Steffen Arndt just a few pictures of an older project. Hope to get some decals which have the correct size for the "Rolf v. Zahradnicek" inscription with Gaspatch being too small while Italeri way oversized. Gaspatch also has the <| wrong in size and distance. I had to strip the model side once to repair it. Gaspatch showed a great customer service to send me a spare decal set with which I can cut & paste my own interpretation of the widely known pictures (I also made the yellow fuselage band wider as shown in Kagero Monograph 48 Hs 123 page 39 (upper pic). To my eye the Schlachtfliegerdreieck is (almost) fully inside the band.

Steffen Arndt I was still not able to find proper decals. Last week I bought Peddinghaus decals set for this plane. Ernst has a very nicely colored Mickey mouse badge included but sadly his inscription is much thinner than the picture so I took the Gaspatch writing even though it is not high enough. The <| was corrected too (shortened bar, slightly reduced angle, smaller distance between bar and chevron). I like the bar to be green, Peddinghaus has it included in yellow. I need a larger Balkenkreuz as the 2cm crosses included in the kits and decal sets are too small when compared with the picture.

Steffen Arndt Some progress, not much but I want to show it anyway. I was not satisfied with the fuselage cross and sanded id down to the plastic. A new layer of paint was sprayed easily on.

During handling I broke one of the struts and decided I better glue on the upper wing to avoid further damage and lost parts. I had painted it some year ago and when it was on I found out the clear coat had cracked on the upper side. These were large deep cracks that I could not get fixed with sanding and thinner. So I stripped the whole upper side of that wing and resprayed it RLM 71.

I found slightly larger crosses in an Xtradecal set for the Do215. These look much better, but I need to retouch the paint job to match the photos of the real thing. The Xtra decals as the spare wing crosses went on without problems.

As you might guess I used a fair amount of masking tape over the past weeks.

Moritz Fentzahn Count me in, I am planning to build the same version. Your progress looks good so far

Steffen Arndt Thanks Moritz! Hope I can keep the pace to finish it soon.

Moritz Fentzahn Ich drücke dir beide Daumen

Urban Gardini I plan to build this version as well when I get mine so this will be interesting to follow.

Steffen Arndt Hi Moritz and Urban. Thanks for your comments! BTW you can find the build log at the project...

Spanjaard Looking good

Nathan Dempsey Great looking P-51. Your hard work will surely pay off at the show.

Steffen Arndt Thanks Nathan, the show was last week end and it was really fun...

Stephan Ryll Very nice work on that P-51 Steffen

Stefan Schacht Hallo Steffen, nice to meet you at the show in Gato and see this beautiful model live. Cheers Stefan

Laurent "HELLER-forever" Nice

Steffen Arndt Thank you Stephan, Stefan and Laurent! Much appreciated!

Steffen Arndt Not much progress during the week, but I got the anti glare panel, red nose and yellow stripes painted. The right outboard strip got a big fingerprint which had to be removed and repainted which resulted in some thinner crawling under the masking tape and leaving somedamage. This still needs to be taken care of.
I am not sure what to do with the slightly different inboard stripes (one is a tad broader than the other) .. .I measured both several times but still gut this difference...

Steffen Arndt I just took a photo (under artificail light) to better show the mistakes

Steffen Arndt I have reworked the band and repaired the damaged paint job. It is interesting how the AK Xtreme Metal Aluminum ailerons and the TS-30 wings look the same color in this picture and totally different from other angles

Steffen Arndt It is always surprising how much a dark wash improves the metal appearance on a model... I applied Tamiya Panel line wash dark grey and black on the fuselage and just dark grey on the tail

Steffen Arndt Today I started applying the decals. Very good quality but that was expectable as I got a kit from the first batch with Cartograf decals ... I am really curious to try out the new Eduard laser printed decals

Steffen Arndt In the past week I applied the many tiny and tiniest stencils. Numbering on the (small) stencil area is hilarious so you have to search for almost every bit. But one day you have them all on (or at least most ... I lost a few due to own mistakes). I sealed everything with a layer of Klear.

The I started to add all the remaining parts mainly undercarriage. The tail wheel leg was a difficult fit as there is no positive "klick" when it is in place I am still not sure if mine sits right. Furthermore the "fork" is a wobbly thing and it will break - for the moment I rest the tail on a piece of foam while I still handle the model. I hope Eduard will have a sturdy solution in the Bronze line...
I used the Brassin wheels as I prefer them over the kit parts. It is difficult to represent the diamond tread in a one piece plastic tyre...
Everything was finally sealed with a good layer of ultra smooth flat by Gunze. There are still some shiny spots when you look at the model from different angles but that is intentional. Still I do not believe in this ultra polished metal finish many modelers prefer on their models.

Still a bit to do (e.g. drop tanks) but I hope I can finish it for our show in Berlin Gatow at the weekend

Steffen Arndt P.S. I found another picture of the original plane that shows distinct red overspray on the cuffs ... I had this panted separately so I did a touch up to replicate the real thing

Steffen Arndt Here are two pix of the 99.9% finished model as shown on the IPMS show in Berlin-Gatow