Paul's 48 hour VJ Day Hasegawa/Italeri P-51K Mustang

[Paul]

This was my entry to my 48 hour group build, thanks to everyone that took part and well done to everyone who finished, its no easy task at all so well done. And those that didn't get finished i look forward to seeing your builds once they are complete.

Anyway this kit, being a rebooted hasegawa kit, i thought this would be a great kit, but on inspection and comparing it to the 3 hasegawa p-51 i have in the stash (same kit) the plastic is a different colour and a lot softer so I'm not sure if italeri have their own moods or if haswgawa produce a cheaper kit for italeri, but this gave me huge problems with the build, not helped by me rushing the build process.

The softer plastic caused problems after buttoning up the fuselage even now nearly 48 hours later i can still much my finger into the plastic and it sinks in so this meant filling the fuselage seams a complete nightmare and after 3 hours chasing the seam i gave up.

The wings caused the next problem, the top of them was about 2.5mm too low one side and 1.5mm the other, this meant i had to push them upwards using plastruct which again the soft plastic caused problems lol, the fix worked well though and it was near perfect.

After both these set backs its only the visible seams that let the build down, and I'm interested in building a true hasegawa boxed kit and see if it builds differently.

Oh and the landing gear and props suck too lol, the props are all separate parts and it just exploded when i touched it and the landing gear struggles to support the model.

Anyway it was fun even though I'm knackered now, and I'm looking forward to the next one (which ill announce later on)

[JudgeDredd]

Love it!!

What did you use for the aluminium? And how did you get the different shades?

[shortCummins]

that weathering its fantastic, I'm assuming that there was a ton of pre-shading? or was it post shading?

Paul, you make this look so easy it encourages the rest of us to give it a go

thanks for the inspiration
rgds
John(shortCummins)