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


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Hi Chuck, I know this is a little off topic, but I know you did a 1/32nd F-14B a ways back with the grim reapers decals. I'm going to do a 1/32nd F-14D and cant seem to find the decals anywhere, I was hoping you might still have them with the low-viz aircraft number 165 still on them?

Thanks

Dan

Sorry Dan. I don't have those decals either, other than some odds and sods left over from my last F-14B project. My decals were from Fightertown, but I don't recall 165 as being one of them.

Well, I made it through sinus surgery, which isn't a lot of fun, but a lot less painful and uncomfortable than I thought. The GOOD NEWS is that I've been home since Tuesday recuperating- and modeling to keep my mind off a plugged nose! After about 3 days and at least 20 hours of researching pics and adding as much plumbing and wiring as as I could to the gear bay, I'm just about finished. Before I show some pics of my progress, here's some tidbits I've learned to explain why I did things the way I did.

1) As with any restored WW-II aircraft, the plumbing, wiring and color schemes are all over the map. While no two Mustangs are identical, the main plumbing and wiring lines are more or less the same, but there are still many differences.

2) There are literally hundreds of wires and hydraulic lines all over the place! I stuck with just the obvious ones and I tried to place them all where they belong.

3) You may find where a line originates, but good luck finding where it winds up. Even with close-up pics, the hydraulic line "spaghetti" is very hard to follow.

4) Go to Post # 367 and copy every one of Scott Wilson's pics. He has a few shots there that are pure GOLD as references and you can figure out where stuff goes just about everywhere.

5) Some of my plumbing detail is too large for scale, partly because I want to be able to see a lot of detail from 6 inches or so and partly because I'm just not good enough! The Tylenol-3's I'm taking right now for pain might have some influence as well. :P

6) For bare aluminum plumbing, lead wiring is the ticket. You don't have to paint it, it conforms to every surface without effort, it cuts easily with a #11 knife and you can re-bend it back into shape without leaving kinks. It's a lot stronger than I thought too, although you do have to be careful or it will break if you get rough with it.

7) Big Discovery (sort of)! The uplock door hooks (hook in square depression on gear well roof) face opposite directions on either side of the fuselage. The port side faces rearward and the starboard side faces forward. Every build I've seen has them both facing forward, which is wrong for the port side. The Barracuda sidewall kit supplies two hooks in brass, but they are so thin I can't see them, so I made slightly thicker ones out of styrene.

8) I was going to use Roy Sutherland's plumbing scheme in the Brett Green book on this kit, but I soon discovered that Roy's plumbing was a little thin and, shall we say, "creative", :rolleyes: , so I pulled out all the pics I could find and created my own scheme.

Now some pics. The starboard side. The main hydraulic lines have many black fasteners to keep the lines suspended from the gear well roof, so I used thin bits of black electronic wire insulation. Most of the wires are not glued in yet, because I want to be able to take everything apart to retain the door hinges and make painting easier, so excuse any missing fasteners or slightly bent wires. These will all be tweaked during final installation near the end of the build....

Gear20-1.jpg

Gear21-1.jpg

That detail right under the door is destroyed if you cut the doors off, removing hinges and other fine details. Note the postion of the uplock hook, facing forward towards the coolant pipes....

Gear22-1.jpg

The port side. That junction gizmo in the far corner took a LOT of time to plumb properly. Uplock hook faces rearward, away from coolant pipes....

Gear23-1.jpg

Port side, top view. How do you like those new pipe clamps! :thumbsup: More on these in a minute....

Gear24-1.jpg

Top view, starboard side....

Gear25-1.jpg

Port side again. Near the main gear leg is some sort of piston-like gadget connected to some brackets that go through the hole in the last cross member to the other side, where they are attached to a pin. As before in the piston behind, I used a thin needle to replicate this feature and some brass bits for the brackets....

Gear26.jpg

Same on the starboard side. That thin dangling hydraulic line will be plumbed into the top of the gear leg when installed, where it belongs....

Gear27.jpg

Now a pic to prove that everything comes apart for ease of assembly, painting and retention of door hinge details. I can get everything back together in about 5 minutes, but when I put it together for the last time during final assembly, I'll spend a lot more time getting plumbing lines straight, connectors placed properly and I'll probably add some placards to the pistons, etc. when I get to decaling. Something tells me I'm going to need these pics again to retrace my steps later... :hmmm:

Gear28.jpg

Still wondering how I made those hose/pipe clamps? Well, after adding the excellent Eduard PE pipe clamp details to the engine area, I thought the clamps in the gear bay looked a little sad and I was looking for something else to dress them up. My brother-in-law who's a "car guy" modeler suggested that I buy some "Vintage Hose Clamps" from the Model Car Garage. These come in 1/24 scale, but for these large coolant pipes, they are just about right. You can find them here:

http://www.modelcargarage.com/store/pc/default.asp?action=clear&ClearCartURL=viewcategories.asp

And this is what they look like....

Gear29.jpg

These claps are not made out of brass, but silver-nickel alloy, so you don't have to worry about scratching the silver plating off. As a matter of fact, you can even polish them to a chrome-like shine or oxidize them black if you want. Straight out of the package they are aluminum in color, which is how I left mine. Since I was buying stuff anyway, I also ordered "spark plug wires" in a variety of colors and some tie-down clamps for future wiring and plumbing projects. Maybe these car guys aren't so dumb and boring after all! :lol:

Thanks for checking in!

Edited by chuck540z3
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Chuck well come buck from the surgery. I think that this ''plugged nose'' made its miracle... you can see again!!!!! :P :P

I am enjoying every pic Chuck!!!! Great detail and awesome outcome. So far, the best Mustang build i have ever seen. Also thanks for the tips an detail info :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

John

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Thanks Guys!

I really loved John Candy too, hence the sig pic of my favorite Canadian actor- with a drill ready to modify a model kit! :P I think I'm good for main landing gear pics, but I'll keep your kind offer in mind when I get to that stage. You never know what angle I might need.

Thanks very much for replying Chuck! I really do enjoy all of his movies, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is my favorite of his.

Just let me know if you need any landing gear pictures. I was able to get pretty deep inside the bay, but I'm not sure if the lines and everything are laid out exactly how they were in 1945, since technology has changed quite a bit.

Good luck with the surgery recovery. My dad had that done two years ago, so I know what you'll be going through, and I'll eventually need a sinus surgery. Just take care of yourself, and try and grab lots of building time while you're recovering!

Loving this build. The attention to detail is amazing. Have you ever been on Large Scale Planes? I'm on there, and I'm sure they would love to see your Mustang build, along with the rest of your 1/32 stuff.

Matt

Edited by scvrobeson
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Thanks Guys for the kind words.

Just let me know if you need any landing gear pictures. I was able to get pretty deep inside the bay, but I'm not sure if the lines and everything are laid out exactly how they were in 1945, since technology has changed quite a bit.

G

Loving this build. The attention to detail is amazing. Have you ever been on Large Scale Planes? I'm on there, and I'm sure they would love to see your Mustang build, along with the rest of your 1/32 stuff.

Matt

Thanks a lot for the offer Matt, but I think I'm at the "good enough" stage right now, although I sure could have used a few more detailed pics 2 days ago. Between Scott's pics and a few in Robert Peczkowski's book, I was able to figure out where most of the lines go. I was surprised how detailed Tamiya made some of the hydraulic junctions, which were easy to drill out and attach the lead wire to. One thing I did find, however, is that some of the plumbing between aircraft was completely different into the same junction gizmo, so what is "correct" or not is unknown. Many of the parts were different colors too, from aluminum to chromate green to interior green. I used "Happy Jack's Go Buggy" quite a bit, but I've found that even this restored Mustang has some differences to P-51D's on the assembly line during WW-II. I'll be glad when I put all this plumbing to bed permanently, because you can only do so much knowing that you're going to be pulling out the lines anyway. Everything should look a lot straighter and cleaner when I do.

I've been on Large Scale Planes a few times, most recently to see Wolf Buddee's absolutely awesome 1/32 Tamiya Spitfire. This guy is "scary good", which gives all of us some inspiration to try a little harder and push our modeling limits a bit more. If Wolf ever enters that Spit into a modeling contest, first place in just about every category is long gone! I find that posting pics here at ARC is enough work without babysitting another site like LSP's, because most of the guys over there, like you, visit here as well. I do like the site, however, and I think the overall modeling skill is at a very high level, so you never know.

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I just discovered something really cool- and a HUGE time saver! Most of the builds of this kit don't putty the wings and I can't blame them. The subtle rivet and panel line detail is exceptional, so why would you want to go backwards and remove it? Well, so the experts tell us, the wings were puttied and painted at the factory to remove rivet and panel line depressions that were thought to increase drag. After time in the field, however, some of putty wore down, partially revealing the hidden detail. Here's a pic by Tourist/Jennings posted earlier to show where you need to putty and what is bare metal, which is the darker grey:

MustangWingFinish.jpg

So I tried a number of methods to fill in this detail, including using plain Tamiya putty and sanding. This took FOREVER and it was really hard to avoid sanding detail I wanted to keep, like the navigation lights on the wing bottom. After much trial and error, I came up with this hybrid of an old puttying trick. First, I mixed Tamiya putty with Tamiya lacquer thinner to create a slurry that is much thinner than putty and much thicker than Mr. Surfacer. I believe that Tamiya thinner smells just like the putty for a reason- it's the same stuff! I then applied the sloppy putty with a Micro-brush to all panel lines and rivets that I wanted to remove, let it dry for 5-10 minutes, then rubbed it off with a Q-Tip soaked in more Tamiya lacquer thinner. The Tamiya product is "plastic friendly", so don't use regular lacquer thinner or the plastic will melt. The key is to rub it off in this short time period, because it's almost impossible to get it off after an hour and almost all of it is removed if you do it too quickly.

Here's a pic of what's been done and what is about to be rubbed off. The slurry is in the left jar and the thinner in the right jar...

Wingputty1.jpg

A closer look...

Wingputty3.jpg

Same pic with the contrast boosted up to show what's filled and what isn't....

Wingputty4.jpg

When painted, most of the rivet and panel line detail will be gone, some faded a bit and the odd spot will appeared unfilled here and there, but based upon pics I've seen of the real deal, that's the look I want.

Also, make sure you follow Jennings diagram above. Not everything gets filled. With this method I saved a lot of sanding and I don't have to remove all the raised detail I want to keep. One last thing: Wear a respirator when doing this, because lacquer fumes are quite toxic. I can't afford to lose any more brain cells than I have already!

Wingputty5.jpg

Hope this helps you guys with the "P-51D Putty Dilemma". This method makes it super easy, especially before you glue any wing parts together.

Edited by chuck540z3
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That looks great, Chuck. When i did my Trumpeter P-51 i used Mr. Surfacer to accomplish the same thing. I used the same diagrams by Jennings and also left a shadow of rivet detail in places and slight panel line detail. I read that after time the rivets and panel lines would show through so i tried the same.

IMG_2337.jpg

Don

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The plumbing in the wheel wells looks great. The hose clamps/pipe straps add a very realistic tough. A classic in the making.

Neat trick with the putty, Chuck.

If you want it less smelly, the Vallejo plastic putty can easily be thinned with Tamiya thinner, and can be removed with a q-tip and Tamiya thinner in just the same fashion. I've been doing this on gaps in wingroots and stuff like that for quite a while.

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maybe you can add some more color in the wheel bay, here is the manual color chart for the tubing identification, keep the good mate!

Antonio.

Thanks Antonio! You just gave me the excuse I needed to rip out some of those main lines and start over! While the black wire insulation worked as hose couplers for some of the bigger wires, it looks too thick and clunky for the suspension straps on the main lines that are kinked at 90 degree angles- which are the highlight of the plumbing! With my new Model Car Garage spark plug wires, I've got some of those colors to add to the mix and add some nice detail. I'll blame all that on those Tylenol-3's! :rolleyes:

This reminds me of every modeling project I've done lately, where one day I think I've done a good job on something, only to realize later after I've stepped away from the work bench that my efforts really sucked. As an example, here's my attempt at making better ejection hoops on my F-4E with twisted yellow and black thread. I was fairly proud of that effort for about a week...

Seats7.jpg

Something kept bugging me about those hoops, because they were really awful, so I ripped them out and did them the old traditional way with painted hoops and a Sharpie black pen. Much better....

CockpitDone3.jpg

Sooooo, back to the drawing board! I feel so much better now.....

Gearwell30.jpg

Neat trick with the putty, Chuck.

If you want it less smelly, the Vallejo plastic putty can easily be thinned with Tamiya thinner, and can be removed with a q-tip and Tamiya thinner in just the same fashion. I've been doing this on gaps in wingroots and stuff like that for quite a while.

Thanks. I've used the method of masking off a wing root or similar gap, adding Tamiya putty, then smoothing things out with a Q-tip soaked in Tamiya lacquer thinner as well, but I've never thinned it before as above. The stink, if you will, is the Tamiya lacquer thinner, not the putty, so a respirator is still a good idea. Based upon my results from this little experiment, I'll be using it on just about every build from now on for small putty jobs where I can't seem to get the thicker stuff to conform or stick to a gap I'm trying to fill.

Update: As expected I suppose, some of the larger depressions like the panel lines still show too much, so I've gone back to adding the thinned putty and then using the traditional sanding method. Along straight panel lines, this is still pretty easy to do and I really like the subdued look of the filled rivets. Paint will tell the real story!

Edited by chuck540z3
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Thanks. I've used the method of masking off a wing root or similar gap, adding Tamiya putty, then smoothing things out with a Q-tip soaked in Tamiya lacquer thinner as well, but I've never thinned it before as above. The stink, if you will, is the Tamiya lacquer thinner, not the putty, so a respirator is still a good idea. Based upon my results from this little experiment, I'll be using it on just about every build from now on for small putty jobs where I can't seem to get the thicker stuff to conform or stick to a gap I'm trying to fill.

I should have been more specific. The Vallejo putty thins very well with the Tamiya Acrylic thinner X-20A. No stink there.

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I should have been more specific. The Vallejo putty thins very well with the Tamiya Acrylic thinner X-20A. No stink there.

Sorry, I just assumed Tamiya thinner = lacquer thinner. How does the Vellejo putty compare to Tamiya? If it's just as good, maybe I should change. So far, I really like how the Tamiya putty "bites" the plastic and settles in as a very fine filler that can be painted as plastic without a rough finish, but I'm always open to new ideas. Have you tried both and, if so, how do they compare?

Chuck

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That looks great, Chuck. When i did my Trumpeter P-51 i used Mr. Surfacer to accomplish the same thing. I used the same diagrams by Jennings and also left a shadow of rivet detail in places and slight panel line detail. I read that after time the rivets and panel lines would show through so i tried the same.

Don

Don,

Great weathering and detail to the wings. Did you use salt masking? Your decal work is flawless. :thumbsup:

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Hi all,

I've been lurking for some time on this thread and joined the forum tonight so I could start asking questions.

BTW, great work Chuck. I've already learned a ton here. I was hoping you might do more of a step by step for us not as experienced and talented (especially on the plumbing in the wheel wells) but I can understand that would take a hube amount of time. One question I had Chuck was I still don't understand why you have to be able to pull the center section out (with the hanging doors) and insert it later. Is it because the hanging doors will get in the way and maybe broken in the building process?

Huntermountain,

I was reading up on the Vallejo putty, since I have noticed that using the Tamiya putty and Mr. Thinner will sometimes craze the plastic if I have to rub a lot t clean up the putty. One thing I read several places was it doesn't adhere to the plastic well, and it crumbles out when you try to sand it. Have you had issues with this?

Thanks everyone for all the great info and learning!

Stephen

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Hi all,

I've been lurking for some time on this thread and joined the forum tonight so I could start asking questions.

BTW, great work Chuck. I've already learned a ton here. I was hoping you might do more of a step by step for us not as experienced and talented (especially on the plumbing in the wheel wells) but I can understand that would take a hube amount of time. One question I had Chuck was I still don't understand why you have to be able to pull the center section out (with the hanging doors) and insert it later. Is it because the hanging doors will get in the way and maybe broken in the building process?

Stephen

Hi Stephen and welcome to ARC.

One thing I should have explained earlier is that with this particular kit, the wheels can be up or down with a supplied stand in the "wheels up" flying position or with the wheels down as landed. As you might expect, these two options come with compromises, because the inter-changeable landing gear assembly, both front and back, come with gaps around the interchangeable panels and gear doors. For the landing gear down option, the one I am employing, the gear doors along with the interior side walls come out as one part, to be replaced by closed gear doors while the landing gear is removed with a small metal screw if you want it flying. Since I have no need for the wheels up flying option, I want the gear doors in the down position, but they are unfortunately attached to the interior walls. To paint the doors properly and to be able to seal off the landing gear bay with masking tape for future painting, I need to be able to remove them. The gear doors are very close to each other in the down position and there's no way I can paint them unless they are removed. I suppose I could have painted them first, then suspended them into the wheel wells, but then they would have hung down for the rest of the build, getting in the way and creating other problems. Other builds of this kit I've seen have cut the doors off the walls for ease of plumbing, but it always results in a removal of most of the hinge and other details with the saw cut. I'm trying to avoid all that with my method of removable plumbing. I hope this explains why I'm doing this the "hard way". ;)

Edited by chuck540z3
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Not the version you are doing Chuck, but a nice pic of a factory fresh Mustang:

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/ww2_8/w22_1a35319u.jpg

Jari

Thanks Jari. That must be a more modern Mustang. Note the two big guns rather than 3 on either side. Anybody know what type?

Speaking of GUNS, I think I have a real treat for me and hopefully for your future viewing pleasure. Two months ago I showed the new Aires guns I was planning on using here:

Gun1.jpg

Well, I've had a chance to make them up and, as usual with this build, I just learned a few things. These guns come with two types of photo-etched Gun Heaters: Type J-1 for early models and J-4 for later Mustangs- and I assume other allied aircraft. Since my P-51D is fairly early, I used the larger J-1 type. Note the smaller J-4's on the right hand side, next to the electric "G-9" solenoids. Nothing is glued together, because I want to paint stuff separately and I may or may not have the gun breach open on a few of the guns, like the one at the top, which shows nice detail inside on the upper plate and the gun. Also, if somebody knows that I should be using the J-4's instead, please speak up soon! :unsure: The fairly anemic kit gun is on the bottom, so these new resin guns should be a big improvement. By now you might have noted that I only have 4 guns and I need 6! Reinforcements are on their way. :bandhead2: Note the shorter barrel on the kit gun....

Gun4.jpg

The reason the kit gun has a short barrel, is because it doesn't actually make it all the way to the leading edge of the wing. There is a solid wall it butts up against, right behind the gun shrouds, Parts A-9 and A-10. Note all the putty work I've done over the last couple of days to the wings. This is a HUGE job, but I'm pretty happy with the results so far.

What I plan to do is to drill out holes in the wall AND the front gun shroud part, so that you can tell it's a real gun barrel sticking through, rather than just the tip. Obviously, the inner gun won't stick through, because it needs to be set back.

Gun5.jpg

Now the REALLY BIG edit to this kit: A full Eduard PE kit, which includes just about every single detail AND it even makes up 6 accurate looking gun bay doors (with fine details inside and outside), bullets with ammunition belts and instruction plates, etc.. After a quick view of the instructions, I think this could be a whole model on its own, but this is just the kind of stuff I like to do. It takes a lot of time, but the results are usually worth it. Also the new metal doors don't have all those rivets the kit doors have, so I don't need to putty anything. They just have the outside rivets and door latches as you'd see on the real deal. Still, based upon prior experience with Eduard PE kits, I may wind up using a composite of PE and kit parts. For instance, if the new metal doors don't fit very well, I'll likely go back to the kit doors, because I want to be able to cover the guns at will, just like the engine. Of course the little suckers are full of more pin marks, so I'm going to try real hard to not use them!

Gun6.jpg

I think my next update could be quite some time..... :whistle: Thanks for checking in!

Edited by chuck540z3
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The P-51 in the pic is an early Mustang, probably A or B. The tubes are actually for the 2 50cal guns, either blast or cooling tubes but most likely they discovered they weren’t needed and left off subsequent airframes. The P-51A/B/C’s had only 2 .50cal per wing and since the wings were thin, the guns had to be put in an angle as seen in this pic:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/P-51B_100FS_332FG_Italy_1944.jpg

While the P-51D had thicker wings which allowed room for another gun:

http://www.alfagene.net/photogallery/photoDay10/P51Guns.jpg

Jari

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Great pics Jari! If anybody else has detailed pics of the gun bay, please post them here. What I am looking for right now is close-ups of all the moving parts, etc., including the wiring to the solenoids and gun heaters, etc.. I have lots of pics of the gun bay from 6 feet away, but detailed pics of the "guts" are hard to come by, so bring it if you've got them!

Thanks Guys.

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