Merry Christmas (And A Mustang Update) - Part 1

First of all, Merry Christmas to all the readers of this blog, I hope your Christmas modelling endeavours are going well!

As promised the Mustang build has begun with Academy's 1:72 scale P-51B. Construction begun with the cockpit, which to fair to this kit is pretty decent straight out of the box. However as I was using an Eduard photo etch set, (SS250), to enhance it I had to file away a fair bit of it!

As you can imagine at this scale, things are small, but that was nothing compared to constructing the side walls. The Eduard set make a more 3D effect to the cockpit which looks much better, after some very fiddly bending and folding of parts which almost too small! Well worth the effort though.

So after waiting for all that glue to dry then it was onto putting the two halves together. Experience has taught me that Academy kits don't tend to go together well and this was the case again.It took a fair bit of filing, pushing and cursing to get them together with a small but fillable gap between them.

Once they were together the next stage was to attach the wings. The wings consist of a single bottom half with both wings and two top halves. The instructions say that you should build the whole assembly and then slot it onto the fuselage. Given the fit issues I'd experienced I decided to slot the single bottom half onto the fuselage with a bit of cutting and filing. Once that was in place I attached the two wing tops. As it happens that's exactly the way the Tamiya F-51D kit is meant to be built and I think it works much easier that way.

So all in all, a productive day. Only thing was that I was careless with the glazed parts, again! Fortunately the plastic box my breakfast croissant came in was a lifesaver as I was able to cut out a replacement window from it!

Christmas Mustangs

After the complete failure of trying to build Academy's F6F-3 Hellcat I've decided to get straight back into action with a dual build.

I've been running short of a few essentials but fortunately a delivery arrived for me, primer, paints, a few detail sets and some decals, just in time for Christmas!

So what am I building next?

I've decided to attempt to build two models at the same time, two 1:72 scale P-51 Mustangs.

First up is Academy's P-51B Mustang, Old Crow, (kit #1667 or #12464) with the addition of an Eduard photo etch set (SS250). First impressions are that this is a nicely detailed kit, I hoping that it goes together better than the last Academy kit I tried.

As well as that I'll be building Tamiya's F-51D Mustang, however I'm planning on converting it back to an earlier WWII P-51D. The main reason for this is that I bought this kit second hand and the decals have perished. So I've got some replacement decals from Kits-World (set #2049). I have to say I'm really impressed with their sets, check them out! Finally, as luxury item, I've got a resin interior set from CMK (#7172). I've been curious about the products they offer so I thought I'd try out a fairly simple one with a view to buying more in the future.

So a few more days of work and then the Christmas break arrives and with it some quality modelling time and more updates!

Simple Scratchbuilding - Academy's F6F-3/5 Hellcat (2224)

After my last build I decided that my next model would be an opposing aircraft, also in flight. Naturally I decided on the Zero's rival, the Grumman F6F Hellcat, of which I had a couple to choose from in my stash.

Opening up Academy's 1/72 F6F-3/5 kit (2224) I was surprised to find that there was only the option to build a wheels down version.

Any way you like as long as it's gear down

Oh well, I thought, guess I'm going to have to build Eduard's F6F-3 (kit 7076, also 1/72 scale). But once again, only one option is offered, wheels down.

I imagine the reason for this is that the Hellcat had hydraulically actuated landing gear struts which rotated through 90° and retracted backwards into the wings (instead of sideways like many other aircraft of the era). I presume this was because the wings folded up to save space when been transported on aircraft carriers. From a modelling point of view this would mean manufacturers would have to produce more parts so in these cases it's appears they didn't feel the need to.

So with the parts I had, I decided to try and model the gear up. This wasn't a straight forward as I expected. For a start the gear covers don't actually fit the space where they'd go if they were up, so some trimming was be needed! Fortunately there was enough space within the wing for the wheels, the finishing touch was to added the struts. These were made from small pieces of cocktail sticks, sliced horizontally.

Finally I cut a hole in the base of the aircraft for the stand. One thing I learnt from my last build was, doing this on a completed model is a somewhat nerve-wracking task, best avoided if possible!

Update 16-Dec: Unfortunately this particular build was consigned to the scrapheap soon afterwards. While trying to fit the clear parts I damaged several of them which meant I would not be able to finish this model to the standard I'd hoped for. (I later realised that the fumes from the glue I used to stick the two fuselage halves together above the clear parts had caused them to fog).