North American P-51 Mustang 137322, "Mah Sweet Eva Lee" in North Africa

Rando
Next build is an early Allison-engine Mustang, a plane and kit which I was always kind of interested in for some reason. 137322 is a plane many have built before, but I'm doing my own (masochistic?) twist on it by adding an old resin engine that it happened to come with. Glad I invested in a nice Polish razor saw.

John
Great start Rando and yep, those JLC saws are a must when wrestling with resin bits.

Rando
Thanks John! It really does a great job, I was wondering how the hell I would detach that ring from that sheet in particular. Yeah part of why I'm building this one now is I want to get comfortable working with resin parts for future Crusader and Voodoo conversions. I also want to make it into a simple diorama, or "vignette"

John
My only (slight) gripe with them is the lack of cutting depth but then the blade would be way too prone to break. Still, just work around the outside edges and parts like that ring and it's do-able. Oh and you probably already know but those saws are fantastic at repairing panel lines from sanding damage.

Rando
Is there something out there that's of similar quality but cuts deeper? And I'll definitely remember that they're good for panel lines too, thanks 👍

Villiers de Vos
Promises to be a head turner.

John E
Following!

Desert Marlin
Okay, that looks like work! Great start!

Rando
It's been a pleasant ride so far honestly, a chunk of the engine wall shot off as I was sawing but I found it in my paint brush cup. One of the challenges ahead that I'm thinking about is how to paint the engine appropriately, not seeing a ton of information of painting inline engines, Allison or otherwise. Thanks Villiers, John, and Marlin for joining in!

Desert Marlin
Mostly black, grey and silver. Ducting for the super charger and oil is as you might expect. Rocker covers tend to be semi-gloss black. Block can be black or grey depending…

Rando
So I've mostly painted the interior, this morning I added the darker interior green to the tailwheel well. Also tried painting the instrument panel by hand instead of a decal this time, and I really like how my first attempt worked out. Have to give credit to KyMustang for his work as inspiration, as he's working on the same model right now! I'll post more pics of the instrument panel after putting gloss on the dials. Also thanks Marlin for the color info on the engine!

KyMustang
This is looking really good. Excited to see your work on the engine…I have that same engine set and plan to install it in a CBI theater Mustang.

Desert Marlin
AM strikes again!

Rando
Thanks buddy! Gonna be interesting building that engine for sure. I did get the goofy banana wings glued together 🤪 is this an AM thing Marlin? I know this thing is probably 30 years old. One thing I'm really not enjoying is the instructions, they explain the hell out of the build in text but the diagrams are awful for exact placement. Like I don't know exactly where to put the radio yet

KyMustang
Sounds like we're in the same boat! I have the radio racks painted but haven't figured out where to put the smaller one. And no YT videos I've found show where it goes.

My wings were not bent at all—they went together quite nicely actually. My four other AM kits also look nice and straight. Must be an issue with your kit.

Rando
You know what it probably is, I read that if old kits aren't kept out of hot temperatures they can get warped like this. Mine looks like it's in pretty beat up condition on the box, I did manage to clamp them together, but I didn't glue the part molded for the cannons, since they're a little warped too so I'll do them separately.

For the smaller radio part, I want to say it goes above and behind the smaller one? Gonna have to do more test fitting

KyMustang
I think you're right. That's my current theory.

Desert Marlin
The kits tend to have that kind of issue. A buddy of mine in the 1980's has this P-51 kit (A-36?) that had a pretty poor fit. Back in the day…

KyMustang
These AM kits are newer than that…original mold in '94. AM's fit is usually pretty good!

Rui
Picture 9 in your album…
[img1]
😁

KyMustang
Rando did you try the drybrushing technique we talked about on the panel? Looks great.

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

Rando
@Rui my thoughts exactly, could see Dave Mustaine playing one of those engine bearers 🤘
And yes I did Ky, I dry brushed with some enamel chrome and steadily applied white to the dials with the long bristle sides of a fine brush. Just put the gloss over the dials. Glad you like it, definitely helped seeing how you did it 😊
Welcome Guy always good to have you!

Rando
Probably not accurate at all since it's hard to find any reference photos for early P-51s, but I scratchbuilt some seatbelts.

KyMustang
They look convincing to me. Will the canopy be open?

Rando
Yeah I think it'll add to the look of the build I'm going for, I imagine it will require carefully cutting the transparency off where the canopy would open

KyMustang
Yep. You're more brave than me. I'm not doing that on this build, but I have the Falcon vacu-form canopy set for the CBI kit.

Rando
Yeah I'll start looking over the transparencies tonight maybe, after I get the wings glued on. The fuselage is together, I put some shims in between the wheel well and upper wing surface to get the fit just right. Also glued the resin engine wall in. What color should I paint it??? Interior green?

KyMustang
So the short answer is zinc chromate, which could vary between what we call yellow or green zinc chromate.

The long answer is that you can kind of justify anything you want. Stan Spooner, when he built the same kit and engine for the Osprey book "Modeling the P-51 Mustang," painted it "green" zinc chromate. Looking at my color photo books is inconclusive. They seem to be darker? But Chuck Cravens, in his book about the meticulous Aircorps Aviation restoration of Sierra Sue II, describes the decision-making alongside pictures and it's definitely "yellow" zinc chromate. From what I've read about the interior colors, that makes the most sense if you're going by the book. Interior structures were primed in the yellow, and your guitar-shaped engine mounts should certainly be the yellow color. But the real answer is it varied by factory, and what they had on hand.

I'd share pictures but I can't put them in a comment. Send me a message if you're interested.

KyMustang
FWIW, and to further complicate things, "yellow" zinc chromatic, "green" zinc chromatic, and "interior green" (sometimes called North American green) are three different colors. Then the D-models add a fourth…a color NAA called "bronze" but is actually a dark green like Republic used throughout the P-47 cockpit. Usually the seat and armor were that color because the supplier used it.

And btw, my build has the wrong interior color but I didn't want to spend the $$. lol.

Rando
Gotcha Ky, yeah this kind of goes along with an article I read recently on the subject for US WWII interior colors. It's probably not going to be accurate to the actual plane but basically as long as I know it's supposed to be some kind of "interior zinc chromate green/yellow-ish" I'll go with that for the wall and bearers. I made the cockpit a darker shade of green than the wheel well, probably because I had seen a lot of yellowish mustang wheel wells and figured I'd split the difference. Guess what matters in the end is I have fun and it looks good to my liking 😊

Desert Marlin
Check out the pictures of this one, in particular the cockpit...

nationalmuseum.af.mi..rican-a-36a-mustang/

Rando
Love those pics Marlin! Guess my interior green is a bit darker than that one. Early P-51s sure are underrated, good looking planes.

Assembly of the main body is complete. Attached the horizontal stabs and radiator intake. Also glued together the gun barrel casings, as they were too complicated to line up when attaching the wing halves. Just have to mask off the cockpit and tailwheel and it's time for primer…and building the engine!

KyMustang
Looking really good!

Very much agreed on the Allison Mustangs—the prettiest variants by far IMO.

Rando
Thanks Ky, started painting the engine parts. Decided X-66 light grey would be a decent approximation for the grey color to start.

Rando
Painting the engine is really going now. Big adventure in masking off the cylinder heads(?) to paint them semi-gloss black. With some metallic detail painting this engine will be really coming to life

KyMustang
Looking great!

Desert Marlin
Looks great! I'm gonna chase your's in the 1:32 scale kit...

Rando
Thanks gents! I am more or less done with painting the Allison engine. I just painted the engine wall interior green, then masked off the oil tank and rim of the wall to paint them flat aluminum. About ready to start painting the plane itself now.

John
Nice engine, I hope it fits!

KyMustang
That engine came out very well!

Desert Marlin
Allison versus Rolls Royce... They do look different!

Rando
Been working on the transparencies. The kit came with some E-Z vinyl masks but they don't fit at all. Not a fan of those after my experience with them building my Crusader, so I made my own from Tamiya tape and liquid mask. Also cut apart the canopy since I intend to display it open

Desert Marlin
Transparent Scotch tape is still my best for masking windows.

KyMustang
Looking good Rando. Were the sprues holding your windscreen attached on the outer surface itself? Mine were, and I'm now in the middle of trying to sand, buff, and polish them out. Very frustrating.

Rando
Ugh, YES! I really tried my best but they won't fully go away. Really a deficiency to note for this kit. On one side I kinda buffed too thin, but the sprue mark is mostly gone. I hope they're not total eyesores when it's done.

Marlin I haven't tried transparent scotch tape but that might actually be great, there's a lot of corners and would probably be easier to see through to mark or cut the masks. Thanks as always!

John
That razor saw is the best 👍

Rando
Marlin tried the scotch tape on the inside of the windows, worked really great for cutting right along the window lines. Doing the same for the outside. Time to start painting!

Desert Marlin
Awesome!

Desert Marlin
Awesome!!!