Tamiya P-51D, easy bake & shake.

[1to1scale]

25 minutes ago, Bomber_County said:

Looks stunning, must have peculiar not have to prime it etc etc........

Yes, but I had such a hard time covering with yellow, I should have sprayed white primer under. This was a true learning experience, I learned how to do real NMF, and I would never buy the plated one again. Every swirl mark from injection mounding was visible under the plating, and I had to scrape the plating off everything I glued, it would have been far easier and less time consuming to start with gray plastic and prime. 
 

As of right now, I am On hold until I get my HGW wet transfers that are stuck somewhere in the postal service between here and Australia. I have not been able to locate these anywhere in the US.

[harv]

WOW!! GREAT JOB !!......harv 

[1to1scale]

On 6/2/2020 at 12:34 PM, JohnB said:

Indeed! Glad to help.

I got them, thanks! 

[JohnB]

6 minutes ago, 1to1scale said:

I got them, thanks! 

I hope they work okay for you.

[1to1scale]

So my luck strikes again. I figured the HGW wet transfers I ordered from Australia were either lost of seriously delayed. I had talked to BNA And decided not to get a refund, but i would wait for them to eventually show up. Yesterday marked 100 days on order, and as BNA seems to be the only stocking retailer in the world to carry these, late last night I ordered another set tracked and expedited. I would call today and ask them to refund the original set I ordered. 
 

Guess what showed up today!?
 

When I went to my email, I saw that they had shipped the new set and sent a tracking number, so no cancelling those either. So, I guess I better get building some mustangs, I now have enough HGW transfers for four. 

[DocRob]

When I read the first sentence, I thought about offering mine and get them back, when yours arrive. There is nothing between having nothing or piling a stock like a wholesaler , but hey, you can continue now and give us exclusive insight, how they work on NMF and maybe later on OD , I heard they work on matte surfaces too.

Cheers Rob

[1to1scale]

3 hours ago, DocRob said:

When I read the first sentence, I thought about offering mine and get them back, when yours arrive. There is nothing between having nothing or piling a stock like a wholesaler , but hey, you can continue now and give us exclusive insight, how they work on NMF and maybe later on OD , I heard they work on matte surfaces too.

Cheers Rob

Thank you for the potential offer!

They work best on semi or gloss surfaces, i used them on my Corsair, ir won my first and only Gold in a show.

 

[1to1scale]

It’s been a while, but I started back on this. I got the carb inlets bent, primered, painted, and glued in (thanks again John!). Today I sprayed all the number stencils on the stang. I am still deciding if I am going to use the HGW transfers on the stars and bars, or if I will use the montex masks. I am going to do some tests and see if they will harm or pull off the metal finish. For now, this is the only progress I made, hopefully I will get the stencils done and do a wash in the next week. 

[1to1scale]

HGW transfers test was successful, I did a test using worst case scenario. 
 

1. AK metals paint, no primer.
2. MicroSol softening solution
3. Quickly yanking off the film.

Good news is that none of the AK Xtreme came off, and the transfers adhered with no issues. On to doing the full plane now.

 

[DocRob]

Will you leave the tail like this, never heard of that scheme . Good news on the HGW's though, as I plan to use them a lot in some of my coming builds, thanks for letting us know.

Cheers Rob

[1to1scale]

23 hours ago, DocRob said:

Will you leave the tail like this, never heard of that scheme . Good news on the HGW's though, as I plan to use them a lot in some of my coming builds, thanks for letting us know.

Cheers Rob

They seemed to Have improved them as the transfer film comes off much easier than the previous set I used on the Corsair.

[1to1scale]

Starting to look better!

[GazzaS]

Sweet!  I did a jug in that unit's livery a few years back.

[1to1scale]

18 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Sweet!  I did a jug in that unit's livery a few years back.

Yup, same pilot, Col. James Beckwith, also flew a P-38 for a short time. 
 

Sort of a funny/sad story, Col Beckwith was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, all his units planes were destroyed on the ground and many of his men were killed. He commanded that unit at Pearl Harbor for a few years, towards the end of the war, they put him and his men on a ship and sent them to the Philippines, by the time he got there, the army determined there were no more enemy aircraft to fight, and then put them back on a return ship to Pearl Harbor. Later they got orders to go to Iwo Jima, but due to the fact they could not land their planes on the island for a few weeks, they were kept back. By the time they could land there, there were no more enemy aircraft, but were relegated to dropping bombs. Finally they were tasked with long range bomber escort to Japan, on his first mission, he had a problem with his mustang and turned back, while his unit went on with the bombers and racked up dozens of kills, a few guys became aces in a day. His second mission, not a single fighter showed up to meet the Mustangs. Before his next mission, Col. Beckwith was sent back to the states because he fulfilled his mission quota, shortly afterward the war ended. Col. Beckwith flew the four hottest fighters of WW2 and never tangled with a single enemy aircraft.

[GazzaS]

58 minutes ago, 1to1scale said:

Yup, same pilot, Col. James Beckwith, also flew a P-38 for a short time. 
 

Sort of a funny/sad story, Col Beckwith was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, all his units planes were destroyed on the ground and many of his men were killed. He commanded that unit at Pearl Harbor for a few years, towards the end of the war, they put him and his men on a ship and sent them to the Philippines, by the time he got there, the army determined there were no more enemy aircraft to fight, and then put them back on a return ship to Pearl Harbor. Later they got orders to go to Iwo Jima, but due to the fact they could not land their planes on the island for a few weeks, they were kept back. By the time they could land there, there were no more enemy aircraft, but were relegated to dropping bombs. Finally they were tasked with long range bomber escort to Japan, on his first mission, he had a problem with his mustang and turned back, while his unit went on with the bombers and racked up dozens of kills, a few guys became aces in a day. His second mission, not a single fighter showed up to meet the Mustangs. Before his next mission, Col. Beckwith was sent back to the states because he fulfilled his mission quota, shortly afterward the war ended. Col. Beckwith flew the four hottest fighters of WW2 and never tangled with a single enemy aircraft.

Great story...  though very disappointing from his point of view.

[1to1scale]

Here were a few of his other aircraft, flew P-36, P-40, P-38, P-47, and P-51.

 

[GusMac]

As Gaz says that's a great story. Can't have been many who flew their mission quota and were lucky/unlucky (delete according to preference) enough not to fire a shot in anger.

[1to1scale]

Tamiya P-51D Mustang...R.I.P.  4/16/20 - 10/01/20

Today I ended work on my Tamiya P-51D. After a lot of work, everything just kept going wrong, and wrong, and wrong. So I officially stuck a fork in it and retired it to the shelf of doom. Someday, I may pull it down and either strip the interior and engine out of it or strip the paint & repaint it, but for now, it’s done and forgotten.

[1to1scale]

28 minutes ago, 1to1scale said:

Tamiya P-51D Mustang...R.I.P.  4/16/20 - 10/01/20

Today I ended work on my Tamiya P-51D. After a lot of work, everything just kept going wrong, and wrong, and wrong. So I officially stuck a fork in it and retired it to the shelf of doom. Someday, I may pull it down and either strip the interior and engine out of it or strip the paint & repaint it, but for now, it’s done and forgotten.

For anyone interested, this build just kept having little screw ups, mostly my fault. To list them, here they are...

1. This was the first build I used AK Extreme Metals paint, I used it as I was told I could, applied over Bare plastic, and actually, the bare plated plastic of the Tamiya special edition kit. Mistake #1 as the paint started peeling off the kit under the tape. I spot repaired some areas, and it looked fine, but I needed to avoid using tape later. 
 

2. Painting the yellow areas. I used Mr Color paint and neglected to put a white primer under it, because I thought the yellow would cover fine over the aluminum finish, it did not. I had to spray many coats to cover, which left a thick layer near the masking tape. I did try sanding it, but it did not completely fix the problem. My fault, I used a paint I never used before for the first time without testing. 
 

3. HGW wet transfers, I initially used MicroSol under these, and everything worked fine. However, I never finished, and when I came back to finish 2 months later, I started using Mr Softer, this was a mistake, as sometime in the last couple years, HGW must have changed the transfers, because this stuff glued the transfers and the peel away film to the paint, taking chunks of the plating and paint with it, that is if I could actually get the film to peel up. 

4. Time to do a wash. Oh crap, I used enamel AK paint, I can’t use my normal enamel wash. So I did some testing and used flory clay wash. All was going well, until I noticed that the AK metal paint was rubbing off, everywhere, but more specifically, where one particular shade, aluminum, was. As I kept removing the wash, and handling the model, it got worse, and worse. I had planned to repaint the wingtips, but I was finding more and more areas where the paint was coming off. At this point I had few “f**ks to give” and my heart was not in it anymore. 
 

 

[Bomber_County]

Sounds similar to my F4J.......very turn to mask or paint the next bit caused problems .........sent it to SOD.......picked it up again solved a couple of issues and I am now decalling...........until I spotted where the colour should be metallic and not gull grey..............I will finish it........leave the ‘stang on the SOD .......it won’t seem 

as bad next time......

[DocRob]

You accumulated quite a bit of annoyance for yourself, given it's a shake and bake kit and even pre painted. Sometimes a seem to be easy going build goes south that way. In our hobby there is so much doom potential, specially around painting, decaling and finishing. We use highly sophisticated stuff in paints, primers, thinners, wet and dry transfers, glues, decals and their solutions, washes and filters, oils and pigments, that there are umpteenth possibilities to fail.
The good thing though, with experience made, the next time you know how to bypass the obstacles, but I feel your pain.

Cheers Rob

[1to1scale]

On 10/1/2020 at 7:06 PM, 1to1scale said:

For anyone interested, this build just kept having little screw ups, mostly my fault. To list them, here they are...

1. This was the first build I used AK Extreme Metals paint, I used it as I was told I could, applied over Bare plastic, and actually, the bare plated plastic of the Tamiya special edition kit. Mistake #1 as the paint started peeling off the kit under the tape. I spot repaired some areas, and it looked fine, but I needed to avoid using tape later. 
 

2. Painting the yellow areas. I used Mr Color paint and neglected to put a white primer under it, because I thought the yellow would cover fine over the aluminum finish, it did not. I had to spray many coats to cover, which left a thick layer near the masking tape. I did try sanding it, but it did not completely fix the problem. My fault, I used a paint I never used before for the first time without testing. 
 

3. HGW wet transfers, I initially used MicroSol under these, and everything worked fine. However, I never finished, and when I came back to finish 2 months later, I started using Mr Softer, this was a mistake, as sometime in the last couple years, HGW must have changed the transfers, because this stuff glued the transfers and the peel away film to the paint, taking chunks of the plating and paint with it, that is if I could actually get the film to peel up. 

4. Time to do a wash. Oh crap, I used enamel AK paint, I can’t use my normal enamel wash. So I did some testing and used flory clay wash. All was going well, until I noticed that the AK metal paint was rubbing off, everywhere, but more specifically, where one particular shade, aluminum, was. As I kept removing the wash, and handling the model, it got worse, and worse. I had planned to repaint the wingtips, but I was finding more and more areas where the paint was coming off. At this point I had few “f**ks to give” and my heart was not in it anymore. 
 

 

Oh,I forgot, every single seam line shrank back. There is a line running from the radiator inlet all the way to the tail. Every time I pick it up, it gets worse. I am giving up Mr Surfacer 500 forever. 

[GazzaS]

19 hours ago, 1to1scale said:

Oh,I forgot, every single seam line shrank back. There is a line running from the radiator inlet all the way to the tail. Every time I pick it up, it gets worse. I am giving up Mr Surfacer 500 forever. 

I have changed my building habit for aircraft.  All of the big seams I do with CA now.  I believe that 're-occurring' seams are caused by the some-time long term instability of solvent and plastic.

I've given up on sprue goo too.  I did one model and filled panel lines with it.  Once dried, I sanded it smooth.  A few weeks later I applied primer and was shocked to see that where each narrow panel line had formerly been, there was now a 2-4 mm wide shallow ditch with very smooth contours. 

 

Mr. Surfacer is a pain, too.  Sometimes takes three or more applications due to shrinkage.  CA is now my go-to filler.

 

Good luck!

 

Gaz

[1to1scale]

2 hours ago, GazzaS said:

I have changed my building habit for aircraft.  All of the big seams I do with CA now.  I believe that 're-occurring' seams are caused by the some-time long term instability of solvent and plastic.

I've given up on sprue goo too.  I did one model and filled panel lines with it.  Once dried, I sanded it smooth.  A few weeks later I applied primer and was shocked to see that where each narrow panel line had formerly been, there was now a 2-4 mm wide shallow ditch with very smooth contours. 

 

Mr. Surfacer is a pain, too.  Sometimes takes three or more applications due to shrinkage.  CA is now my go-to filler.

 

Good luck!

 

Gaz

You are right, the one small seam I filled with ca just ahead of the windscreen is fine, no shrinkage. If I can figure out how to strip the lacquer paint from the tail, I’ll probably dig out the trench and refill it with CA. I can probably strip all the markings and AK paint fairly easily, it’s the lacquer I am most concerned about removing. 

[BlrwestSiR]

Try Tamiya lacquer thinner. It's cool enough not to melt plastic. It may take a couple applications but it should take the paint off.  It'll probably strip some of the plating too though. 

Carl