The cockpit was re-worked wth the Waldron placard set, instruments and seat belt hardware. I tossed the cockpit seat and made one out of soda can. The side consoles were pretty much rebuilt with scratchbuilding and the placards. The instrument panel center was ground out and replaced with an insert with all the instruments in it. Placards and scratchbuilt switches and handles rounded out the rest of the panel.

Hi Scott

That's looking awesome! :-) The new seat is a great improvement on the kit original.

The reworked instrument panel is fantastic - the detail on those Waldron instruments is extraordinary! (Thanks for the heads-up that I needed to modify it for my Mustang 1A too )

All the best

Rowan

Hi Scott,
As I can't find anything say other than, inspirational, which sort of goes against the idea of these critique forums, I will ask a couple of questions as you obviousely know something about the P-51 and I would love to learn.
1. What colour is the cockpit, is it interior green, what manufacturers paint did you use?
2. Have you made your own seat belts, if not who's have you used?
3. What colour are the belts and is it the standard colour for US belts?
Mal

Thanks for the compliments!

The cockpit is ModelMaster "Interior Green" enamel. The seat belts are made of thermal paper from a gas station "pay at the pump" receipt using Waldron seat belt hardware. I painted them Neutral Gray with a little bit of Olive Drab thrown in.

Scott,
The waldron stuff looks very good. It will be pretty hard to see all that though (trust me).

I recently got the eduard color zoom for the Tamiya kit - it's spectacular! I can't wait to try it.

The only thing I would say is that the wooden floor shouldn't be "wooden" if you are shooting for extreme accuracy. It was coated in anti-skid paint, and probably painted the cockpit color, but wood would be showing through where the paint was scuffed off. But many people leave it wooden - that looks good too, but in my AMS researching of things, I came across this info many years ago over on RMS - FYI.

Regards,
--Frank

Lookin good Scott, those placards are really worth the change & time putting them in. I've only used them in 1/24 scale but they are now on my 'get' list for any P-51 from now on.
Might want to dirty up that floor some, the anti-skid coating was black.

Craig.Q

Whoa, you made the seat out of a sodacan? Nice work, really cant tell at all that its not a manufactured part.