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Brews' Big RAAF 77 Sqn Mustang; Airfix 1:24 P-51D / CA-17 Korea 1950
Topic Started: Jul 14 2013, 10:11 PM (1,156 Views)
Brews
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Since I was talking with Peebeep on FB about this a week or so ago, it's only right that you have exclusive rights to this :) I don't give exclusivity lightly, so please keep it to yourselves. I plan on showing this at the Vancouver Fall show, the theme of which this year is "Korean War". There might be more Mustangs, MiG-15s and Sabres than you can poke a stick at, but there's unlikely to be too many Airfix 1:24 Mustangs - for reasons amongst which is that it gets unbelievably poor press.

Take a look at Trumpeter's 1:24 Mustang, which some people PREFER to build rather than Airfix's. I guarantee that there's more work involved in getting the Trumpeter kit to look right, but I think that people are lulled by the bells and whistles, and forget about the basics. The seat is 2/3 of the correct width. The engine is unusably small. What there is, is apparently better-detailed than Airfix's! The canopy is so big that Airfix's can fit inside it, it needs, as a minimum, rescribing of the nose panel lines, and that's just the things off the top of my head. So, people will build the Trumpeter, not modify the canopy, and justify it on the basis of ... we won't worry about that. On the other hand, they will, without hesitation, dismiss Airfix's on the basis that there is no u/c bay detail.

I look at it another way. Airfix got the overall shapes right. It's a nice canvas. The dihedral is too flat, and the u/c legs are too long, unless the thing is modelled without load. They do, however, retract, if you build according to the instructions. I think that Airfix's cockpit floor is wrong, though. It's the curved floor of a A/B/C, with woodgrain, as if it's a D. I don't know how that happened. The D's floor should be dead flat.

To build the model I want, I cannot use the kit's canopy, but I can use it as a starting point as a master for a smash-moulded bulged canopy. I couldn't do that with Trumpter's.

Addressing the u/c legs, I cut out the oleos and dispensed with the simplified, and thus inaccurate, scissors links. I replaced the oleo section with some Aluminium tube. I shouldn't need to paint this piece.

Posted Image

Addressing the wing dihedral, I made a main spar (killing three birds with one stone, as it also forms the rear of the wheel bay, and the front of the gun bays). I also cut out the flaps, as RAAF practice mirrored the USAF's, in leaving these down on landing (apparently). Maybe they drooped with hyrdaulic pressure loss - I don't know.

Posted Image

I'm modelling this as the a/c of Squadron Leader Lou Spence of 77 Squadron in 1950. The Australian War Memorial notes that he was lost on a dive-bombing attack in September, 1950. More likely, it was a rocket attack. That's what 77 Squadron were using in all of the videos that I've seen. It seems they started off the war with 3" RPs, and switched to 5" HVARs when the 3" stocks were used up. The kit comes with 5" rockets, but I want to use 6x3" rockets. Also, there is a film showing him flying with a cine camera mounted in a drop tank which had been modified so that it was "sawn off", with a clear flat pane in the front. It tickles my fancy. The plane that Lou Spence was killed in had a plain red spinner, but for most of the period that 77 Sqn flew the P-51 in Korea, they had spinners with concentric rings of blue, white and red, with the red dot innermost. That's how I think I'll do this one.

In early 1951, 77 Sqn converted to the Meteor F8. They tangled MiG 15s with them, and generally lost, so resumed Ground Attack duties for the remainder of the war. A few MiGs were claimed by Meteors. Not many.

Anyway, here it begins. Wish me luck!
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Mentalguru
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Owned by Jen
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One thing you need to remember about the Airfix Mustang, is that it's cool! :D

Looks like you are starting in the correct vein. I didn't realise the Trumy one was quite so bad- back to the arena of shoddy kit reviewing by our untouchables..

IIRC, the old Airfix modelling guide for the Mustang featured quite a bit on the Airfix1/24 kit?

Looking forward to seeing more :)
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desmojen
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Iwata Goddess
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Ooh, a Brews-clusive! I will watch with interest :)

Jen.
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peebeep
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Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious
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Good plan on building in a spar. You often see the 1/24 kits with droopy wings (especially the Spitfire). The bareness of the wheel wells is symptomatic of the era from which these kits originate I think, in other respects I've always felt that they were created by somebody, or people, that wanted to get it right.

peebeep
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Brews
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peebeep
Jul 15 2013, 08:18 AM
Good plan on building in a spar. You often see the 1/24 kits with droopy wings (especially the Spitfire). The bareness of the wheel wells is symptomatic of the era from which these kits originate I think, in other respects I've always felt that they were created by somebody, or people, that wanted to get it right.
Absolutely, in all respects. For the most part, who really looks into the wheel wells? :) Sure, I do (and judges do), but does the average punter? The thing about the 1:24 kits is the first impression of size, isn't it. Tamiya (or Zoukei-Moura, depending on what you want out of a kit) might make the best 1:32 Mustang, but it's a positively puny pony next to a 1:24 Mustang. Given that the shapes will be about the same, and the u/c will not be stilted, with a bit of gizmology, it might just give me a shot at impressing somebody.

I have no illusions of a medal at the show, as this model will be in the Category for 1:32 and bigger. I did pick up a 3rd a couple of years back in an armour category, but the popularity of aircraft, and kits in 1:32 scale by Tamiya, Hasegawa and Wingnut Wings, let alone the better Trumpeter 1:32 and 1:24 issues - and some scratchbuilt marvels, makes this a tough category. What I'm aiming for is something that's not disgraced despite the disadvantage of being engineered over 40 years ago. I also want to place a little bit of the Australian effort in Korea amongst the inevitable preponderance of US markings.

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Brews
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I recalled that the later issue of this kit, which I fortunately also have, contained the necessary parts to make a K as well as a D. These parts include two additional propellers, which I do not need, and a bulged canopy, which I do. This saves work in modifying the kit canopy. It does not absolve the need for smash-moulding a replacement, as variable thickness of plastic really hinders the optical characteristics. I suppose I could try polishing and Klear, but it's not too hard, surely, to smash-mould this part. It is bigger than any other canopy I've done, but not by much.
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Floyd
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I like to mottle things.
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If you mail it to me I can vac form you a replacement using 0.5mm acrylic and a vac forming machine.
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Mentalguru
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Owned by Jen
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*Ahem* what happened to my Mustang canopy in 1/72? LOl

Brews- sanding/shaping/polishing clear parts nearly always sails extremely close to heat stress fractures in the final parts- not sure why this is, may be down to a polarisation of stress through excess heat? I don't really see any way a clear part can be "normalised."
so I would take up Nick's offer- and see if he can walk the walk :lol:
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Floyd
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I like to mottle things.
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I'm working on yours mental using an airfix canopy as a master, just got some new acrylic in the other day, usual stuff I was using was 1mm thick, so hopefully should have better clarity. Ofcourse it wont be perfect, a proper aftermarket jobby would do that, but its free.
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Brews
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Thanks for the offer, Floyd. I'll see how I get on with smash-moulding first, though, I think.
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Brews
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I made a start on a new cockpit floor yesterday. Nothing to jump up and down about. The floor should be dead flat, but Airfix's has something of a curve to it, like the B's floor. The floor of the earlier Mustangs was just like that of the P-40's - the upper skin of the wing centre-section. The D, K and H had a flat plywood floor. The Airfix part is only subtly curved, and if you weren't looking for it, you could be forgiven for not noticing that it was curved. However, in the interests of accuracy, it's not that difficult to replicate it in flat card.
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Brews
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I don't know if Beany is a member of this forum, but he sent me 6x 3" RPs from his Mosquito, which I very much appreciate. 77 Sqn used 3" RPs on Mustangs for the early part of the war, before switching to 5" HVARs, and then when they got Meteor F.8s, they went back to using 3" RPs (when they gave up on trying to match MiG 15s in dogfights), but the Meteor carried 16 of them, not 6.

Anyway, I have to modify the Mosquito's rockets a little bit. They were carried on "zero length" launchers, not rails, on the CAC-15. I might as well replace the rocket body with aluminium tube, the diameter of which is only slightly under-scale (by 4 scale mm), as opposed to the slightly more over-scale (by about 15 scale mm) kit item, which has seams to fill and sand as well (the Mosquito's RP bodies are in two halves). The correct pylons for the rockets are provided in the Mustang kit - the Mosquito kit has different ones, which hold up the rail, which holds up the rocket. Mix and match!
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peebeep
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Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious
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Al looks in from time to time.

peebeep
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desmojen
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Iwata Goddess
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Maybe instead of sanding seams you could use some tubing. I hate sanding stuff like that as it almost never ends up round when finished!

Jen.
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Mentalguru
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Owned by Jen
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"I made a start on a new cockpit floor yesterday. Nothing to jump up and down about. The floor should be dead flat, but Airfix's has something of a curve to it, like the B's floor."

I know what you meant- but it's not an accurate statement.

The 'B shares the same vertical stretch as the 'D- or actually that should be the other way round. So therfore the 'B also has a wooden floor that is flat.
From what I have been able to research over the years, most (if not all) were painted black- maybe even a black non- slip covering- but so many modellers choose a natural wood to replicate the lift out panels. ( arrrrgh)

Anyhow- looking forward to more... :)
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peebeep
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Mentalguru
Aug 24 2013, 08:51 AM
maybe even a black non-slip covering


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Now this is what I can offer you on mustang floor boards first they are made from aluminum divided into four sections and bolted into place these sections have 3/8 birch plywood decking attached them they were not primered and only had black nonskid painted on them (in most cases)


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The wood floor was painted with an anti-skid surfacer, purported to be a mix of silica sand and matte black paint. During my time at Rockwell International, I had the opportunity to discuss with an old hand the WWII manufacture of the P-51D. In his youth, this gent had worked on the line. When I asked about the NA spec for painting the plywood floor, he laughed and said that they got a bucket, put in some flat black enamel paint, added silica sand and spread the mix on with a paint brush.


It seems that sometimes the floor would be over-painted in US interior green, maybe if the non-slip surface had worn through, or if it hadn't been treated with 'nonskid'? Worn black non-slip with bare wood showing is another option and can be seen in some P-51 cockpit shots. If you're model is of a contemporary warbird then natural wood appears to be the order of the day.

peebeep
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Brews
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desmojen
Aug 24 2013, 07:36 AM
Maybe instead of sanding seams you could use some tubing. I hate sanding stuff like that as it almost never ends up round when finished!
Yes, that's what I said I'd do, and I'm going to do it. :)

With regards to the floor (I meant the Allison-engined versions were the ones that had the curved floor) ... RAAF Mustangs were painted in a unique RAAF colour, apparently. Bear in mind that these planes were just about to be sent home when South Korea was assaulted. I'm thinking that they would be very tired-looking inside after 5 years of occupation in Japan. As to the colour, CAC used a different shade of green than NAA. You can see on the Youtube videos that the inner gear doors aren't silver. Most likely, they are ZCY - and probably a yellowy shade at that, rather than green, but maybe they were resprayed in Iawkune at some point ...
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Brews
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The spinner is to be in red, white and blue, viewed as a roundel from the front. This helped the Australian troops in Korea identify 77 Squadron from the ground. My prop cuffs had sink marks. I still haven't dealt with these satisfactorily. The prop is in three parts - spinner front, prop blades, and rear of spinner. I sprayed white all over first, then red (unmasked), then masked for white's front edge, then masked for the blue. Tamiya paints throughout, straight from the jar (no colour mixing). It matches colour photos pretty well (as far as you can trust them).

Posted Image

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What I did was measure the length of the spinner, and divided it roughly into three sections. I should have made the red smaller, and the blue bigger. I don't think I can be bothered to fix it. It looks ok to me, it's just that I know that it's not right.
Edited by Brews, Oct 21 2013, 04:28 PM.
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