Airix crammed a lot of detail into this kit and
it takes quite a while to assemble and paint
everything. I decided to add a bit of extra
detail, the rear deck of cockpit id squared off
and this should follow the shape of the canopy
so this was reshaped to suite. Having done
this the fuel iller in the port side could now
be seen so this was added using an off cut
of 2mm plastic rod and some scrap plastic to
detail it. I used a beading tool to add fastener
detail to the langes on top of the fuel tank. A
bit of basic assembly then followed, preparing
the interior subassemblies for paint. As the
interior of the Mustang was mostly unpainted,
I airbrushed the fuselage interior, air ducts and
rear undercarriage bay with Alclad II ALC-101
Aluminium. The cockpit centre section was
masked and then painted with Mr. Hobby H58
Interior Green along with the main cockpit
loor. The seat was painted a darker green
as these were sometimes painted Bronze
Green. After completing the detail painting I
gave everything a gloss varnish then applied
the decals to the instrument panel and
cockpit sides. A black wash was applied over
everything and inally a coat of matt varnish.
One inal job was to add wiring to the radio set
using 0.3 mm lead wire.
Despite the complicated interior, the inished
parts all it perfectly into the fuselage and with
the correct tail parts attached, the fuselage
was glued together. The fuselage seams need
a little work, aft of the tail wheel bay there was
quite a sizeable step – the whole tail on my
model seemed to be twisted to port slightly.
This seems to be an issue with either the tail
wheel bay or the way the in attaches. The tail
was straightened before the glue dried and the
seam was dealt with in the usual way – with
iller.
Wings And Things...
The next job was to tackle the wings and I
decided to open up the port wing gun bay for
one of the Eduard sets. The soft Airix plastic
is fairly easy to cut, scoring along the panel
lines several times with a sharp blade soon
had the plastic cut through. After a bit of iling
I had the main resin frame itting well. A test
it of the upper and lower parts revealed no
issues with it. I decided to just assemble
the basic frame at this point and to add the
details later to avoid damage. While gluing the
resin frame in to the upper wing, the pressure
of the it spilt the thin plastic at the rear of
the wing, this led to a bit of swearing (ok –
quite a lot of swearing) and remedial work.
Before completing the wing assembly, the
undercarriage bay needed to be painted. The
RAF speciied yellow chromate to be applied
to the rear spar and the rest of the bay to be
unpainted or painted in aluminium. USAAF
aircraft were generally unpainted though some
early aircraft were painted with Interior Green
or yellow chromate primers. As the Swedish
aircraft were ex-USAAF aircraft I went for
Aluminium. The completed wing itted the
fuselage perfectly, with no iller required at the
wing roots. Work now progressed swiftly as
the remaining parts were all attached. A little
work was required under the nose to smooth
out the engine cowling to wing illet join. I left
the laps off the model at this stage as it eased
painting, if the attachment tabs are cut down
a bit these can be pushed in place later, in
fact its possible to switch between the up and
down laps if you paint both sets! Fitting the
windscreen section of the canopy is a little
tricky; this needs to be itted with the engine
cowling to help get the two parts lined up. The
windscreen is also a bit narrow along its length
where it meets the fuselage so needs to be
taped down to help it spread out otherwise a
dificult illing and sanding session will ensue.Ready For Paint...
At this point I had an essentially compete
airframe, so I prepared the remaining parts,
the undercarriage and prop, for painting. I
also prepared the rear section of the canopy,
cleaning up the parts for this and drilling out
the lightening holes in the cross brace. The
colour scheme for this aircraft was fairly simple- overall aluminium, but of course it’s not that
simple. Nothing ever is! I had the Mushroom
book on Swedish ighters which conirmed that
the aircraft were unpainted, save for the wings
which had the standard painted surfaces. For
this model I decided to go with an all over
painted upper wing with the 40% chord inish
underneath, a fairly typical wing inish. The
unpainted parts would be painted with Alclad
II so the model would need a nice smooth
surface as a starting point. After masking the
cockpit, gun bay, radiators and undercarriage
bays I sprayed the entire model with a coat of
Mr. Hobby Mr. Surfacer. The model was then
given a coat of Mr. Hobby H2 Gloss Black. The
entire fuselage and tail was then painted with
Alclad II ALC-101 Aluminium. This was then
masked and the ‘unpainted’ parts of the wings
(the rear of the underside and the control
surfaces) were painted with the Alclad. After
masking these areas Mr. Hobby H8 Silver was
used for the ‘painted’ areas. This included the
rudder as this was fabric covered. To save
this paint getting marked, it was given a coat
of Microscale Gloss before removing the
masking.
Having carefully removed the masking,
I now had the model fully painted in its
basic colours. To break up the inish,
some panels on the ‘unpainted’ parts were
masked and airbrushed with Alclad II ALC-
103 Dark Aluminium, including the exhaust
panels though these received a coat of Mr.
Hobby H18 Steel later as I thought they
were too pale. The remaining painting was
straightforward, the wing walkways were
masked along with the nose anti-dazzle panel
and these were airbrushed in black with a
touch of white added to relieve the starkness.
Airix’s instructions suggest Olive Green for
the anti-dazzle panel but most of the photos in
the Mushroom book showed these to be black,
so I went with that. I next gave the model a
Issue 170 - http://www.modelairplaneinternational.com 431:48
The port wing had the gun bay hatches cut out and
replaced by the Eduard gun bay set. No details were
added at this stage, this was left till the end of the build
to save damaging the small parts.Though the fuselage closes up around the complex
interior well, there are some issues to attend to with the
seams. Its nothing that a bit of tiller and some sanding
cant fix thought.With the seams addressed, the cockpit was taped over
for now to prevent damage. Note the tail gear leg – this
unfortunately has to be fitted early on, it’s pretty sturdy
though.Wings assembled. The entire unit fits under the fuselage
and the fit is excellent with no work at all needed on the
upper wing to fuselage joins.A quick blitz on the construction sees most of the
remaining airframe parts fitted. Take care aligning the
tail wings, the offset fin makes it difficult to judge by
eye.