Yoxford Boys Pony – 1:48 Meng-Model P-51D

‘Yoxford Boys’ Pony

-51 MUSTANG BUILD 1 – P Alan Kelley builds the 1:48 Meng-Model P-51D in the colours of Captain Charles E. ‘Chuck ’ Weaver of the 362nd Fighter Squadron, 357th Fighter Group, Yoxford, England, 1945.

amiya first released their 1:48 P-51D Mustang

Tback in 1995 and, until 2017 it has remained the best in this scale. However, we now have newer examples of the P-51 from Eduard, Meng-Model and Airfix. I have looked at these kits very closely and they are equally fantastic, although I preferred the refinement and detail of the Eduard and Airfix kits. That said, the Meng-Model offering looked a great kit and I decided to purchase one. Part of the reason for this was I wanted to try out their ‘glue-free’ approach on this kit. When most modellers think of this they immediately think back to the old Revell ‘Snap-Tite’ kits, however, this kit is nothing like that- the approach Meng-Model have taken to this makes the kit an absolute joy to build. They have eliminated all of the major fuselage seams and the top cowl, bottom cowl, and rear fuselage insert are all moulded as a one-piece ‘push in’ part and the fit is sublime. Most of the major sub-assemblies push together snugly using large plugs. In some respects there is a similarity on fit around the nose similar to the Tamiya 1:32 kit, however, Tamiya made these parts removable so as to expose the Merlin engine underneath.

The kit comes in 102 injection-moulded pieces and there are also five clear parts. The decal sheet looks good and is in perfect register, although I do not intend to use it on this build. I planned this finish on this project to be as close to plain bare metal as possible - the only colour I want to add is the anti-glare strip in front of the windscreen, and the unit markings on the nose. I plan to finish the build as the personnel aircraft of

P-51D MUSTANG FIGHTER

MANUFACTURER: MENG-MODEL SCALE: 1:48 KIT T YPE: PL ASTIC INJEC TION MOULDED KIT NUMBER: LS-006

I needed to add the seat belts, which MengModel have omitted from the kit

The completed look of the cockpit

Adding the windshield ready for masking

Captain Charles E ‘Chuck’ Weaver of Detroit, Michigan, 362nd Fighter Squadron, 357th Fighter Group, Yoxford, England, 1945, serial no. 44-72199. The aircraft has a distinctive piece of nose art - a nude lady reclining on a black sheet. Construction began by removing all the major parts from the sprues and cleaning them up. The cockpit is well-detailed straight-from-the-box- the only thing I needed to add was the seat belts, which Meng-Model have omitted from the kit, and I also added a couple of knobs on the starboard side console punched out of sheet styrene. Both sides of the fuselage were sprayed using Mr Hobby Aqueous H58 Interior Green, and the detail was all picked out using Vallejo acrylics dry brushed initially, before using a 000 brush to mark all the details in. I also added the wiring to the battery packs at the rear of the cockpit. Meng-Model supplies a decal for the instrument panel, but I had a Sky Decals marking sheet in my ‘spares-box’ that had a panel on it. I punched the individual instruments out and with the aid of some Microsol placed these into the recesses for each dial. I also used some Airscale cockpit placards for added realism. The K-14 gunsight is a clear moulded piece that was painted and slotted into place, with the armoured glass plate pushed into place.

I joined the two parts of the fuselage together and ran a little Tamiya Extra Thin glue along the joins to ensure the parts stayed firmly in place. However, when I went to add the windscreen and forward cowls, I noticed there is a fit issue - when all three parts are put in place, the middle part and windshield will not sit correctly. I had to do some trimming to get these pieces to fit, and had to run a little putty under the middle piece to hide the gap that remained. I then set this aside and concentrated on painting the tail planes and rudder, which come as separate parts. This would come in handy if one is intending to have a painted rudder - my version will just be painted silver. The parts were all primed using Alclad Black Primer and Micro Filler that once dry, was buffed into a shine. I used Alclad Airframe Aluminium for the metal parts of the tail planes, and Dull Aluminium for the silver painted elevators. Once these had dried thoroughly, I used AK Interactive Gauzy to seal the finish, before weathering using AK Streaking Grime. I went back to painting the fuselage. The windshield and cockpit were masked off. I used the alternative canopy as a mask for the cockpit area. This was primed in Alclad Black Primer, before being buffed back to check for any flaws or marks in the fuselage. I

Alclad provided the natural metal shades for my ‘pony ’

I chose to use markings from the Eagle Cals #EC-103 ‘To War with the Yoxford Boys’ sheet

used several different shades of Alclad to achieve the finish on the fuselage, highlighting certain panels and metals on the airframe. I used a combination of Airframe Aluminium, White Aluminium, Polished Aluminium, Steel, Stainless Steel and Chrome. Certain panels were masked off to allow the separate colours to be applied. I sealed this again using AK Interactive Gauzy. Next in the process, was to mask the area on the nose for the anti-glare panel to be added. I sprayed this using Tamiya XF-62 Olive Drab. Once sealed, I was ready to add the decals to the fuselage, before working on the wings.

The wings are made up of three principal parts - the undersection is one continuous spar piece that incorporates each wing and the central fuselage section - then you also have the top sections of each wing. When I built my P-51D Mustang, featured in the February 2016 issue of Model Aircraft, I added the wings after the fuselage had been completely finished. A rationale for doing this was that the wings on the P-51 during World War II were puttied and then painted, whereas the fuselage was natural metal. I test fitted the main spar with one wing in place, and it fitted perfectly, but discovered it is not possible to put both wings in place, as it will not go on over the bulge in the fuselage at the root of the wing. This meant that I would wait to paint the front of the wing, due to gluing together once in place and removing the join from the front edge. As I was trying to recreate an authentic looking World War II finish I puttied the wing panel lines and rivets using Milliput, before priming in Alclad Black Primer. These would be painted using Alclad White Aluminium paint- this looks paler than the normal paints and shows the difference between the NMF finish and the painted wings. The flaps, ailerons and the reinforced panels on the belly, behind the undercarriage doors, were given a coat of Alclad Chrome, as these areas were unpainted metal. These were sealed and added to the wings. The flaps and ailerons have to be added before the wings are glued together as they use locating pins that have quite large tabs at top to hold them in place. The wings were placed into positions and both halves pushed together. I ran a very thin line of Tamiya Extra Thin along the edges to keep these sealed. Once this was dry, I buffed the edges back, removing the join marks.

I then masked the wing from the gun bays back, and added a second coat of White Aluminium to the front third, covering the areas I had previously sanded. Once this was dry I clear coated the wings in preparation for decals. Before getting to the decaling I prepared the remaining parts for paint- this included the undercarriage, propeller and drop tanks. The drop tanks were painted chrome that I then buffed into a high shine before sealing. The propeller assembly was painted aluminium initially. I sprayed the tips of each blade yellow, then once dry, masked these off. I put a coat of

-51 MUSTANG BUILD 1 – P

You can see the effec ts of different shades of Alclad here

AK Interactive Chipping Fluid over the top half of the blades and then sprayed them Tyre Black. I then chipped off the black to show the metal underneath. This was only done on the top half of each blade, as the Hamilton Standard propeller used on the P-51D had a rubber cuff on the bottom half of each blade. The 357th FG wore distinctive markings on the nose of their aircraft- a red and yellow checkerboard on the nose, behind the propeller, and the spinner had 2 red bands separated by a yellow band. The spinner was sprayed yellow, masked in the middle and then the two red bands added. This was all clear coated for the decals to be added to the propeller blades. I chose to use markings from the Eagle Cals #EC-103 ‘To War with the Yoxford Boys’ sheet, as previously explained. The artwork for the nose art is beautiful, and I used these

-51 MUSTANG BUILD 1 – P Working on the propeller

and all the unit and national insignia but I chose to use a lot of the stencils from the kit, as they appear clearer.

I had no issues whatsoever getting the decals to conform to the surface of the aircraft, with no silvering. Once all the markings were on, the airframe was yet again clear coated for weathering. I use two steps for weathering- the first is to put a panel line wash over the entire model. For this I use Ammo by MIG Dark Brown panel wash. I let that dry, then wipe clear with a clean sheet of kitchen towel. I prefer to do this rather than use thinner, as the residue left from the wash leaves a dirt appearance to the paintwork. The second step is to further enhance the dirt with streaking grime. I run this around recesses and areas where you would expect a build-up of dirt. I let this sit for a moment, before using a rounded brush to blend this in. I added the exhaust staining using Alclad Hot Metal shades- namely Sepia, Red and Blue. The sepia worked to show the dirt from the exhaust whilst the red and blue worked to show the heat discolouration on the metal. The next stage was to flatten the anti-glare strip, propeller and national markings. For this I used Tamiya XF-22 Flat Clear.

The final steps to the model were to add the undercarriage and main canopy. The main gear legs slot into place and two lugs hold them in place. The angle they legs sit at are far too perpendicular when in place. I had to cut approximately one third of the locating lug off and that gave the gear legs the correct angle. The hubs push into place in the tyre, and the assembled wheel then pushes onto a locating pin on the gear leg. The approach MengModel have made makes the kit very simple to paint, and so I painted all the smaller assemblies separate before slotting them into place. The P-51D Mustang from Meng-Model is a very welcome arrival on the market. Their approach to the kit make it rather easy to build, but it does not sacrifice anywhere in detail. If the modeller chooses to super-detail his build and add engines and such there will be a bit of extra work required to remove the internal structures of the kit. However, in pure kit form it builds up beautifully and creates a great replica of this iconic fighter.

Adding staining and weathering to the tail…….

…and the fuselage