1/32 Tamiya P-51D- Kicked up a notch

[tourist]

No aerial on "Thunder Bird".

They were removed from most Mustangs in the field, not just in the ETO.

[erik_g]

The wire antenna belongs to a little radio receiver called the Detrola receiver. The radio in the Mustang was a VHF-radio, but the US airfields used a different radio, so the Detrola was used to listen in on US tower radio traffic. It was of no use in Europe, so the receiver was removed from those a/c who came over with it. When they were removed, I dont know. It would make sense i they were removed stateside before going to Europe, but since when did anything done by the military make sense?

I wouldn't be surprised if some a/c went to war with the set still in. After all, it was just a small piece of equipment I can't imagine it gave any performance penalties.

I do know that the Swedish Airforce bought a bunch of 'stangs toward the end of the war, and some had a patched hole in the back of the canopy, and some hadn't, so there were clearly some a/c who had at an earlier date, been equipped with the Detrola.

I guess you will have to find out wether your aircraft had been equipped with the Detrola or not, so that you know if you should replicate the hole in the canopy.

Maybe this link could be of some use for you?

http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/34811808

/E

[chuck540z3]

Thanks a lot Guys. You just saved me a lot of work- and later grief! One last question, what does the back of the canopy look like where that aerial used to go in? Is it clear like this pic?

http://www.patricksaviation.com/files/photos/640/33780.jpg

I've been out of town the last few days, but I should have the Barracuda IP and engine oil tank with lots of Eduard PE completed in the next few days-with explanations of how to go about it of course. Sorry for the delays, but I just can't seem to get time at my work bench. :(

Edited June 24, 2012 by chuck540z3

[MIG Mikkel]

I'll watch very closely on your build, I really hope to start my own soon :)

Could you post a photo of the Barracuda resin sidewalls, next to the tamiya kit sidewalls? I've been thinking to buy them but don't know if they are 'that' better :)

there might not be that much progress but this thread is full of awesome info!!

Cheers

Mikkel

[tourist]

One last question, what does the back of the canopy look like where that aerial used to go in? Is it clear like this pic?

http://www.patricksaviation.com/files/photos/640/33780.jpg

Most P-51D/K's came out the factory with a small roller mounted on top of the canopy for the wire.

Some were metallic, later ones were clear as seen on your picture.

Often during WWII, the rollers were removed and a clear piece of perspex (?) was placed there to close the resulting hole.

That was the case on Thunderbird.

Here's an example:

[galfa]

I have a good picture of that area to send you. Need your email. Get in touch with me at:

galfa@email.it

[Thanks a lot Guys. You just saved me a lot of work- and later grief! One last question, what does the back of the canopy look like where that aerial used to go in? Is it clear like this pic?]

[chuck540z3]

I have a good picture of that area to send you. Need your email. Get in touch with me at:

galfa@email.it

email sent. Thanks a lot guys for the help.

For those of you who might want to see some actual modeling , I should have something up tonight for the Barracuda IP and the oil tank behind the engine with lots of modifications. Like the Barracuda motto says, "When good enough isn't good enough", I think you'll see why this is taking me so long........

[Budman]

SAVE # 1

One of the great things about this forum is the feedback you get to help you along the way and keep you more or less on the correct track. Guy (geedubelyer) gave me a "Psssssst" PM this morning that maybe the kit pipe wasn't the electrical conduit at all and that another parallel unit should be in front of the kit part. Of course he was correct (as always) as you can see in the above pics of the real deal, so thank you Guy!

The other reason I didn't use the Eduard electrical rail was that it look a bit goofy and nothing like a real one. All the wires faced forward and were equidistant on the rail, which doesn't seem to be the case, and it was flat rather than cylindrical. To fashion something more accurate for this conduit, I was going to use some styrene rod and paint it aluminum to match a few of the pics I have of a WWII engine. The problem with most of the pics of the Packard Merlin engine out there is that they are modernized with new equipment and altered paint schemes, so this conduit can be black, grey or aluminum in color.

While searching through my styrene stash, I found the PERFECT solution to create an aluminum colored rod. How about a real aluminum rod? I have some in 81 mm that I had almost completely forgot about and it appears to be almost the perfect diameter for scale. Here it is on the top vs. the Eduard rail that I cut the spark plug wires off of earlier below....

I yanked the wires off the kit part, cleaned off the glue on all the parts, re-painted the kit part, then glued the new conduit and wires together, mounting the aluminum rod to the kit part. There really should be a slight gap between these 2 rails, but I'm worried about clearance in the front fuselage, but at 1/32 scale you'd never see the difference anyway. The wires should also go into posts at the base of each cylinder, but I avoided doing this for clearance reasons as well. Anyway, all better now- and the aluminum color really adds some nice detail that was missing before....

As mentioned earlier, there's still a lot of wiring and plumbing to add before I'll call this engine done, like a braided electrical line that goes from the rear of this conduit to "somewhere". Before I attempt any more details, including more of the Eduard photo-etch, I'm going to wait for a CD that Bud (Budman) has kindly mailed me with all sorts of pics of this engine for future reference, so that I don't screw up again. As Bud's signature says, "Failure Brings The Opportunity To Begin Again More Intelligently". You've got that right Bud- and again thanks!

What size wire did you use for the priming lines Chuck. They look just right. Bud

[Budman]

SAVE # 1

One of the great things about this forum is the feedback you get to help you along the way and keep you more or less on the correct track. Guy (geedubelyer) gave me a "Psssssst" PM this morning that maybe the kit pipe wasn't the electrical conduit at all and that another parallel unit should be in front of the kit part. Of course he was correct (as always) as you can see in the above pics of the real deal, so thank you Guy!

The other reason I didn't use the Eduard electrical rail was that it look a bit goofy and nothing like a real one. All the wires faced forward and were equidistant on the rail, which doesn't seem to be the case, and it was flat rather than cylindrical. To fashion something more accurate for this conduit, I was going to use some styrene rod and paint it aluminum to match a few of the pics I have of a WWII engine. The problem with most of the pics of the Packard Merlin engine out there is that they are modernized with new equipment and altered paint schemes, so this conduit can be black, grey or aluminum in color.

While searching through my styrene stash, I found the PERFECT solution to create an aluminum colored rod. How about a real aluminum rod? I have some in 81 mm that I had almost completely forgot about and it appears to be almost the perfect diameter for scale. Here it is on the top vs. the Eduard rail that I cut the spark plug wires off of earlier below....

I yanked the wires off the kit part, cleaned off the glue on all the parts, re-painted the kit part, then glued the new conduit and wires together, mounting the aluminum rod to the kit part. There really should be a slight gap between these 2 rails, but I'm worried about clearance in the front fuselage, but at 1/32 scale you'd never see the difference anyway. The wires should also go into posts at the base of each cylinder, but I avoided doing this for clearance reasons as well. Anyway, all better now- and the aluminum color really adds some nice detail that was missing before....

As mentioned earlier, there's still a lot of wiring and plumbing to add before I'll call this engine done, like a braided electrical line that goes from the rear of this conduit to "somewhere". Before I attempt any more details, including more of the Eduard photo-etch, I'm going to wait for a CD that Bud (Budman) has kindly mailed me with all sorts of pics of this engine for future reference, so that I don't screw up again. As Bud's signature says, "Failure Brings The Opportunity To Begin Again More Intelligently". You've got that right Bud- and again thanks!

[chuck540z3]

What size wire did you use for the priming lines Chuck. They look just right. Bud

It doesn't matter now because I tore everything off and I'm starting all over! I even ordered new coolant rails (kit rail behind ignition conduit) because they were kind of messed up and I want this engine to look pretty. Also, the plug wiring should be on a longer conduit that reaches further behind, allowing ALL plug wires to ARC forward, rather than have the rear 2 wires ARC towards the rear.. The configuration I did is for a Lancaster, which is wrong for a P-51. There's also another pair of conduits on the top of the engine for another full set of plugs, so it appears that there are 2 plugs per cylinder. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

(Edit: It appears that Steve has made the word "a-r-c" always show up as "ARC" (see above). Gee, I wonder why?

I will be doing LOTS of new plumbing and wiring on this engine in the weeks ahead.

Edited June 26, 2012 by chuck540z3

[Budman]

It doesn't matter now because I tore everything off and I'm starting all over! I even ordered new coolant rails (kit rail behind ignition conduit) because they were kind of messed up and I want this engine to look pretty. Also, the plug wiring should be on a longer conduit that reaches further behind, allowing ALL plug wires to ARC forward, rather than have the rear 2 wires ARC towards the rear.. The configuration I did is for a Lancaster, which is wrong for a P-51. There's also another pair of conduits on the top of the engine for another full set of plugs, so it appears that there are 2 plugs per cylinder. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

(Edit: It appears that Steve has made the word "a-r-c" always show up as "ARC" (see above). Gee, I wonder why?

I will be doing LOTS of new plumbing and wiring on this engine in the weeks ahead.

You are right, there are 2 plugs per cylinder, one on the intake side and one on the exhaust side. If you will look at my post on this thread on pg 4, you will see the plug conduits. I think the conduit is too big in dia. but is the right length and it is run correctly and attaches to the correct mag. The info I sent you is of the Packard Merlin which is the one used in the Mustang. Hope this helps.

Bud

[chuck540z3]

At long last some real progress. Although the next two items are very small, the detail within is fairly extreme, so they both took a long time to create. I like to make each stage of the build a mini-model, so that I don't get tired of the overall project which usually takes me about a year from start to finish and about 500 hours of work. With the engine set aside waiting for Bud's engine diagrams and a few more small engine parts I wrecked with the ignition rail screw-up, I decided to get the oil tank just behind the engine put together, complete with a lot of Eduard PE parts and a few scratch build items. Here's what the kit parts look like straight off the sprue tree. Not bad, but we can do a lot better.....

With the Eduard engine detail kit, the first thing you need to do is to remove the oil tank straps on all parts as well as the engine cowling clips at the top of the firewall. This is picky, picky work to carefully remove them with a #11 knife without scratching up the adjacent detail. Here's one side removed, then lightly sanded....

There are 21 separate Eduard PE parts to deal with and they are all very fragile, so you need to take your time and work slowly and carefully, which brings me to a few suggestions:

TIP #1. If you're going to be using a lot of PE in your build, get a brass folding tool to make the folding of tiny brass bits a lot easier and more accurate. I use the "Hold and Fold" from the Small Shop which works great:

http://thesmallshop.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=7

TIP #2. You WILL lose a few tiny brass parts eventually to the floor or carpet, no matter what you do to try and prevent them from flinging off into the abyss. To recover small parts that you just can't seem to find on your hands and knees with a flashlight, get some panty hose or other very fine meshed material and place it over the end of your vacuum, then vaccuum the area around your work bench. I lost a few small bits this way putting this oil tank together and I found them all using this very simple method. My record is now about 19/20 successful recoveries over the past 2 years, so the system definitely works!

Using reference pics, I decided to add a bit more plumbing detail with copper wire painted aluminum and wine bottle foil for the rubber hose joins between the oil tank piping and the tank itself. Here's the tank after painting it Green Zinc Chromate and the firewall a slightly darker shade of Medium Green (FS 34102) for some subtle contrast. Checking reference pics, this area can be painted even darker green or a lighter zinc chromate yellow, but I think the colors I chose are more common. Note the new Eduard suspension straps along with a good coat of Future prior to adding a weathering wash.....

The Eduard PE parts are very finely crafted, especially at the top of the straps and joins midway on the tank front. Note the new engine cowling fastener plates at the top.....

After a weathering wash of ProModeler black followed by dull coat, I fashioned some pipe clamps to the foil black hose joins made out of very fine strips of soda can aluminum, clamped tight at the join and then glued with CA glue where the clamps meet at the top. I then trim the excess off with scissors, leaving a natural looking clamp join......

That "V" shaped pipe in the front seems to be on all the oil tanks, so I made mine out of copper wire and bend it to conform to pic references....

Just for fun I screwed the tank on the back of the engine to see how it would look. Pretty good I think....

Eduard also supplies an oil filler cap, which you can see at the top within the recess. I made a few oil stains using Tamiya pastels....

The oil tank will have a few more plumbing lines added later when I detail the engine, but I won't do that until the front fuselage is done so that I can see if there's enough room behind the engine cowlings and framework.

Edited June 27, 2012 by chuck540z3

[zaxos345]

Very nice Chuck :thumbsup:

John

[chuck540z3]

Now for the new Barracuda Instrument Panel! The Barracuda line of resin and decal products is made by Roy Sutherland, who is an expert in detailing cockpits. This is my first experience with this line of after-market products and I am very impressed with the quality of the parts and the fair pricing. I have the whole kitchen sink for this cockpit area including the Barracuda Cockpit Upgrade, Barracuda Cockpit Sidewalls and the Barracuda Instrument Panel with BarracudaCals Cockpit Stencils and Placards. I even have the full compliment of Eduard PE parts to fill in all the gaps, so I have instruction sheets all over the place!!! I'm so confused!! :huh:

Anyway, the reason for the IP upgrade is that the Tamiya kit parts are VERY thick, especially when you insert the thick clear plastic lenses into the IP gauges. With a decal stuck on the back of the clear lenses, you can't see much detail within each gauge unless you're looking at the IP straight on. If you don't want to use the Barracuda parts, you can still lightly sand the back of the kit IP to make it thinner and then add the kit decals to a thin sheet of clear plastic and glue it on from behind. This is what Roy Sutherland did himself in the Brett Green book noted in Post #1.

Roy's IP is a bit of a hybrid between the two kit IP's, Part D30 for the very early P-51D's and Part D31 for the later and very late Mustangs. For example, the gauges are about the same as Part D31, which is the one I want to use, but some of the switches in the lower left side are straight from Part D30. I'm hoping this makes the Barracuda IP just about right for "Thunderbird", but if it isn't, I don't really care, because there's no way I'm altering the beautiful resin IP. Here's a pic of the kit parts on the left and the Barracuda ones on the right. I cut out the Barracuda gauges and slipped them in for comparison....

To assemble the IP, you need to cut out all those tiny gauge frames, then carefully stick them to the IP facing using Future as a "glue". This wasn't too hard and In made sure I cleaned up any excess Future between the gauges to reduce lumps, then I gave the entire IP face a good coat of Future with a brush, allowing capillary action to suck the Future into any brass to brass gaps. Once dry, I painted the IP parts with gloss black lacquer, because there are MANY tiny decals that need to be applied and you don't want the rough surface of flat black paint under the decals to make them silver.

The decals themselves were a bear to apply. The quality of the decals is very high- they are very thin and strong and they stick very well- but getting them to slide around in the tiny crevasses of the IP was very difficult, so I wrecked a few along the way. No worries, though, because I have another couple of decal sets coming from Roy for the necessary repairs. The clear gauges have amazing detail and you need to paint them from behind to give them contrast. As suggested in the instructions, I painted mine a yellow green to simulate the phosphorescent markings of each gauge.....

As mentioned, the detail is amazing!

After the decals dried and were sealed in, I lightly dry brushed the IP surfaces with silver and then dull coated everything. The last step is to insert the gauges from behind, again using Future as a glue to the back of the brass gauge frame, then everything was glued into place using a small amount of white glue onto the resin backing. That tiny single gauge at the top right was a bear to insert properly, but I found a way. The end result is amazing, even though I still have a few decal repairs to do later- and remove a few dog hairs just under that yellow line!.....

Next up is the cockpit sidewalls, seat, etc. See you in a month!

Edited June 28, 2012 by chuck540z3

[stalal]

Great job so far. Which Hold and fold tool you use? There are several out there and by how they look, I cant decide which one to buy that will do the job 1/48, 1/32 and 1/35.

[chuck540z3]

Could you post a photo of the Barracuda resin sidewalls, next to the tamiya kit sidewalls? I've been thinking to buy them but don't know if they are 'that' better :)

Cheers

Mikkel

Will do, which is the next part of the build.

Great job so far. Which Hold and fold tool you use? There are several out there and by how they look, I cant decide which one to buy that will do the job 1/48, 1/32 and 1/35.

I have this one, which will do just about anything you'll ever come across at any scale:

http://thesmallshop.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=7

[Horizon]

Chuck, I am digging up bones here, but I tripped across the Cubic ACMI pods you did for a couple of CF aircraft a year or so ago. Really outstanding work. I am the Operations Manager for Cubic's contract with with the USAF in the Pacific.

[chuck540z3]

Chuck, I am digging up bones here, but I tripped across the Cubic ACMI pods you did for a couple of CF aircraft a year or so ago. Really outstanding work. I am the Operations Manager for Cubic's contract with with the USAF in the Pacific.

Thanks, but I can't take all the credit for that pod because it was actually built by Mike O'Hare ("MoFo"). I had to modify it slightly in a number of areas including the nose and rear, but the majority of the pod is all Mike's. He is really good at scratch building stuff and he's taught me a few tricks along the way. With careful painting and a few custom decals, it turned out looking pretty good. I was fortunate enough to be at our main fighter base at Cold Lake on June 1st and I was able to get up close and touch these pods while they were on a rack in the hanger. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed! - or I would have taken a dozen pics of the real deal. That yellow part at the front is sort of fiberglass or carbon fiber and the rear of the pod has all sorts of electronic stuff I would have liked to take a pic of. Oh well!

Edited June 28, 2012 by chuck540z3

[Budman]

The IP really looks great...can't wait to see the sidewalls!!

[mareku]

Chuck, great modeling job agein from you.

[.linus]

hey chuck i don't know if you've seen this website yet, but i find it to be a very helpful reference. It has all the squadrons of the 8th airforce broken down into sub catagories, and there are plenty of photos for reference. they may even have some for the serial your building http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/index.php

good luck on the build. it's looking really great. i'm a big fan of the f-4

[HOLMES]

Chuck.

INCREDIBLE job and build so far...

[chuck540z3]

Thanks a lot guys!

hey chuck i don't know if you've seen this website yet, but i find it to be a very helpful reference. It has all the squadrons of the 8th airforce broken down into sub catagories, and there are plenty of photos for reference. they may even have some for the serial your building http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/index.php

Thanks. I am aware of that sight, which is where I've downloaded a few reference pics of Thunderbird. There's other cool stuff there as well, even if the navigation on this site is a little clunky.

The IP really looks great...can't wait to see the sidewalls!!

What macro photography doesn't show is the real scale of some of these parts, with the IP only being about 3/4" wide, so when you take a pic of the part every little flaw shows through. Besides some small decal boo-boos, there's a few small dog hairs from my yellow Labrador stuck on the top. I cannot see these flaws with the magnifying glasses I always use when modeling, so there's no way you would notice anything wrong with the naked eye. Note the hair parallel with the yellow instrument boundary above the left gauge, which looks like a rough edge instead....

NOTE: Checking Christian's references, the pilot's switchbox just under the IP above is for a later P-51D (P-51D-20NA 44-72227 and subsequent), which is kit Part# D48 with rocket controls. For Thunderbird, this should be kit Part# D-49 if you care to carve off the resin switchbox and replace it with the kit part. I didn't. ;)

As mentioned earlier, the Barracuda stencils and placards are tiny to begin with, but to get them to lay flat around the raised gauge frames and switches, you need to cut them into even smaller bits, then somehow get them to line up in the correct spot right side up. Very tricky!

The same thing holds true for the engine oil tank which isn't much wider than the IP. Some of that PE detail is less than 0.5 mm wide, so lay off the caffeine before you even dream of gluing it on. ;)

Edited June 29, 2012 by chuck540z3

[Rogier77]

Looks very realistic. Cockpits are the eyecatcher of a model. Very nice job.

Rogiér

[twhite80]

fantastic IP! I have similar yellow lab fur issues. I am confident that you overcome them. Cheers!