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I'll be building a P-51D of the 361st FS, 375FG of the Mighty 8th, circa late 1944 from Tamiya's 8th AF boxing of the P-51D in 1/48. Not my original plan, but I picked up the kit for a kitbashing project that didn't work out (was planning on transplanting the Tamiya cockpit into a Hawk P-51D I'm building for the Mustang Gb on Britmodeller, but it turned out that the resin cockpit I'd bought for the Tamiya kit fit the Hawk better than the Tamiya transplant would, so this build will be OOB and my Hawk P-51D gets the goodies). Looking at the kit markings I wasn't all that interested in Petie 2nd or Kit Carson's bird, but the OD/NMF/partial D-Day stripes scheme with Yellow Noses was too good looking to pass up. So here it is:

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Tamiya P-51D '8th AF' 1/48 by mawz_models, on Flickr

Painting will start shortly with the cockpit.

Edited by mawz
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  • 3 weeks later...
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After a long gap due to busyness, this one's coming along finally. But I really need to remind myself that it's NEVER worth using decals for invasion stripes, especially the massively complicated ones Tamiya came up with for their P-51D kit.

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Tamiya P-51D 1/48 by mawz_models, on Flickr

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Nice build so far, I agree about the invasion stripes, painted on is just as easy to do if you plan ahead and looks much better than the decals. If you are a stickler for accuracy though, you may want to do E2*S instead of E2*C (Lou IV), if you notice in the picture, Lou IV has the early style filletless tail, never could figure out why Tamiya included those markings in the kit when it the fuselage parts are only for the latter style filleted tail.

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Nice build so far, I agree about the invasion stripes, painted on is just as easy to do if you plan ahead and looks much better than the decals. If you are a stickler for accuracy though, you may want to do E2*S instead of E2*C (Lou IV), if you notice in the picture, Lou IV has the early style filletless tail, never could figure out why Tamiya included those markings in the kit when it the fuselage parts are only for the latter style filleted tail.

I'm doing E2*S in fact, as Tamiya also screwed up the markings for E2*C, missing the Althelene on the other side.

And yes, never doing decalled stripes again unless I absolutely have to. I've got one more kit in progress that's getting decals (Monogram's Typhoon, which pretty much forces you to use decals for the fuselage strips due to decal design) and then it's all paint, all the time.

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LOL!! I was just thinking...man, why is the stripes so dang purtee? Yep, I conur, those Tamiya Decals are way too pretty. I'm still looking forward to seeing a yellow stang.

-Jim

They're looking better than some I've done, but there's a massive crack on one wing decal, I'd thought I'd got it nailed but shrinkage while drying opened it up. And one of the smaller decals just flaked out completely, luckily it's not in a key spot and I could leave it or paint it later.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Almost done

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Tamiya P-51D 1/48 by mawz_models, on Flickr

Actually, she's even further along, everything is on now except the hood & exhausts. Going to dullcote it now, then add the exhausts & hood and post the results as that's it.

Not really happy with the decals, really should have painted the stripes.

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It's a great kit, but get your own decals. I'm thinking that's pretty much a requirement with Tamiya decals, I've always found them a little problematic, either thick or fragile.

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