Hasegawa 1/32 P-51D Mustang
By Chris Sherland
Hasegawa 1/32 P-51D Mustang
as "Old Crow" of Clarence "Bud" Anderson
363rd FS 357th FG 8th USAAF Lieston, UK, 1944
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The old 1/32 Hasegawa Mustang kit shows it's age and is not engineered as well as some of the newer kits from Hasegawa. It has no real shape problems but suffers from a lack of detail in the cockpit and wheel wells, as well as having a pretty bad fit on the cowling due to poor engineering of the way the engine parts fit inside and attach to the cowling itself.
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Much work was done on the cowling after the engine was sealed inside forever. The entire aircraft was treated to a "riveting" using a custom pounce wheel called "Rosie the Riveter" from the Czech Republic. Some of that detail can be seen here as well as the heavy sanding that the cowling needed.
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The natural metal finish on this bird was done with a "poor man's" method that is probably considered by the "experts" as being quite silly. I painted the entire model with enamel semi gloss black from the old rattle can, then used the wax-based product "Rub 'N Buff" that is designed for antiquing. It looks quite nice to me, and cost about $1.29 in materials!
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Moskit exhausts were used from Russia. These are super high quality very thin metal parts that are far and away the best after market exhaust products I have ever seen.
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The Verlinden cockpit set was used with great results. A fine set. Here it is before the fuselage was sealed up.
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The decals came from the Clarence "Bud" Anderson website and were of remarkable quality.
Other paints were Polyscale Acrylics shot through a Badger 150 with the medium needle and tip at about 12-15 PSI.
Weathering was done with artist oils in Burnt Umber and Black washes of various thickness. Some paint chipping was done with a fine tip brush and Testor's aluminum metalizer paint. Future floor wax cut at 50% with Isopropyl alcohol was used pre- and post-decalling, and again to seal the oil washes. Polyscale flat coat was then mixed with 2% Polyscale flat white and used to seal the anti glare panel, nose checkers, and spinner. This was misted on and then buffed out with a polishing rag.
Brass tubing was cut and attached for the .50 cal barrels.
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The model was photographed with a 2.1 MP Olympus C-2040ZOOM digital camera mounted on a tripod, outside in the shade on a sunny Texas morning sitting on a sheet of old black contact paper. No lights were used.
© 2005 Chris Sherland
This article was published on Friday, September 27 2013; Last modified on Saturday, May 14 2016