Been a bit of a dry spell, as I've been distracted, and I also FUBARed a couple of builds (nothing new there).

I have tried to build this kit at least twice before, and been frustrated both times. I was a little surprised to see that I was successful once before, although using a different boxing. I barely made it through this time - at several points during the build, this kit came very close to getting tossed in the trash. This kit seems very fiddly to me.

I actually had to cut off the locating pins on the wings when attaching the top to the bottom. If I had not done that, the gun barrel shrouds would not have aligned. They still didn't align just right, but close enough that I could live with it. I also had trouble getting the landing gear to fit into the bay. After struggling with that, I left off the actuating arms on the inner doors. After I had attached the tail planes, using CA adhesive, I left the kit. When I came back, I realized that the left tail plane had come away from the fuselage. Things like this are one of the many, many reasons I don't enter my builds in contests.

I had decided that this would be an RAF subject, but did not decide which one until construction was well underway. The decals came from Aeromaster 48-669 RAF P-51 Mustang Part 1. Since the build was tedious, I chose the simplest paint scheme. I used Tamiya LP-38 Flat Aluminum for the NMF. This the first time I used this. The finish was a bit duller than I had expected, which is, I suppose, the point. The yellow on the spinner and the anti-glare panel is XF-3 Flat Yellow.

I used 0.030" plastic rod for the gun barrels, as I did not look forward to the prospect of removing the short pieces from the sprue and then having to sand the connection point. One of them broke at some point. I used EZ Mask 217 for the canopy, which fit quite well.

Page last updated April 4, 2024.