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Tamiya 1/32 P-51D Mustang


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Picked this up a couple days ago, I don't know when I'll ever get around to it, but I wanted to show it off since it's a brand, spankin' new kit! I've never built one of Tamiya's 1/32 kits, but I've always heard amazing things about them, particularly their more recent releases such as the Zero and Spitfire, so when I found that the local hobby shop had a few of this sucker in stock for a really awesome retail price, I had to snag one up.

box.jpg

Box is about 19"/48cm wide, 12"/30cm tall and 4"/10cm thick and adorned with gorgeous painted boxart, the bottom and top sides have some specs and details about the kit and several photos.

manual1.jpg

The manual is typical of Tamiya, printed in black and white and featuring a photo of the finished model on the cover.

manual2.jpg

The book is 36 pages long, and about 30 of those pages are the assembly! Assembly instructions are extremely dense, but look to be fairly simple to follow and clearly presented.

paintguide.jpg

It comes with a 2 page foldout paint/marking guide for the scheme as shown on the boxart

refguide1.jpg

I was excited when I came across this, it's a reference guide for the builder

refguide2.jpg

about a dozen pages of technical and historical info about the Mustang and its variants

refguide3.jpg

the last 2 pages are covered in colour reference photos, these'll be very helpful I should think and it was a nice touch to include them

cowlings.jpg

The engine cowlings are advertised as being 'ultra-thin', and they live up to that boast, I wasn't aware styrene could be molded that thin and still hold its shape! The cowlings are removeable after assembly, using magnets embedded in the framework and photoetched parts glued to the cowlings.

parts2.jpg

the fuselage is... rather odd, it doesn't really look like a fuselage! The nose is empty and skeletal because of the seperate engine, and the tail is detached to allow for easier tooling of variants. Note, most of these pics were borrowed from Cybermodeler, as my camera's battery died before I could get shots of them... not to mention, these were a lot better than I could have gotten

parts3.jpg

that's a big damned wingspan... box says it's 354mm wide, which if my math is correct is about 14". Molding is exceptional as is usual for Tamiya

More pics and my unboxing video in the next post

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Part 2!

parts4.jpg

I was surprised when I took a closer look that this kit includes 2 different tail options, the first one has an extension on the leading edge while this version does not. Also shown here are the bulk of the plane's control surfaces

parts5.jpg

On the left, we've got much of the engine's plumbing and a few frame/bulkhead parts. The right side has the main landing gear bay, struts and doors which you can see have options for closed and raised display

parts6.jpg

first up, we've got the prop parts, the oil cooler/radiator channel, as well as a few other parts I don't really recognize. Next, we've got the only doubled up runner in the kit, we've got the last of the control surfaces, which have options for fabric covered or all metal parts. Also included here are the exhausts, the guns and the doors for the gunbays

parts7.jpg

The stand is very simple, not much to say about it really. The cockpit has options for 2 different seats, and 2 instrument panels. The interior sidewalls are molded seperate from the cockpit floor, all of which are molded beautifully

parts8.jpg

Engine parts! More engine parts! Even more engine parts! Seriously though, the first runner has the crankcase and cylinder parts, while the second appears to have the turbocharger and a few other odds and ends. The kit includes 2 pilot figures, one standing and one seated. Also includes 2 options for drop tanks, the 75 gallon and the 108 gallon

parts9.jpg

For clear parts, the kit has 3(yes, 3) different canopies! Clear faces for the instrument panels, armored glass and marker lights, etc

parts1.jpg

whoa, 2 photoetch sets? Yup! On the left we've got the intake screens, guide mounts for the guns, and hinges for the control surfaces. Second sheet has the multiple part seatbelts with detailed buckles, the contact points for the cowlings, and morestuff I don't recognize.

decals01.jpg

Also has 2 decal sheets, first one has the roundels, markings for two of the 3 marking schemes and other squadron markings

decals02.jpg

Second sheet has the instrument panels, markings for the 3rd scheme and all the stencils.

I took a couple videos of my initial unboxing as well, so enjoy!

Part one, documentation and decals

Part 2, parts, parts and more parts!

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I can only agree with you, this is a stunning kit. The parts fit is excellent, even better than the Spitfire kits.

Beware when assembling the carburettor/supercharger intake (no not turbocharger, not on this aircraft), the correct parts for the Mustang kit is on sprue V. I misstakenly built a Spitfire mk XVI engine, but i hadn't built my Spit XVI engine so i recovered that one. Use the wrong parts and you can't screw the engine in place.

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I can only agree with you, this is a stunning kit. The parts fit is excellent, even better than the Spitfire kits.

Beware when assembling the carburettor/supercharger intake (no not turbocharger, not on this aircraft), the correct parts for the Mustang kit is on sprue V. I misstakenly built a Spitfire mk XVI engine, but i hadn't built my Spit XVI engine so i recovered that one. Use the wrong parts and you can't screw the engine in place.

:woot.gif: Man...I did that too but was able to pry apart the pieces to get the nuts and shafts out

just in time....and I thought I was following the instructions properly

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:woot.gif: Man...I did that too but was able to pry apart the pieces to get the nuts and shafts out

just in time....and I thought I was following the instructions properly

When in doubt....RTFM! :D

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I can only agree with you, this is a stunning kit. The parts fit is excellent, even better than the Spitfire kits.

Beware when assembling the carburettor/supercharger intake (no not turbocharger, not on this aircraft), the correct parts for the Mustang kit is on sprue V. I misstakenly built a Spitfire mk XVI engine, but i hadn't built my Spit XVI engine so i recovered that one. Use the wrong parts and you can't screw the engine in place.

dude, whoa, thanks for the tip!

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Exactly Brad...or at least that's where I almost pooched mine.

On another note I was working on the MLG tonight and noticed that you have to mount the tire while assembling the gear

as the LG 'leg' door covers half of the wheel/tire. My initial approach was to assemble/prime/paint but I came to a halt

right there. I glopped a bunch of Maskol on the tire and I'm waiting for it to dry but a little voice in my head is a little

worried about the ammonia in the Maskol eating the vinyl...maybe if it does eat some of the tire it will at least

eat some of that nasty mold-seam :lol:...gotta get some Jerry Rutman wheels for the other 2 kits....or a set for this

plane if I screw up.

I whipped out the magnifying glass to read the tiny print on the bottle of Maskol and something popped out at me that I did

not know...I knew that Lacquer thinner (cellulose thinner in GB) would clean it but I did not know that it could be thinned

with water...this has given me a bit of a brainstorm as now I'm thinking I could dilute it and lay down a fine mist on

wear and tear areas of the NMF before putting down the O/D colour (I'm doing GlenGary Guy).... will try on scrap

styren first though. I've used Maskol over Alclad to simulate chipping before but it's hard to control the amount and

you can get some rather unrealistic chipping if not careful..so sparying it might give a translucent kind of O/D over the

NMF (I hope)

:cheers:

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So what are the parts you "don't" want to use on the engine?

Brad

Exactly Brad...or at least that's where I almost pooched mine.

On another note I was working on the MLG tonight and noticed that you have to mount the tire while assembling the gear

as the LG 'leg' door covers half of the wheel/tire. My initial approach was to assemble/prime/paint but I came to a halt

right there. I glopped a bunch of Maskol on the tire and I'm waiting for it to dry but a little voice in my head is a little

worried about the ammonia in the Maskol eating the vinyl...maybe if it does eat some of the tire it will at least

eat some of that nasty mold-seam :lol:...gotta get some Jerry Rutman wheels for the other 2 kits....or a set for this

plane if I screw up.

I whipped out the magnifying glass to read the tiny print on the bottle of Maskol and something popped out at me that I did

not know...I knew that Lacquer thinner (cellulose thinner in GB) would clean it but I did not know that it could be thinned

with water...this has given me a bit of a brainstorm as now I'm thinking I could dilute it and lay down a fine mist on

wear and tear areas of the NMF before putting down the O/D colour (I'm doing GlenGary Guy).... will try on scrap

styren first though. I've used Maskol over Alclad to simulate chipping before but it's hard to control the amount and

you can get some rather unrealistic chipping if not careful..so sparying it might give a translucent kind of O/D over the

NMF (I hope)

:cheers:

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I don't have one of my other 2 kits in front of me and I have (inadvertantly) consumed

most of the parts on the engine sprue but I'm willing to bet the part numbers to avoid are

W7 and W8

I say this because the V / W sprues are attached and I wouldn't have clipped the totally

wrong part number when building the engine (or would I :doh:)

After that near miss I went thru and scribbled across options A & B so that I would always

zero in on option C parts...I also clipped some of the obvious parts I wasn't going to use

like the filleted tail and tear-drop tanks and tossed them into my spares bin.

The 'wrong' parts in question here look almost identical to the right parts...The next

time I build one of these I'm going to snip the wrong parts right away to get them off

my radar.

One thing that I find a little annoying is there are no sprue drawings and the 'unused' parts

list is just a list of parts....it would be almost worthwhile to cruise through the unused

list snipping all of them first

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Roger, got it, thanks Jeff.

Brad

I don't have one of my other 2 kits in front of me and I have (inadvertantly) consumed

most of the parts on the engine sprue but I'm willing to bet the part numbers to avoid are

W7 and W8

I say this because the V / W sprues are attached and I wouldn't have clipped the totally

wrong part number when building the engine (or would I :doh:)

After that near miss I went thru and scribbled across options A & B so that I would always

zero in on option C parts...I also clipped some of the obvious parts I wasn't going to use

like the filleted tail and tear-drop tanks and tossed them into my spares bin.

The 'wrong' parts in question here look almost identical to the right parts...The next

time I build one of these I'm going to snip the wrong parts right away to get them off

my radar.

One thing that I find a little annoying is there are no sprue drawings and the 'unused' parts

list is just a list of parts....it would be almost worthwhile to cruise through the unused

list snipping all of them first

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  • 6 months later...

Ohhhhh boy, here we go! I've been reluctant to get started on this thing for a long time, it's really far more advanced than ANYTHING I've ever built before, and I was never really confident in my ability to do it justice... I'm still not sure I'm ready, but there's no time like the present to find out!

engine3.jpg

The kit starts with the Packard Merlin V-1650 engine, which really is a kit in and of itself... I build pretty fast, and this sucker still took me about an hour and a half, just to do basic assembly! The engine and cylinders aren't spectacularly complex, but are amazingly detailed and look incredible when put together

engine2.jpg

The rear section here isn't fully assembled, there's a few add on bits and pieces left to attach and none of the subassemblies are glued to each other, but here we have the carburator, supercharger and what I believe is referred to as the wheelcase, I'm sure if I'm wrong someone will correct me

engine4.jpg

The intake manifold has several photoetch parts, they sit quite nicely down on a raised locator peg

engine5.jpg

The driveshaft for the prop is nicely detailed, and spins freely. I just noticed I have a seam to clean up on one of the cylinders

engine6.jpg

So from left to right, we have the carburator with the axle that links all these parts together, the supercharger housing, the supercharger itself, and again, what I THINK is the wheelcase

engine8.jpg

The oil tank mounts to the firewall, nicely detailed but only 2 halves. The firewall itself has some nice molded detail to it, but nothing overly fancy

engine9.jpg

The tank mounts to the firewall, and has a separate cap and hose that would run down to the oil cooler under the fuselage.

engine10.jpg

The last of the add on parts are seen here, the intercooler on the top, intercooler pump on the right in the middle, and intake manifolds on the bottom. The other 2 parts in the middle, I can't identify, but mount to the wheelcase, I believe they're the distributors

engine1.jpg

The entire assembled engine is about 4"/10cm long, and looks amazing out of the box. It could do with some additional plumbing, like ignition wires and hoses and what not, but despite that looks really good.

I'm collecting additional references for the engine, and have decided to add some wiring and plumbing to it. I also filmed the entire assembly, and will be adding it to my youtube channel(link in my sig) in a day or two. This is gonna be a mighty fun build!

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I've never been real big on superdetailing, but while studying the Packard Merlin engine in my reference photos, I discovered that Tamiya left off a few parts!

engine12.jpg

I started off thinking I might just add the ignition wires, but they actually attach to harnesses mounted to the sides of the engine, which were not included as part of the kit, so I had to build them. So, I went down to the hobby shop and picked up some 2mm plastic rod, though I wish I had gone with a smaller size, 1.5mm or so would have been a better fit. I drilled out the sparkplug sockets and the corresponding holes on the harnesses with my smallest drillbit, and threaded some fine wire through the holes, securing them with superglue.

engine13.jpg

There's another wiring harness that fits over the top of the engine, mounting against the right side cylinder head. I was careful when bending the plastic rod to ensure that it won't get in the way of any other engine parts. I don't have the intake manifolds attached in this picture, but I made sure that the wires I added would fit around them, and they do so quite nicely.

engine14.jpg

The instructions call for the bulk of the engine to be painted semi gloss black... I don't have any semi gloss black, and the hobby shop has been out for weeks, so I mixed equal parts flat and gloss, with about 15% XF80 royal light gray. I don't like painting straight black, it has no depth, no room for variation to the colour, so a slight lightening of it helps to add that depth. The starboard side harness here doesn't attach to anything behind the silver magneto, my references don't show what it connects to so I just had it fit somewhere that the end of it wouldn't be visible

engine15.jpg

The top harness has cabling running down between the ducts of the intake manifold and behind where the propeller gearbox mounts to the front. They just end where you can't see them, I didn't drill out any sockets for them anywhere.

engine17.jpg

you can see here how the wires just fit behind the gearbox and disappear. I drilled out the plastic rod and inserted the wires through them, and secured them with superglue, applied with a toothpick. Once the glue was dry, I trimmed the ends of the wires off, and sanded them smooth

engine18.jpg

I drilled out the sockets for the sparkplugs with my finest drill bit, and reamed them out very slightly with a #11 hobby knife blade so the wires would fit better, and secured them with superglue. Since these pics were taken, I've done a wash of flat black, and did some drybrushing with XF-19 sky gray, to add some colour depth. I also painted part of the harnesses where they connect to the magnetos flat black to represent a flexible hose

It's coming along nicely! I'll admit to some trepidation in going forward, I have no idea how the engine is going to fit in the fuselage with my added parts, but I'm crossing my fingers that everything goes smoothly. I'm gonna get started working on the cockpit and other interior parts later today, from what I hear they should go together just as nicely! But first, I need to pick up some paint...

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Accurate or not...it looks great...my concern is whether or not it will fit! I have one in my stash and would love to add a few wires to it, but it sounds like the tolerances are soooooo tight extra detail may not work....hope to see the next phase photos!!!

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thats not even close to accurate...

While I agree with the fact that feedback should come in any form (postive and negative), it's also important to at least try to explain and argument on your thoughts.

For me as an outsider also builing this P-51, I wouldn't know if it's accurate or not when reading this. Or if the maker did a poor job, a mediocre job or an excellent job on it. So we wasted at least 3 posts on this item already, and gotten no further (1 of those posts is my fault).

I welcome more critique, since most forums have an overdose of Awesome/Cool/Wow posts, but it's pointless without arguments or tips which the OP can use to improve his skills.

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...

I welcome more critique, since most forums have an overdose of Awesome/Cool/Wow posts, but it's pointless without arguments or tips which the OP can use to improve his skills.

That was what's called a seagull post, fly in, crap on it, and leave.

I very much agree with you, I'd much rather be told "it's inaccurate because of this, that, and the other thing" and then have the statement backed up with some primary evidence. Having written that, you should probably ask, in said critique, what evidence was used. There may well be a photo showing exactly what was modeled. There may even be conflicting photos--such is life. In any event, as you said, positive critiques help me improve my efforts; seagull posts just waste everyone's bandwidth... :angry:

An outstanding source of said evidence is Michael O'leary's Building the P-51 Mustang, it's a treasure trove of contemporaneous photos.

BTW, I've learned to scan photos at maximum physical resolution and display them on my monitor to try and figure out small detail, as would be needed in this case. :)

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Face,

Enjoy your build! I have to say that sometimes I am amazed at some of the great ideas they come up with to start a war in a post.

Any pics that I can get for you from Stallion51 in Kissimmee, you let me know. Glad to see you are undertaking this kit. I am still scared to take the box down off the shelf.

Man, some folks are just "professional pricks." I like the seagull comments, thats right on the nose. What a waste of his 4th post.....LOL!

-Jim

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That was what's called a seagull post, fly in, crap on it, and leave.

I like that. I like that a lot. I'm gonna steal it!

There may well be a photo showing exactly what was modeled.

This image is basically what I was striving to emulate

IMGP3680.jpg

I'll be the first to admit, it's not totally accurate, but I'm an amateur scratchbuilder, I've gone to great lengths to avoid scratchbuilding in the past, so the very fact that I've decided to attempt it is rather a big leap for me!

Anyway, I've been pretty busy the past few days with work and other obligations(mass effect 3 is out on tuesday, I've gotta beat the other games before I get it!!!), so I haven't had a chance to get any more work done, but I'm gonna try to assemble the cockpit tonight. I did record a complete video of the engine build and put it up on youtube, so if you're interested in hearing me ramble for nearly 30 minutes about how much I love this model so far, check it out!

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I agree with the others, Jcos's comment was not helpful nor constructive.

You're off to good start but I do share Borodad's concern about the fit.

Make sure the added details won't prevent the good fit of other parts.

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  • 2 weeks later...

stupid video games, eating up all my free time... I shot this video a couple weeks ago, but never got around to editing it until tonight... sorry, gang, I'll try to do better

pics are coming soon

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