P51-D American Fighter, Tamiya 1/72

Submitted by admin on Wed, 12/11/2013 - 10:26

Model, text and images by Luca Cinacchio

This is the last of a series of 3 small kits where I experimented some -for me- new techniques of painting and weathering (the others are the Tojo and the Boomerang) 

No many words about this kit: on the Internet you can find lot a reviews, and made by much more expert people than me, about how accurate this kit is, how nicely molded is, etc. etc. I can just add that there was no problem at all with joining the parts, no gaps at all, no filler required, only the seam lines to sand after gluing.

This time i wanted to test the following techniques:- Hairspray on small scale to reproduce the chippings: after painting the alluminium, using various shades of ModelMaster Buffable and Gunze Buffable (and properly masking the interested panels with some memo-tack pieces of paper), I sprayed with the hairspray the nose and then painted it in blue with Tamiya color thinned with water. Then i gently scrubbed with a brush as usual damped with tapped warm (bnut nott too much!) water.

- Rust weathering only with airbrushing, using AK enamel wash NOT thinned, sprayed very carefully at low pressure. I am getting more and more convinced that the airbrush can be a powerful weapon, for rust effects.

Since I wanted to depict an almost-abandoned plane, plagued by the weathering, i added some dust layer with the brush on the propellers, and then proceeded as usual with some localized pinwash (oil stains, landing gears, etc).

Unfortunately i took the photos 6 months after completing the model, with it standing on the shelf to collect all the possible dust: regardless how many times i brushed it or tried to get out the dust with the airbrush air, still too much dust is on its surface :(


 

Comments

Tredlite
Sun, 12/22/2013 - 11:08

One issue with showing rust is that aluminum doesn't rust. It oxidizes white. Moreover, the P-51D wasn't completely bear metal. The wing surfaces were painted with an aluminim colored paint.

 

In addition, while carrying the nose art "Petie 2nd", this Mustang was reassigned to another pilot and renamed "Sweetie Face". It was eventually scrapped in Germany after the war.

 

One flaw of most P-51 model kits is that when the engine is not running, there's no hydraulic pressure. So, the gear doors will almost immediately drop. Likewise, the flaps will drop as well. I know of no 1/72 Mustang kit that has separate flaps. So, when shown in non-flying static display, for greatest accuracy, the flaps should be lowered fully. Of course, that isn't generally practical in a 1/72 kit. 

admin
Wed, 01/29/2014 - 17:05

sorry for the late reply... it was hard to me to check all the pages, but now i have a new system showing the new comments.
Everything you noticed is right (something even new to me, and very valuable contribute).
This model was just a test about painting rust... i was aware that aluminium doesn't develope rust, but i took an "artistic license" for my test :)
Thanks again for you precise and useful comments, and sorry for the late replay...

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There are tons and tons of video-tutorials about scale models, dispersed on the Net. But only a few are truly worth to watch. We select the best and only the best video-tutorials: building, detailing, painting, weathering, dioramas and more.

We just finished to tag all the videos in our archives, and the first results is here: a selection of tutorials about the weathering in scale models: all what you need to know to give to your models the perfect dirty or dusty or rusty look!