Tamiya F-51d Mustang in 1/48

[trekracer20]

Hello all,

Here is my fifth build, Tamiya's ubiquitous Mustang. This one will be the F-51 boxing from the Korean War, as these are a great deal at Hobby Lobby and I'm trying to work on some modeling skills. I've been using Eduard's photo etch sets and love them, but I don't have any for this kit so I decided to try my hand at some scratch building. We'll see how that goes. I also am terrified of filling in gaps and getting a Honza-perfect finish, so I thought I'd put my feet in the fire by filling in all the appropriate panel lines on the wing, and also maybe adding some rivet detail on the fuselage. The -D variant is not my favorite Mustang so I don't have any aftermarket decals and will be using the kit ones. For this build I think it'll be the shark-mouth 12th FBS plane depicted on the box. Now for some pics...

Above is a photo of the radio equipment behind the seat--a SCR-522 I think. This is the second time I've done it, as the first time was before seeing a good photograph of the cables and what they're supposed to look like. I'm not sure how successful this is going to be when painted, so we'll see.

Here you see the left side of the cockpit. I glued on my own trim wheel, as Tamiya's representation was pretty lacking. I also added a flare gun port and some other assorted bits to help flesh out the kit's already pretty respectable interior.

In this photo you can see my new control box for the radio (I think), a small lever, and a tiny extra knob attached to the oxygen hose piece. I also made an oxygen hose from copper wire wrapped with fine nylon wire that will go on this side after it's painted.

Which brings me to my last note--there don't seem to be many references for the F-51 cockpit, so I'll repeat my plea from the Props forum--if anyone knows details or has references of how the USAF carried out their black interior, I'd love to know about it. Was the seat painted too? What color should the seat cushions be? Would the oxygen hose still be green, or is that something that would have been painted black along with the rest of the interior? Any help you can provide is welcome!

Thanks for looking!

[tourist]

Nice start.

Just one little thing, the bomb release lever you added (just in front of the large trim wheel) shouldn't be there.

It's an older type of lever that was still found on P-51D-5s but removed before they reached combat.

The F-51Ds in Korea were all later block so it shouldn't be there.

the correct lever for your build should look like this:

Nice job on the radio, many F-51s in Korea (not all) had the more powerful ARC-3 radio instead of the SCR-522.

Thankfully for you it doesn't seem to be the case on most 12th FBS Mustangs.

[Dirkpitt289]

Nice start so far. I love the Mustang and need to get one of these (1/72 of course) into my stash. I look forward to seeing the rest of the build.

[trekracer20]

Nice start.

Just one little thing, the bomb release lever you added (just in front of the large trim wheel) shouldn't be there.

It's an older type of lever that was still found on P-51D-5s but removed before they reached combat.

The F-51Ds in Korea were all later block so it shouldn't be there.

the correct lever for your build should look like this:

Nice job on the radio, many F-51s in Korea (not all) had the more powerful ARC-3 radio instead of the SCR-522.

Thankfully for you it doesn't seem to be the case on most 12th FBS Mustangs.

Wow, you are a wealth of knowledge!

After I started this build I purchased a P-51D book by Robert Peczkowski and saw that the bomb release lever I added was not on the -D variant. Yesterday the detail I was adding was mostly inspired by a great Jaguar resin set that I think is actually meant for a P-51B. But because the release lever was so time-consuming to make, I'm not sure I have it in me to remove it! If I don't do it this time, I'll definitely be sure to make the correct lever on the next build--thanks for the info!

I haven't read anything about the ARC-3--does it look similar to the SCR, or does the area behind the seat look completely different?

[trekracer20]

Nice start.

Just one little thing, the bomb release lever you added (just in front of the large trim wheel) shouldn't be there.

It's an older type of lever that was still found on P-51D-5s but removed before they reached combat.

The F-51Ds in Korea were all later block so it shouldn't be there.

the correct lever for your build should look like this:

Nice job on the radio, many F-51s in Korea (not all) had the more powerful ARC-3 radio instead of the SCR-522.

Thankfully for you it doesn't seem to be the case on most 12th FBS Mustangs.

I actually have one other question--I have a photo labeled a late P-51D and it has Detrola control box on the right side. I read somewhere that the Detrola was the radio used almost exclusively in CONUS and would have been removed before deploying--was it just the antenna cable through the hood that was removed, and the control box left in place?

[tourist]

You cannot miss the ARC-3 on a Mustang, it was bulky.

ARC-3:

The receiver sat on top of the transmitter:

Some of the F-51s (whether they had a SCR-522 or an ARC-3 radio set) sometimes carried an IFF set in place of the battery (same thing on some WWII P-51Ds and all P-51D-30s).

The battery was then moved behind the engine and a small scoop was added to the left engine cowling (seen on all Tamiya P-51D kits).

The only way to know if the IFF set was there is to see if there was a small antenna just behind the right wheel well (obviously not an easy thing to do).

Incidentally the control box seen in the cockpit (on the right wall) just behind the radio control box you scratch built is for the IFF set.

BC-966 (main box for the SCR-695 IFF set):

edited to add: you are correct about the Detrola receiver it was usually removed before the aircraft shipped to the front (not only on 8th AF Mustangs as is sometimes written but pretty much on all of them).

Edited January 17, 2011 by tourist

[trekracer20]

Would this plane have had an aerial antenna cable? It looks like every illustration of an antenna cable I'm seeing goes through the canopy and attaches behind the headrest per the Detrola radio. If Korean mustangs had a cable, where did it enter the fuselage?

[tourist]

Only a photo of the specific aircraft would tell you if there was an aerial.

If there was one it would attach behind the headrest just like it did during WWII.

[trekracer20]

In the Osprey book Modeling the P-51 Mustang Brian Criner built this plane and painted wide black bands on the underside of the wing and a portion of the wing upper, but I have yet to find a photo of any aircraft with this treatment. He writes that it was often applied to 12th FBS Mustangs--does anyone know a source that clearly shows this? Should I include these marks or leave them off?

[trekracer20]

Round two, and I've added a little additional cockpit detail, painted the interior parts green, and painted a few parts in Alclad aluminum. I painted the seat and seat support with the Alclad and put a coat of Future on it with the intention of chipping a little of the interior green painted away to reveal the silver. When I tried to do this though, it scraped off all the layers right down to the gray plastic and I had to re-spray it green. Maybe I tried too soon and should have waited for the green paint to fully cure? I'm using Tamiya acrylics. I've been using a silver pencil for chips on my first few builds, but I feel like the texture isn't quite where I'd like it to be. Anyway, on to some pics.

This photo shows the port side console with some additional detail. One of the things about publishing your builds and letting other people see and comment on them is that you can be guilted into making changes for accuracy's sake that you never would have made on your own. Such was the case with the bomb release lever. I decided to bite the bullet and cut off the piece I made before that's accurate for earlier Mustangs and scratch build this new version. I also carefully sawed some grooves into the back of the console for some other levers. The first time I did this I dry-fit the cockpit and found my levers completely hidden by the pistol flare port, so I extended the grooves a little and moved the pieces up so you can see them.

Here is the starboard side painted green. Next I'll spray or brush a coat of Future on this, and tomorrow I'll spray it all black. When that dries I'm hoping that I'll be able to chip away a little of the black paint to expose the interior green underneath--we'll see how it goes. I have the oxygen hose laying here but not glued in--I'll glue it in after everything else is done. You can also see the small lights I added to the cockpit underneath the...IP shroud? In pretty much every photo I can find there are two lights of some kind pointed at the instrument panel, and I don't recall having ever seen them on a model so I thought I'd give it a shot.

So here is the cockpit dry-fit with the seat wobbling around. It's not perfect, but I think I'm pleased with the level of detail and the overall appearance at this stage. Hopefully in the next day or two this will be all set to go.

Thanks for looking!

[tourist]

Great job, but the cockpit should be black as explained in the Prop forum thread.

Unless of course this is just a first layer.

I really like what you did with the bomb release lever.

[trekracer20]

Great job, but the cockpit should be black as explained in the Prop forum thread.

Unless of course this is just a first layer.

I really like what you did with the bomb release lever.

I am going to spray it black. I painted it green and then brushed a coat of Future on it, hoping that I'll be able to scratch off a little of the black and reveal the green paint underneath. Even with a coat of Future though, sometimes when I've tried this in the past I end up chipping all the way down to the plastic.

Thanks about the bomb lever! I needed to sleep on it before I could bring myself to tear off the previous piece. The new one was pretty fiddly to make. I have no idea how some people scratch build super tiny little intricate pieces for 1/72 planes.

Edited January 18, 2011 by trekracer20

[trekracer20]

I haven't had time to do the instrument panel or finish the seat yet, but here are the finished side panels. After the coat of interior green I brushed on a coat of Future. The next day I painted the interior black, added some additional color, and also used Eduard's placard set for the Mustang.

[tourist]

Just one small thing, for better accuracy the canopy release handle should be red.

[trekracer20]

Just one small thing, for better accuracy the canopy release handle should be red.

Are you sure? It's red on most -Ds, but in the few photos of F-51 cockpits it looked like the handle had been painted yellow over the red. This is pretty much just from the P-51D Squadron Walkaround and the USAF photo.

[tourist]

Are you sure? It's red on most -Ds, but in the few photos of F-51 cockpits it looked like the handle had been painted yellow over the red.

It's because the paint flaked off (or was stripped).

If you look closely at the photos you can still see traces of red.

[Ollie 17]

Looks really good. I wish you all the very best building it. Have some fun with it also.

[trekracer20]

Here's one final look at the cockpit with it pretty much all buttoned up and the IP in place. I used the kit decal and a couple of Mike Grant dials in the lower right, where the kit's decal didn't see fit to include any dials. This also includes most of the recommended parts of Eduard's P-51 placard set.

I'm going to wait before putting it in, but here is the seat with a couple of extras glued on. i decided to do the seat in an olive drab, as the yellow I keep seeing seems to be part of the parachute, and not the actual cushion. Sometime I'd like to try sanding down the cushion and replicating the bright yellow bag of this--parachute?--but probably not for this build.

I also have some trouble spots when fitting the two halves together, and this kit was no exception. Although it didn't require much filler, I'm having a HELL of a time scribing the lines cleaning so that they appear like the original. Straight lines aren't really terrible, but man I struggle with the panels. It's everything I can do just to try to hold the scribing template awkwardly against the model underside, let alone try to cleaning scribe a line with a needle. I have no idea how others do this so well. Any pointers?

While waiting for the filler to try I thought I'd try my hand at drilling out the exhausts, which didn't turn out too badly.

I marked the lines with a marker where the panel lines need to be filled so I didn't accidentally fill in the wrong ones!

It's not too pretty with the filler in.

Not too bad after sanding though. A little of the filler decided not to stay in the panel lines, so I had to go back over a couple spots and touch it up.

After a coat of Mr Surfacer everything is looking alright. Some of the panel lines are still slightly visible, but I don't mind that at all as even in most planes the putty job wasn't always perfect.

AND THEN DISASTER STRIKES.

While spraying the fuselage with Mr Surfacer--which I spent a couple hours applying rivets to--I moved my hand a little too much with a too-full airbrush full of very thinned Mr Surfacer. The lacquer thinner ate the hell out of the plastic, and this model is basically ruined. I'm going to have to head to Hobby Lobby soon and pick up another and start over, trying to salvage as much as I can from the already-completed cockpit. Neat.

Edited January 25, 2011 by trekracer20

[tourist]

AAARGHHHHH!!!!!!!............

Sorry to hear about your mishap.

Your build looked really good.

I hope you can salvage the cockpit.

[trekracer20]

Well, I've been to Hobby Lobby to purchase a couple more of these kits and can start up again. I pried the old fuselage apart and was able to salvage most of the cockpit, but did have to re-do the sidewalls obviously. I was able to pull the Eduard placards off and re-use them, and once again glued the fuselage halves together and cleaned up all the attachment points.

This is my first time adding rivet detail to a model, and it seems like a nice effect so far. I didn't push in super hard and sanded the surface afterward to smooth everything out, so we'll see what these look like after a couple coats of paint. If they're barely visible when the model is done I'll be pleased, as the rivets don't exactly jump out at you in photographs.

A couple photos of the exhausts--The holes turned out alright, but I marred the pieces up slightly so I'll have to maybe try a slightly smaller size the next time I build a Mustang.

Now that the fuselage and wing is glued together, I started on correcting the flaps for the wing--Tamiya molds them with a recess to enable modelers to easily pose them in the up position, but because I'm going to have mine bled down I'm filling in this space with some plastic card and will scribe new detail.

I finally found a photo of FF-943, as well--the phrase 'WAS THAT TOO FAST' appears on the right side of the plane, and presumably was also on the left. Maybe now that I have two sets of decals I'll put the text on both sides of the fuselage.

I also have a question for anyone knowledgeable--in the photo of this plane (and also in FF-651, one of the other planes represented by the kit decals) there is a really large gray box behind the seat that sits up pretty high--what kind of radio is this box for, and what kind of antenna did it use? It's too late for me to include it in this build, but I'll probably try to make it in my next F-51 build.

Thanks for looking and for the input!

[tourist]

Looking good.

The large radio you saw on the photo is probably the ARC-3 I mentioned above.

[jforster]

Nice looking build! I like that you've added things small details like the panel lights in the cockpit too. It looks like you've closed up the cockpit now, so probably too late, but maybe next time add the small cable that runs to those lights? It's a pretty beefy cable and quite hard to miss when you look at the light assembly, plus it would go towards explaining exactly what those little tubes under the glare shield are.

Here's a link to show what I mean.

Good to see that the Mr Surfacer incident didn't destroy the build or your motivation :) Keep it up! You're going great for a first shot at scratchbuilding!

Cheers,

John

[trekracer20]

Nice looking build! I like that you've added things small details like the panel lights in the cockpit too. It looks like you've closed up the cockpit now, so probably too late, but maybe next time add the small cable that runs to those lights? It's a pretty beefy cable and quite hard to miss when you look at the light assembly, plus it would go towards explaining exactly what those little tubes under the glare shield are.

Here's a link to show what I mean.

Good to see that the Mr Surfacer incident didn't destroy the build or your motivation :D Keep it up! You're going great for a first shot at scratchbuilding!

Cheers,

John

Hi John,

I do have a couple running to each light, but it's painted flat black--I wasn't sure from different photos whether there were multiple cables running to each light or not, and sometimes they looked like black rubber tubing while in other photos they look white or tan. Maybe next time I'll try to add a little more detail to those or change the color--at least that way they'll stand out more.

As for the ARC-3 radio, does anyone know of photos or diagrams that clearly show how this was installed in the back? I'd like to alter the next Mustang I build, but don't really want to just plop a box on top of the kit piece and call it a day if I can find a good reference.

Thanks!

[tourist]

As for the ARC-3 radio, does anyone know of photos or diagrams that clearly show how this was installed in the back? I'd like to alter the next Mustang I build, but don't really want to just plop a box on top of the kit piece and call it a day if I can find a good reference.

Here's what the ARC-3 radio and the SCR-695 IFF set would have looked like in a F-51D in Korea (a few variations are possible):

Parts 1,2,3,4,9,10,11,12 & 14 (dynamotors and junction boxes) should be "invisible", hidden between the armor plate and the fuel cell.

This drawing used in conjunction with the ARC-3 and BC-966 illustrations I posted earlier in this thread as well as cockpit photos of the NMUSAF F-51D should provide what you need for a nice Korean war Mustang.

[trekracer20]

Here's what the ARC-3 radio and the SCR-695 IFF set would have looked like in a F-51D in Korea (a few variations are possible):

Parts 1,2,3,4,9,10,11,12 & 14 (dynamotors and junction boxes) should be "invisible", hidden between the armor plate and the fuel cell.

This drawing used in conjunction with the ARC-3 and BC-966 illustrations I posted earlier in this thread as well as cockpit photos of the NMUSAF F-51D should provide what you need for a nice Korean war Mustang.

Thanks, that's very helpful! I just find it amazing that, as popular as the P-51 is, there aren't any walkarounds that include this radio set. It was hard enough finding decent images of the SCR-522!