Trumpeter's 1/24 P-51D Mustang: "Nooky Booky II" Part 1

By Rodney Williams

Part 1: "The Wing"

I read lots of stories about "OOB" models, (Out-of-the-Box). What does this really mean? Here are the IPMS/USA-2006 "OOB" rules, which was published "online," for the National Convention that was held in Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.A.

I printed out 43 pages so I could get re-acquainted with the overall picture as I dropped out of IPMS/USA back in 1999 after being a member since 1984.

I read everything as I especially wanted to help out as a National Judge again! You say what? You want to be a "judge.....AGAIN." You got to be crazy!

Let me tell you this, if you want to become a better modeler, then be a judge at the local, regional and national level, then you can become a "master modeler" like me, and have over 200 awards hanging up on your model room wall..............!

Here are the "OOB" rules and/or guidelines!

III. Special Categories

1. OUT-OF-THE-BOX entries will be governed by the following rules.

A. KITS:

Any commercially available kit may be used.

The number of categories incorporating Out-of-the-Box awards will be determined by the Host Chapter and the National Contest Committee.

B. FINISH.

All finishing techniques are allowed.
Decals other than those included with the kit may be used.
Insignia, markings, and instrument panels may be hand-painted instead of decaled. Weathering is permitted.

C. CONSTRUCTION:

The modeler may fill seams, and gaps.
He can sand off rivets.
Drill out gun ports; exhaust pipes, or other appropriate openings.
Thin to scale such parts as trailing edges, flaps and doors.
Add rigging and antennas.
Add simple tape or decal seat belts in the cockpit of an aircraft or the interior of a vehicle.

(NO commercial or modeler-manufactured hardware -e.g.; buckles, etc).

D. IT IS NOT PERMITTED TO:

Vacuform, manufacture, or replace any part, or substitute parts from another kit.
Cut or separated canopies, surfaces from another kit.

******* (NO MAJOR SURGERY) *******

The modeler can not combine a standard kit with a conversion kit.
Nor add anything other than specified on the instruction sheet except as shown in Section C above.

E. INSTRUCTION SHEET:

Modelers must attach the kit instructions sheet to the entry form.
Models entered without an attached kit instruction sheet will not be considered for an "Out-of-the-Box" Award.

AUTHORS NOTE

A decade or so ago we did away with the rule that the modeler has to supply the kit instruction sheet with his "OOB" model.

THE MAIN REASON WAS:
A "NON MEMBER" modeler comes to an IPMS/USA National CONVENTION, And wants to enter their model(s).

If the modeler is not an IPMS/USA National Member, (including any foreign country affiliate) he/she must join up.

The modeler reads all the entry rules and wants to enter their model(s), in the "OOB" category...........but he/she is not aware of the "OOB" rules.

Without the models instruction sheet, the modeler is out of luck and can not enter any model in the "OOB" category.

Secondly, we judges are so busy judging,(that most of the time) we do not read the kits instructions.

You will note that the "OOB" rules are geared mainly towards aircraft. It does mention vehicles, but the rules do not go into detail for said subject, let alone ships, and many other National Categories.

NOW LET'S BUILD THIS "BIG" P-51D MUSTANG!

PLEASE STUDY THESE 3 BLACK & WHITE PHOTOS

(I will refer to them from time to time in my 3 stories!)

The kit wings are big and they were wrapped. Funny, but one wing bent up, while the other one was on a downward curve. I taped the two top wing sections to the bottom one piece wing section, and got a surprise after I dry fit the wing to the pre-taped fuselage. From a front view, the model looked like a bird that was flapping his/her wings. Does the above “OOB” rule let the modeler build in a wing spar like I did? (No Major Surgery).

In my 29 years of model building I have never built a model with the gun bays opened.
(IT WAS TIME TO JUST DO IT)

Trumpeter did a fine job on making all the parts. Oh yes! There were some punch marks to fix, but they are on every model, so don't complain about them.......just fix 'em. Trumpeter was short a few bullets.

Well I like the end results, and that's what counts.On final assembly I will adhere one door on each wing in its' open position, while the other 2 door's just lay on the wings any place.

After the painting was finished for the guns bays,I glued in the nicely molded one piece wheel well, which is not 100% accurate, but it's better than none. The P-51 wheel wells are full of everything you can think of.

(See my 1/24 Airfix P-51D "Dallas Doll", (D.D.) model on this web site).

The 2 top wing sections were glued to the one piece bottom wing section. The built-in brass/styrene "spar" took out about 95% of the warped wing. We now have a finished slightly bent wing bird from a front view. However, just look at the model from the top and you will never see the warp.

I had planned to use the 108 gal paper drop tanks, so I needed to revise the kit's pylon braces. To refresh my memory, I went and looked at my pylons that I made for "D.D."

The finished wing was coated with my old stand-by, "Tamiya's Black Paint Wash". The wing was fitted to the fuselage again, just to make sure everything was A-OK! I started to sand off the wash and when I was finished doing that it was time to check for any missing panel lines that has to be re-scribed in, including the replacement of any of:

"Trumpeter's Oversized Recessed Rivets".

An impossible task!

As all of you know, none of the rivets were recessed on the P-51, so why did Trumpeter recess them?

One of the black and white photos showed a dark color on top of the left wing. We "assume" that this color was "O.D." One of the other photos showed the underside of the wing and fuselage, which seemed to be B.M. (bare metal)

Since this aircraft looked extremely dirty, I did not want any shine on my B.M. paint application. I usually use "SnJ" Bare Metal Aluminum paint. However, this time, I used Tamiya’s XF-16 Flat Aluminum paint. I sprayed on the aluminum on the bottom of the wing, and then it was rubbed down with some cotton balls. The aluminum paint looked somewhat like my prop alignment jig, (see the jig in Part 2) which has a dull oxidized aluminum looking effect to it. Again,I liked what I saw, and that's what counts.

WEATHERING YOUR MODEL

Weathering is in the eyes of the beholder.

The modeler has the choice to apply one to a hundred or more "KILL" marks on his/her model, then finish the model with a "factory fresh" paint job. Or he/she can just weather the heck out of it and make it real dirty. A "competent" Local, Regional and/or National Judge, judges the weathering by:

"How well the weathering was applied."

And not by: "Does the model have To Little or Too Much weathering on it?

I applied Tamiya's O.D. paint to both top wing sections, and rubbed down the paint with more cotton balls. My rub down method gets rid of any over spray and leaves the paint with a low semi-shine to the finish. I mask off the wings, and then applied the white and black invasion stripes, which of course was rubbed down.

I made my own frisket film stencils for the wing insignias. The first mask let's me paint on my own insignia blue mix, which gets the rub down as well. After an hour of so, I carefully apply the second "pre-cut" stencil and air brush on the white.

The wing is finished, and it is sent to my inspection department. The inspector starts checking out the wing, by using a check list of items. If the wing fails only one test, then it's sent back to the work bench.

This so called list of mine says:

Are all the seams filled?
Are there any sink marks showing?
What about rivets, panel lines?
Are there any alignment problems, especially with the insignias?
And last, but not least, is the paint applied properly.

It passed inspection.

WHAT DO YOU SEE WRONG WITH THE TOP OF THE LEFT WING?
GO LOOK AT THE 3RD BLACK AND WHITE PHOTO.
HOW MANY WHITE AND BLACK INVASION STRIPES DO YOU SEE?
THEN ASK ME WHY DID I PAINT ONLY ONE WHITE STRIPE ON TOP OF THE LEFT WING?

MY ANSWER WILL BE AT THE END OF PART 3!

Part II will give you a "birds-eye" view of the cockpit, and many other items concerning the fuselage.

Happy Modeling