Zircus Rosarius
P-51B "von Mustang"

by Jay Laverty

Tamiya's 1/48 scale P-51B Mustang is available online from Squadron.com

These markings were from the new Cutting Edge sheet featuring captured aircraft in service with JG 200, AKA "Zircus Rosarius". I fancied building it right away as the colours on this particular P-51B jumped out at me.

Tamiya's 1/48 scale P-51B Mustang was the kit chosen for the decals.

This model was such a simple build that it hardly seemed like any effort to get together. I can highly recommend this kit to anyone with any level of ability and guarantee a respectable result. It took a grand total of an evening to build and that included painting and weathering the cockpit.

The only details that I added are the really superb etched/pre-painted seatbelts from Eduard.

Finish

I used Alclad for the metal finish and I really do love this gear. I found an old bottle of "shade" in my paints box and find myself wondering why on earth they no longer offer this colour. A strong hint to the producers MAKE MORE AVAILABLE NOW I'M RUNNING LOW. That is what I used to shade the lines on the metal surfaces and as you can see it's great stuff. The rest was your standard and always reliable Poly-S.

The Decals

This sheet is up to Cutting Edge's usual standards and went on with no effort, requiring little or no microset and very little microsol to settle down.

I confess that I felt a bit gutted when I looked at the finished model as I thought that the big black cross on the fuselage takes away from the lines of this beautiful aircraft.

Still it's an interesting subject and stands out in the case at the shop alongside all of the other guys American ones!
 

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Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2004 by Jay Laverty
Page Created 22 May, 2004
Last Updated 26 May, 2004

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