"Special" Tamiya P-51

[HubertB]

35 minutes ago, TJTX said:

What do I make the casting block out of? Plastic, putty, etc...?

I’d say plastic ...

Hubert

[MustangManiac]

Hi Tony,

I just found your build by accident the other day. I had to wait approval to join up here to talk to you. Beautiful build so far, I'm actually building the same racer as you are currently and maybe we can help each other on details. I do want to bring to your attention that the bird we are building now flies as "Section Eight" the Black and White checkered Bardahl P-51 still carries that paint scheme. Gosshawk still has the shots of the checkered P-51 under restoration on their website as a previous project. This P-51 just doesn't see the light of day much any more but it was restored and kept its racing paint scheme. So some of these pictures you're using are not of Bardahl Special the solid white paint scheme, just so you know. In all my research I've only been able to find one shot of the instrument panel and it is from after Bardahl Special became Section Eight so I'm not certain if it was the same as a racer or not. But I've seen three different versions of the name Bardahl Special in the way it was painted colors and font then it also was Challenger, I don't recall if that was before or after it was Bardahl Special though. To answer your question on the checkered drop tanks through what I've found is they may have been tip tanks for an RF/F-80 more commonly seen on the RF-80 it seems. If I had to guess theyre Sargent Fletcher tanks. When I figure out how to post pictures I'll send you one of a drawing of the Sargent Fletcher 75 gallon tank and you'll see why I think that's what they are, only these would be 110 gallon tanks.

 

Cheers,

Brady

[MustangManiac]

Hi Tony,

 

Here's the Sargent Fletcher 75 gallon tank and its dimensions if you're interested. I'm pretty sure these are not what was on Bardahl Special though.

 

 

The only P-51 I've seen both styles (75 gallon and 110 gallon) of tanks on is Berlin Express. These are a few shots I compared as confirmation they were not the same size tanks:

75 gallon tanks:

There is a couple better close up pictures of this set on pinterest while they were off the airplane. In one picture you can read it says 75 gallon capacity.

110 gallon tanks:

The way you can tell these are not the same right off hand is the caps for the tanks are not located on the top of the tank. I've also noticed these tanks on  P-51 always have the filler cap on the side to the pilot's left, they aren't made to be filled from the outside on both sides, but I haven't seen these set up differently yet. There's also some slight difference in overall length.

The 110 gallon not the 165 gallon tank on the wingtip of an RF/F-80:

I'm still torn on which tanks I want to use on my model because I've noticed there's two different versions of the paint scheme for  two versions of the tanks whether it be these tanks or the skyraider tanks. I also noticed in some pictures of Bardahl Special the Skyraider tanks do have the tail fins and in other they pictures don't.

This is Bardahl Special's cockpit after she became "Section Eight".

Cheers,

Brady

[TJTX]

Brady, first off welcome aboard LSM.  You'll find a great group of guys here with fun personalities and a wealth of information.   Are you building Bardahl in 1/32 scale? If so, which kit and what mods have you done to it? My next big portion is working on the wings and removing the armament from them.  I also need to figure out what type of pitot probe I'll use out on the wing.   I'm leaning towards an F-104 probe so I have plenty of adjustment room.  I like the information you provided for the drop tanks.  I have a set of 150 gallon Skyraider tanks I was able to source, so I will use those.  The checkerboard ones were my backup if I couldn't find the bigger tanks.  Please don't hesitate to show us your build!

[1to1scale]

On 5/17/2019 at 10:15 PM, TJTX said:

Had to piece it together a bit.  This may become my favorite build if I don't screw it up.  The drop tanks and prop just adds a neat look to the airframe. 

Wow, this is going to look amazing!

[JohnB]

13 hours ago, 1to1scale said:

Wow, this is going to look amazing!

Looking goooood!!!!!

[Bomber_County]

On 6/4/2019 at 5:55 PM, MustangManiac said:

Hi Tony,

I just found your build by accident the other day, 

Brady

Welcome Brady to the corner of the web, dive on in you will not find a nicer bunch than here.....

[MustangManiac]

Hello everyone. Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm glad I wasn't taken as trying to take over your posting by showing what I'd previously found. If you guys want to see my build here it is:

I bought this build as a previously started build someone else gave up on and I just thought it was cool looking to have skyraider tanks on a P-51 at the time. There were some problems I had to overcome that I didn't create in the beginning of this build like a broken engine bearer and a few missing or broken parts, some did and some didn't need replacing. I was very grateful Tamiya will give us replacement parts for this build. Sometimes with this kit it was aggravating how many parts I needed just to fix something small they broke, such as the tailwheel assembly. 

What I started with:

The fuselage halves before closing up:

The cockpit after I painted it:

 

I filled the shell ejection chutes with plastic card and sanded them flush:

I sanded off the guns and filled them with putty and CA glue and sanded again. I also filled the rivets and panel lines with Mr. Surfacer 1500 except around the gun bays because these were used on the real bird for some sort of holding tanks for the spray bars in front of the radiator for better cooling.

I worked with a member over on Large Scale Planes to make these tanks to the best we could.

Where I am right now. As of now I have a Trumpeter Bearcat prop with the Grey Matters Spinner and some plastic rod and tubing modification to keep it centered and tight.

I intentionally glued the arms on the pylons like this because it appears to be that way to me

In this picture of the real racer:

The part here that sucks is no one makes the P-51 pylons without the aerodynamic fairings like Bardahl didn't have present in any pictures I've seen, so I just cut my losses and used the usual pylons. I don't want to steal your thunder here Tony so I'm going to cut my long windedness off there.

 

Cheers,

Brady

[MustangManiac]

On 6/5/2019 at 8:48 AM, TJTX said:

Brady, first off welcome aboard LSM.  You'll find a great group of guys here with fun personalities and a wealth of information.   Are you building Bardahl in 1/32 scale? If so, which kit and what mods have you done to it? My next big portion is working on the wings and removing the armament from them.  I also need to figure out what type of pitot probe I'll use out on the wing.   I'm leaning towards an F-104 probe so I have plenty of adjustment room.  I like the information you provided for the drop tanks.  I have a set of 150 gallon Skyraider tanks I was able to source, so I will use those.  The checkerboard ones were my backup if I couldn't find the bigger tanks.  Please don't hesitate to show us your build!

Hi Tony,

Sorry, I just realized I really didn't answer your questions at all in my post. Yes, I'm building this in 1/32 scale with the Tamiya P-51D kit. I had tinkered with the idea of using a 1/32 Tamiya A6M's pitot tube for the wing and it's made of metal. I haven't held this up to the wing out of one of my other kits yet to see if it seems to be long enough. To me the pitot tube on the real racer appears to be totally straight that's why I considered the Zero's pitot tube. I don't have any F-104s to compare this to so I'm no help there...sorry.

Cheers,

Brady

[Clunkmeister]

Brady, welcome aboard!  Tony’s a great guy as is everyone else here. You won’t meet a nicer bunch. You won’t find anyone who builds cleaner and more precise than Tony. We here are truly blessed to see his builds improve exponentially with each completed aircraft. It’s positively uncanny and he makes me look like a toddler at work in comparison.

Your racer’s starting to really look the part as well, and I must admit, first Tony, now you, have ignited the racer itch in me again. Enough to where I opened up my September Fury and Miss Merced kits to fondle some polyurethane, then went and splurged for an RB-51 Kit when a member here tipped me off.

Once the Lanc’s done, I hear September Fury calling me in all her gaudy flames glory!

Build on, gentlemen!

[TJTX]

Absolutely awesome work Brady.  I see you struggled with the hard point dilemma as well.  I'm leaning towards scratch building some but haven't fully decided yet.  I'm finally back home from training so I'll have a few days this week to work on the Mustang.  

[TJTX]

I was able to get the main wheels painted and built up, along with painting the exhaust stack covers NMF.  I then assembled a few of the nose parts with glue, then placed all the nose parts on to make sure my alignment is good.  I'm a happy camper!  Tomorrow I plan on painting the exhaust stacks then I can start closing in on wrapping up the nose.

[harv]

Noice !!....harv 

[TJTX]

Just playing around a bit.

[MustangManiac]

Hi Tony,

The build is looking good! Yes I have had the difficulty with the hard points too. I am curious did you get a set of Harold's Aero 150C drop tanks for your build from large scale planes? I'm not sure if he's a member here or not. If you did, where are you determining being the right point of mounting the tanks between his mounting points for the larger skyraider pylons that are longer than the P-51's pylons? I see you're also going to use the exhaust stacks with the fairings whereas as of now mine don't have them. To do this particular racer correctly it seems we need to pick one picture of it or one group taken at the same time and go with it. I've seen four different racing paint schemes for this bird in just the way the name is painted or what it is alone. Two or three layouts of skyraider tanks with and without fins and numbers. Then with or without hard points at all and both layouts of exhaust stacks. It makes it hard to build  correctly I must say.

Cheers,

Brady

[TJTX]

Time to shake ya tail feathers! Tails wrapped up, with everything on.  I'm currently working on the gear wells getting them ready for paint.  I'm also continuing to work on wings and modifying them.  I feel like I'm not making progress but I know it'll come together. 

[TJTX]

Brady, your absolutely correct.   This airplane never stayed the same long.  I'm working mostly off the two pictures where it is sitting in the dirt wearing the Skyraider tanks.  I've started work on the tanks but haven't gotten to how I'll mount them yet.  I'm planning on building the hard points out of plastic strip.  Yes, these are AMS resin tanks as that was the only place I could source the 150 gallon ones.  They look absolutely amazing as well.  

[GazzaS]

Looking Good Tony!

 

[MustangManiac]

Hi Tony,

Looking awesome!

Do you intend to leave your flaps in the up position for this build? Every shot I've seen of her with Skyraider tanks has had the flaps raised, even with a shut down engine, like there almost wasn't clearance for them to be lowered. I'm also curious are you going to just make this one stiff legged, even though Tamiya gives the parts to make her in an in flight stance with the stand, so you can make the leading edge of the wing good and smooth?

 

If you're interested in doing another racer later there's a new decal company that was recently taking suggestions on what P-51s would be good racers to do decals for that wouldn't need a conversion set to modify the kit first. The decal company is called TG decals and there were some good suggestions thrown out  them like Miss Suzy Q, and all the Bardahl P-51s and Hi Time II in zebra stripes. I don't know yet if these all will come to fruit or not though either.

Cheers,

Brady

[TJTX]

Back home from my first week flying for the new company.   I absolutely love my new job and the company I fly for which is always a plus.  I decided on a grey for the gear and gear wells and got all those parts painted.  Then I closed up the wings and installed the gun ports.  Now I need to keep working on cleaning the wings and remove the gun ports, and nav lights.  Brady,  I will be building mine on the ground.  If I build another racer, which I very much want to do, it will be in flight rounding a Reno pylon.   For the flaps, I honestly haven't decided yet.  Since the pictures I am leaning on have them up, I will probably end up with them built in the up position.   I also started work on the hard points.  I am just going to scratch build them myself.  

**I have realised that making resin copies of the prop is out of my skill set right now.  If there is someone who can help cast them since a few others have asked for a set I would greatly appreciate it.  If not, I have all 4 built up that I need.

[Clunkmeister]

Tony, this is one build I’m very much looking forward to in person. So much so that I may need to slide on by and see it in person. And maybe accidentally drink all your whiskey too!

[TJTX]

On 6/27/2019 at 11:43 PM, Clunkmeister said:

Tony, this is one build I’m very much looking forward to in person. So much so that I may need to slide on by and see it in person. And maybe accidentally drink all your whiskey too!

Now that sounds like a fun afternoon. 

[TJTX]

Every time I think I have the areas need filling done, I realize they aren't quite right.  So, round 1000 of filling and sanding the ejection chutes and recognition lights.  I will say the gun ports were relatively easy to deal with.

[TJTX]

Also the nose is pretty much wrapped up.   Now I can look towards mating the wing and dealing with the drop tanks. 

[TJTX]

Wing is on.  Initial priming looks promising.   A touch of filler on the leading edges and over the nav lights, a bit more work on the recognition lights, some rescribing and I'll be happy with the wings.  From here I can work on finalizing construction and looking towards paint.