I talked my Grand uncle into making his first model at 89 years old. I usually make ships but when he chose the balsa and tissue B-25, I picked up this Mustang kit to give myself something to do while I was assisting him,. I have previously made these OOB and gave them to my nephew to fly (destroy). I have found that they don’t fly well painted or heavily doped. However, I made one with Monocoat for practice before attempting a 2M sail plane that flew fairly well. This build will just be a static model.
I didn’t expect any frills with this kit but was surprised that the balsa was 1/16 rather than the 3/32 that I had previously seen. Also the vacuum formed parts were of far lower quality than I remember them being. On the plus side with the balsa being 1/16 the parts are well stamped and very easy to free.
The majority of the frame assembled. The inboard frames of the wings are off so that I can control the dihedral when I attach them to the fuselage. I have also left off all of the spars on the fuselage so that I can have better access to the cockpit. The only thing that the kit includes for the cockpit is an instrument panel decal (partial) and a balsa head rest, so I have some scratching to do.
Here is the sketch of the pilot and the Poplar glued together to carve him from.
And here he is all suited up. I am very comfortable working with wood, but am open to suggestions from the figure crowd on a comparable medium with no grain. I really like wood but the grain limits detail with the smaller pieces. The rest of the stuff is cardstock (file folder), bits of wire and some plastic from bread bag clips.
