Eduard 1/48 P-51B Dual Build

[Merad]

This is the Royal Class boxing that came out last year, so we have resin wheels and exhausts for both birds, and a 3d printed seat with belts + 3d cockpit decals for one.  I've added a Quinta cockpit set for the second aircraft, but otherwise this is an out of the box build.

 

 

 

Interesting to compare the Eduard and Quinta 3d cockpits.  I've used Quinta before, but this is the first time using Eduard's version.

 

 

Subjects for the build will be Kidd Hofer's "Salem Representative" and Dom Gentile's "Shangri La".

 

 

[belugawhaleman]

I didn't know Eduard did the 3d thing, 😀

[Landlubber Mike]

Very cool - i have a few of the Royal Class boxings, was close to pulling the trigger on this one.  Looks really good and with good options on decals.

[KevinM]

I will poke my head in on this think the dials on Quinta are still better represented.My father grew up in Edenton NC in the 1920's enlisted in the Army Air Corp in 37.

[Merad]

Starting out with Shangri La, have the all the interior parts together and ready for paint.  She will get the 3d printed seat and Eduard 3d cockpit while Salme Rep gets the Quinta set.  There are some very tiny detail parts and the carpet monster ate two that I replaced with bits of stretched sprue.  I'm going to go ahead and build out Salem Rep to the same point before painting as I want to keep the builds in sync.

Fit has been great, detail is wonderful.  Only criticism of the kit so far is the instructions.  I've had to download and look at the instructions for the normal P-51B kit and for the Eduard Space 3d decals because they put together custom instructions for the Royal Class boxing that are incomplete in some areas.

Detail on the 3d printed seat is incredible, we will see if I'm up to painting it.  🙂  Unfortunately the second 3d seat they provide is kind of wasted because it's only used with 2 of the 15+ marking options.

[Count0]

Have this set, so I'm curious to see how they build up.

[FME erk]

Interesting build, I'm keen to see how this comes along  . . 

[Merad]

Was sick most of last week and didn't touch the workbench at all, but good progress last Sunday and this afternoon.  I have a nice backlog of parts ready for paint.  I'm still debating what paint to use for the interior metallic areas.  Normally I just use Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum for things like landing gear legs, but I think I may try Vallejo Metal Color for this.  The exterior bare metal parts of Salem Rep will be Alclad, but it seems like way too much work for landing gear bays.

 

Didn't feel like painting today but I do have a good bit of the parts off the sprue and cleaned up.

 

Drilled out some carb air intakes for Shangri La (Salem has the solid panels).

 

And drilled out the exhausts.  The resin exhausts are disappointing IMO. I really can't tell a noticeable difference between them and the kit exhausts, even the depth of the holes is basically the same.  I know it's a tiny part and probably hard to mold hollow tubes, but this is an $8-10 aftermarket item... (kit part on L, OOB resin middle, drilled on R)

 

The Brassin wheels are lovely OTOH.  I thought the hub caps (R12) would be a nightmare to clean up, but the flash on them is actually raised on the inner side.  It can be easily cut off with a sharp #11 blade then gently scrape the edges clean with the tip of the blade.

 

Biggest fit annoyance so far is the horizontal stabs.  They use sprue gates molded to the inner surface instead of the edge of the part.  Tried to be careful cutting them off but all 4 horizontal stabs have these noticeable  holes in the leading edge.  The design of the parts is a head scratcher, they're made so that you get this seam line where the halves join (2nd pic, the line along the right edge of the stab) where cleanup is guaranteed to destroy rivet detail.  If the stab couldn't be molded as a single piece I think it would've been much better off with a more typical upper and lower half split.

 

 

Lastly I found some missing parts in the kit.  You're supposed to use parts F20 and F21 for the wing racks and you can see in the instructions that they're wing racks with sway braces.  Neither one of my sprue F's include these parts, but there are racks without braces (F18 and F19), but they're clearly called out in the instructions as unused parts.  Anyway - something to check if you have this kit.  I emailed Eduard about it yesterday.

[Merad]

Some progress, finally!  The cockpits are finished aside from a few final touches of weather.  Thoughts on the Eduard vs Quinta 3d decals:

• The behavior as far as releasing from the backing paper, adhesion, etc. seemed pretty identical.  I use Ammo Ultra Glue with both rather than relying on just the decal adhesive.
• Quinta has noticeably better print quality of the fine details.  In 1/48 it hardly matters, but I hope Eduard does better in larger scales.
• Several Eduard pieces are meant to fit right up against cockpit details (levers and so on), and none of them fit well.  I was able to squash them in well enough that it doesn't really stand out, but it's disappointing considering that it's an Eduard accessory for an Eduard kit.
• Quinta includes decals for several panels that Eduard doesn't, but that could be because the Quinta set is specifically early P-51B while Eduard's is just generic P-51B.

Overall I feel like the Eduard set is good, at least in this scale - it's better than PE or kit parts - but I will continue to get Quinta when they're available.

 

I really liked the 3d printed seat and thought it turned out great, but honestly looking at the side by side pics now I have to say that the kit seat with Quinta cushions and belts just looks better IMO.

 

In all of these pics, the Eduard set is on the left and Quinta on the right -

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Merad]

  

Fit on the razorback was not ideal.  It lined up ok but required some force to bring the fuselage halves together, and of course it's too curved to clamp.  Both birds ended up with a step there that will need work.

 

 

Wing halves fit together well, the leading edge by the roots is just a little annoying.  Clamps in that area squeeze down on the landing gear bay box and won't hold the leading edge together, so I ended up holding them with my fingers til the glue set.  I must have over-sanded the pieces around the machine gun barrels and ended up with some gaps.

 

 

Couldn't to focus well (also glue fingerprint 🫠) but the molding around this light doesn't come together all the way.

 

 

Nothing really exciting from the wing to fuselage join, just have to be careful because the wing doesn't really lock into place, be careful not to accidentally shift around the rear part up in behind the radiator intake which will throw off the wing roots.

 

 

Next I think I'll go ahead and deal with these seams, but we aren't too far from paint.  Oh, Eduard said they were happy to replace my missing wing racks but their shipments to the US are still on hold.  Instead of delaying the build for that I'll just improvise something with the racks I have.  They are racks from the P-51D kit which uses PE sway braces, but the B kit doesn't have those PE parts.  Some wire will probably be adequate.