Model Airplane International - June 2018

38 MODEL AIRPLANE INTERNATIONAL - June 2018

SKILL LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE

KIT BUILD

Taking care to line everything up correctly, the completed cockpit

can be easily secured to one fuselage half. There is a small step

that locates the cockpit to the radiator housing, don’t sand it off as it

helps line things up!

The small air intake and

propeller hub are a very neat

insert which fi ts OK, it would

need a little sanding when

dry to eliminate a small seam

step along the lower section,

but once done it’s a smooth

transition.

wheel is somewhat simplifi ed but adequate

with careful painting. The underwing stores

give you a choice of metal or pressed paper

drop tanks and a couple of bombs.

The undercarriage and stores were all

assembled and painted and set to one side

while the painting was carried out on the main

aircraft. They could also be detailed up and

weathered now too.

Painting And Weathering

I opted to paint the yellow nose and spinner

fi rst and as is always the way with Revell kits,

they only give paint colours for the their own

range of enamels so some artistic license

was used as I do not use Revell enamels as

a rule and only have a rudimentary stock of

them in my paint supplies. I could not confi rm

Taking care to line everything up correctly, the completed cockpit

can be easily secured to one fuselage half. There is a small step

that locates the cockpit to the radiator housing, don’t sand it off as it

helps line things up!

The undercarriage bays needed spraying as well

as some clamping to ensure the wing spar seats

properly into its recess, with the moulded in anhedral,

it was always going to be needed. This was set aside

overnight to fully cure.

The small insert featuring the formation lights that sit under the

port wing were painted in their respective clear colours

The back of the formation light panel was painted a brass colour

to give that dark, switched off look once installed.

Once glued into place they form part of the structure of the

outer wings sections, make sure you install them with the

correct orientation, ie:coloured parts outside.

Viewed from below, they look suitably dark and will just need to

be masked off before main painting begins, I opted to use small

dots of Blue-Tak pushed into each lens.

The back of the formation light panel was painted a brass colour

to give that dark, switched off look once installed.

Viewed from below, they look suitably dark and will just need to

be masked off before main painting begins, I opted to use small

This rather prominent seam along the top of

the engines cowling was missing altogether!

I rescribed the panel line and drilled out small

recesses to emulate the fastener heads on

the real thing, more fastener heads were also

added around the cowling panels.

P-51.indd 38 04/05/2018 16:01