Alclad gloss black primer on tonight (what I should have used in the first place), and it went on like butter. I put this on really thin, being gun shy for over doing it...so I'll put a second coat on tomorrow. If it dries as smooth and shiny as looks now it will be well worth the effort. If anything it is really fun figuring all this out, and hopefully a lot that looks catastrophic isn't that hard to fix.
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
Jim Harley said 5 years, 1 month ago:

Finally spent some time with Betty today! I got the second coat of Alclad 'hi-shine' aluminum on the fuselage and 'duraluminum' on the wings. I really like this system. Once this has cured I'll tape off some panels for the 'polished aluminum' and the 'dark aluminum' for the exhaust cowling panels. I'm not going to jinx myself but dust hasn't been an issue. My only complaint is the drying time of the black base primer. I wasn't sure of the flash time and I turned the fan off an hour after painting. When I checked it the next day it was speckled with dust. More polishing. It does dry beautifully and I can't say I've ever had a smoother finish on anything. The color coats do dry quickly, although I still let it sit overnight. More soon!
4 attached images. Click to enlarge.
Jim Harley said 5 years, 1 month ago:

Update. The learning curve continues but not that big of deal. I waited at least 12-15 hours to tape each layer of aluminum finish and I did my best to lessen the stick of the Tamiya tape. As I carefully peeled the tape off a couple spots lifted down to the bare plastic. Fortunately they are really small spots and easily polished out and re-sprayed. I touched them up this morning and so far they have blended in with the other silvers. The next step is a couple coats of Aqua Gloss to seal the finish. So far this stuff is amazing.
3 attached images. Click to enlarge.
Jim Harley said 5 years, 1 month ago:

After 4 days without power I'm having serious withdrawls...stupid wind storm. Got a bit more done...
3 attached images. Click to enlarge.
Louis Gardner said 5 years, 1 month ago:

Excellent work Jim ! I can imagine how you are feeling with your round of bad weather. About a year and a half ago we had a hurricane blow through here and we were without power for a while. However we were among those fortunate ones who only lost power. Others lost their homes and all of their belongings.

I agree. Stupid storms !

The aluminum finish is looking fantastic. I'll be watching for the next installment.

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Work in Progress – Aircraft

P-51B Betty Jane