P-51D Mustang

by Tony Bell

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

This is the 1/48 Tamiya P-51D. Now almost 8 years old, the P-51D was one of the first of the "new generation" of 1/48 aircraft from Tamiya.

The kit cockpit was tossed in favour of the True Details resin replacement, which was further detailed with the Waldron placard set. I actually preferred the kit instrument panel over the resin one and so used it instead with punched out decals for the gauge faces. To the seat I added the diagonal side braces from strip styrene, while the radio was detailed with some fine wire.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

The kit sliding hood has an intensely annoying sprue attachment point on the clear portion that is next to impossible to remove cleanly. I got around this by using the Squadron vacuform replacement.

The interior framing was vacuformed by taking a male RTV cast of the inside of the Squadron canopy, using this to make a plaster of Paris female mold which was used to vacuform the interior canopy shape. The frame was then cut out of this, painted black and attached to the inside of the squadron canopy with white glue. I drilled a small hole in the canopy to accept the antenna wire, which was threaded with a small tensioning spring wound from armature wire.

I have since been told by someone who know his stuff that 8th AF Mustangs did not have this antenna, and a close look through my references bears this assertion out. Oh well, it still looks good.

The landing gear oleo cylinders were replaced with polished aluminum tubing and brake lines added from wire. The small red tie down rings were also made from wire and glued to the inboard ends of the axles. The shiny reinforcement strip on the inner gear doors is Bare Metal foil. The wheels were replaced with resin ones, again from True Details.

The fuselage received minor attention in the form of drilled out oil cooler vent panels up at the nose (an exercise in tedium, if ever there was!) and stretched sprue radiator outlet flap actuators.

The whole model was rubbed down with 1500 grit sandpaper and liberal amounts if water. The tail was masked and painted yellow and sprayed with Future. The flaps and ailerons were masked off and the wings painted with a mix of silver and gray.

The control surfaces were then painted with SnJ and polished to a high shine with the SnJ aluminum powder. Some panels were masked off and buffed with powdered pencil lead to darken them.

The yellow tail was masked off and the fuselage was sprayed with SnJ, which was gently buffed with a clean cloth. The anti-glare panel, red nose, wing stripes and wing tips were all masked and sprayed.



 

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Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2003 by Tony Bell
Page Created 22 February, 2003
Last Updated 17 March, 2004

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