Thanks, glad you like it!

Breaking up the monotony of the blue and red with lighter shades. Also I've put the insignia decals, rest will follow







Cheers!

V

Looking great, really neat work!

Cheers, D

Hi Venelin,

I have only one word to describe it - AWESOME!!

Regards,
Kobus

Thank you very much!

...and the exhausts are ready. I drilled them with a small drill bit, black base and AK Old rust paint, then various pigments:

With the addition of the National insignia, it's really shaping up as one impressive build.

Joel

Very nice Venelin!

Gaz

More decal (only few left) I hope these days to finish with markings, sealing with Aqua gloss and proceeding with the interesting part-the weathering





Cheers!

Venelin

She's coming along really well, Venelin. What did you use for masking the blue nose? That curve on the right sight looks perfect! I have a yellow nose Mustang in my stash which wants to be build ....

Torsten

Hi Torsten!

For the curve on the blue I used Artool ultramask, drawing the curve and cutting with fine scissors. I admit that have to touch up a bit the left side

Thanks

venelin nice work so far. paint looks great. i have been wanting to make one of these kits but hesitate because i am not sure what to do with the wings. i have read and seen kit made where the wing panel lines are supposed to be puttied over to reduce drag (laminar flow) and i have read where all natural metal p-51's wings were painted silver not left natural metal. i have in fact seen that on a 1:1 p-51 in virgina. so as i said i have waited to build one since i don't know if the wings should be puttied and what silver paint to use on the wings and if the underside of the wing should be painted too, i would guess so. do you know anything about this?

like i said great job on the paint, highlighting the different panels. i am looking forward to seeing the weathering. i feel all model aircraft should be weathered to some extent, panel lines and such, even if they are fresh off the assembly line other wise they look like just a toy.
joe

Hi!

Another modeller gave me that link about laminar flow wing:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/redlinemodels/sets/72157660331029155/with/22480521611/

It seems that some panel lines are filled and some not. In the end it's up to you to decide

Cheers!

Venelin, WOW! This build is looking great. The paintwork and insignias came up beautifully.

Thanks for the link as well, definitely room for personal preference and interpretation in your build when you look at the differences between those images.

Cheers, D

thanks venelin. great photos. looks like there is several different style of wings puttied there. hard to tell if they are painted though. some look to be natural finish and the diagram is hard to tell what they are trying to show. looks like it is trying to say the wings were painted except the control surfaces or the other way around.
i'm liking this build. looking forward to seeing it finished!!

joe

My brother has spent the last several years researching this issue, since he's built 4 Tamiya 1/32 scale P-51Ds to date, with a few more planned over the next few years. His work can be seen on LSP, and his call sign there is PeterPools. His NMF's are about the best I've seen for a museum type finish.

Anyway, the lasted information he's discovered is that all P-51Ds through late 1944 had their wings panels filled in and then painted with an Aluminum dope. From very late 1944 to the end of the production run, that was changed to just polished bare aluminum wings.

In the field things weren't quite that simple. Some planes had their wings striped, and some had the doping just wear off to various degrees.

Nothing like confusing the issue even further. The more research you can do on the actual plane you're building, in many cases you'll be able to determine what the actual wing finish was.

Joel

thanks very much joel, that helps a lot to answer both questions. do you know if the controls surfaces were left natural metal through out production? looks in some photos like a different finish on them.

another question to venelin: i like the way you painted different shades of aluminum on the panels. i know you said you used duraluminum for the base. what other paints did you use to shade the other panels? they really look good.

thanks again- joe

Hi Joe!

The other shades are Alclad White and Dark Aluminium and Gunze Mr Metal color Stainless steel (darkest shade)

Cheers!
V

I'll have to ask my brother about the flying surfaces, but I would think that if they used aluminum dope on the wing, they did the same for the flying surfaces, as they were riveted as well.
Joel

Proceeding with the navigation lights. A drop of Micro Kristal Klear and clear red, green and orange colors:



Cheers!
V

I'm finishing with the markings and painting





Thanks!

Rest of the small parts are painted, at last



Cheers!
V

Some scratch on the covers of the radiator and tail wheel. Also I put the Pitot tube:





Cheers!

Brake line of the landing gear.
Accidently, I've found in my stash a black wire 0.25mm from RB model. When I removed the insulation, the wire was aluminium colored and voila. So you don't need to paint the whole thing.



Thanks!
V

Venelin,
Your build is coming together rather nicely. the brake lines really look the part. Talk about lucking out. I never have any luck like that.
Joel

Thanks!

Some more progress from the Weekend...

Wheel bay is treated with three oil colors, randomly:





The main spar should be a bit inside the wheel bay, that mistake is on most P-51 models today.
I really suspect that the next "bomb" from Eduard will be new tool P-51, so this (I'm sure) will be corrected. Aires has very nice aftermarket wheel bay, but I wanted OOB ( mostly ) build...



Panel line wash with mixture of Lamp black and Prussian blue oils. Some streaks here and there. Also some panels are treated with very thinned wash (actually filter), to slightly modify the metal color.









Finally, the blue nose is also treated with Buff, Yellow green and Prussian blue.



There is a bit an experimenting here, but this is my first NMF plane, so there's some artistic license from my side (trying various techniques here) and following the rule "Less is more"


Cheers!

Venelin

Venelin,
It looks very nice! I'm interested in your different uses of color.

Gaz