The Hamfisted Modeller: 1/48 Eduard North American P-51D Mustang

Depicted as P-51D-10, 44-14798, flown by Maj. Joseph Broadhead, 357th FG, 8th AF, Leiston, United Kingdom, January 1945

This is my second Eduard P-51D. After the first one (see here) caused me a few issues, (the decals anyway) I decided I wanted to have another go - partly to see if it was me and partly as the Hasegawa Skyhawks were dragging me down.

The Eduard Royal boxing of the P-51 has a ton of good options. Eventually I decided to I wanted a green P-51D in the cabinet. But not wanting to rely on the Eduard decals I purchased the Bullseye Aviation Decals sheet that had Master Mike.

The Kit

Eduard 1/48 North American P-51D Royal Class Dual Combo

Aftermarket

Eduard 648233 1/48 108gal paper tanks
Eduard Resin wheels (from the Royal Boxing)
Eduard Resin Exhaust (from the Royal Boxing)

Decals

Bullseye Aviation Decals - Yoxford Boys Part 1

The Build

This was my second Eduard P-51 and I found the build easier than the first time around.

The cockpit is great fun to assemble. The plastic detail is fantastic for 48 scale and to be honest I didn't bother with any of the PE replacements. I just painted the kit parts as not much can be seen anyway.

Once the cockpit main sub-assemblies were completed I painted the floor a mix of Tamiya deck tan / buff to simulate the wood, and the seat Tamiya AS12 to be chipped later. The floor, tank and sidewalls were all sprayed Gaianotes German grey.

The sidewalls and seat were then over coated with Mr Color Interior green. Side wall details were picked out with Vallejo acrylics.

The floor was lightly sanded to reveal some of the “wood”. A toothpick and sandpaper were used to chip the seat. The leather headrest was painted Vallejo flat flesh and then brown oil paint was applied stippled a bit and left to dry to create a worn cracked look (A mate mentioned he’d seen this idea online so thought I’d give it a go). I like how it turned out.

A wash of Gunze Mr Weathering Color (a mix of black and stain brown) was applied then I flat coated everything and applied the PE dials on the floor and the seat belts.

Final step was some dry brushing with Vallejo sky grey to bring out some definition on the tank, battery, radio and other black bits

Dry fitting the fuselage uncovered a few areas that were stopping a nice fit. I've marked the bits I've removed in the image below. One of them, the piece that supports the rear deck was fouling on the fuel pipe. I didn't strike this last time so I expect I got the fuel pipe slightly off. This is hidden by the deck, and it (the deck) fits well enough that that pin can be removed.

I went for a combo not in the instructions for the instrument panel,. I used the PE panel but painted the lower switch panel. Again none of this can really be seen but it looks good enough for me.

The wheel bay is a joy to put together. The gun inserts fit pretty well. Last time I bent them open but this time I followed a tip seen over at Doogs Models and added the plastic card. This works a treat.

Fit over all was excellent. I've learnt a couple of things from my last build which have stood me in good stead here. Seams were filled with sprue goo, I'm still unconvinced with this as filler but thought I'd give it go another go here - let see if ghost seams appear. To date Ithey haven't

The few Panel lines I filled (as per the instructions) where filled with CA / metallic Pigment mix or or CA / Talc.

I've not had much luck mixing pigment with CA but Bruce's Scale Models suggested using a metallic pigment. This works well and gives me a use for that pigment.

The front windscreen on my last build sat high. Whether that was because I sanded to much off the cowls cleaning up the seam or I didn't get the glare shield sitting right I'm not sure. But this time the windscreen is perfect.

Prior to joining the fuselage I redid all the rivets on the cowls along the join line. They are all but non existent here.

I also took a sanding block and put a small chamfer on the outside of each fuselage cowls join line. This makes the panel line easier to restore after gluing.

Once the fuselage was together I added some bits of plastic card along the seam on the inside of the cowl to add some strength and then ran a Trumpeter scriber along the centre panel line.

Wing fit was a bit of a pain as normal. The curve of the wing parts just doesn’t quite match the fuselage. I just glued it in stages and got a reasonable join.

Whilst I know the Mustang had most of its wing panel lines filled, I just don't like the look of wings like that so I didn't bother.

On the underside I lost a few rivets cleaning up the seams. After I primed it restored them with a riveting tool

Some clean up and then a bit of Alclad Aluminum where I might do some chipping. A light coat of hairspray was applied so I can chip that wing root. Now it’s ready for a wash and some paint.

Paints

Various RAF Greens including Mr Color and Tamiya XF81
Various RAF Medium Sea greys including Mr Color, Tamiya's XF83 and AS 11
Various other greens and greys
Mr Color Off white
Gaianotes Black grey
Various Vallejo's for details

White ID Stripes on. Every time I do this I never get the whole area I want to mask on the first go.... Why is that 😃

I've used the masking fluid to temporary attach 3 of the 4 gear doors. The forth won't fit as one of the mounting tags, which I want to retain, fouls the one on the opposite side. I cut a page worth of the stripes so I have plenty for other builds.

The masking friskit was used to stick the landing gear doors closed.

Before I paint anything I like to wash the kit with some warm soapy water and let it dry overnight. Then I applied some random pre-shading, both with the airbrush and then with some stencil masks

After that I applied the medium sea grey. Which was a combination of various light and dark greys. The final coat was Tamiya AS 11 Medium Sea Grey as I wanted to use it up

Greens are on. A lot of different shades applied with various stencil masks with a final blending coat of Mr Color RAF dark green.

Weathering

Mr Color Weathering Colors
Various Oil paints

First washes. I used Mr Color Weathering wash for this. These are supposed to oils but they the are more like fast drying enamels it seems. I haven't used them before but first impressions is they are good. You do have to work in small sections as they dry very fast and can be hard to remove.

Clear Coats

Gaianotes Clear
Gaianotes Flat

I applied a clear coat prior to decaling.

Decaling

The Bullseye Aviation Decals are printed by Cartograph performed were superbly.

I have this theory regarding Cartograph decals. It being that there are various grades (or levels of quality) that a company can specify when getting Cartograph to print their decals. My reasoning is that some Cartograph decals are better than others. Companies like Bullseye, Furball, Fightertown etc. always seem have great performing Cartograph decals so I suspect they specify the top of the range.

I did cut the nose checkers into smaller bits to make them easier to apply and I did have to add a few pieces of decal film to fill some area. Bullseye cleverly supply you with several spare checks for this purpose.

I did some touch ups with some paint as well.

An error on the sheet was the direction on the bombs.

Thanksfully a simple fix

The rest of the build was pretty straight forward. Some more weathering with oils, some pigments, the Mr Color Weathering colours and coloured pencils.

The Figure

Ultracast USAAF fighter Pilot - Not much to say except that it is excellent

Conclusions

After building the first Edaurd Mustang about 12 months ago I came away feeling a little disapointed with the build. Was it the kit or just me?

This time around I'm much happier how the build went. The issues I encounted, bar the edaurd decals, were pretty much me. I'm definitely much more of a fan of this kit than I was after the last build. I've got one more of these left in ths tash but I reckon I'll build more than one more.