Hasegawa

P-51D "Mustang" Fighter Eggplane

Kit Number: 60117

Reviewed by  John R. Lee, IPMS# 11172

MSRP: $15.98 Kit supplied by Dragon Models USA: Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com The kit comes in a sturdy top opening box - great for holding the parts as you work on the model. There are thirty-one light Gray parts and a one crystal clear canopy and windscreen with rather nice framing that it made it easy to mask with Tamiya tape for the Mustang and a colorful decal sheet with two schemes. On the instruction sheet the painting instructions for the pilot called for his goggles to be painted clear. I thought that the goggles would have clear glass and that the color of his leather helmet would show through. So in the end I painted the glass area the same color as the helmet with a coating of clear gloss to simulate glass and I think it looks ok - check out the close up of the pilot in the cockpit.

Now let's get on with the build. I used Tamiya's extra thin glue that causes the plastic to melt and will fill small seams/gaps in the plastic parts. What little filling that was needed I used Mr. Surfacer 1000 as it polishes out very smooth. As I was going to do the Natural Metal scheme with the Green stripes with black borders I checked the fit of the parts and with just minor adjustments they fit well enough that I was able to paint all of the parts before final assembly. After I got the fuselage together I painted the cockpit area Model Master Interior Green not the Khaki Green called for as it looks better to me. I masked the cockpit area to protect it and then painted the area for the OD antiglare in front of the cockpit with Model Master's Olive Drab. When dry I masked the OD area and we're ready to do the main "Silver" color. As the wings on the real "Mustangs" were painted an Aluminum color I chose to paint them with Model Master's Non-Buffing Aluminum enamel paint along with the landing gear and the inside of the gear doors. I then painted all of the remaining parts and the outside of the gear doors with Model Master's Buffing Aluminum and after a few minutes I polished the parts to a high luster with a piece of flannel from an old pair of jammies. From this point on I handled the parts with cotton photo gloves. Next I painted the prop tips Yellow and after a couple of days masked off the tips. I also painted the separate spinner Testors Gloss Green, from the little square bottle, and let it dry for a couple of days also. I used Model Master Interior Black for the rest of the prop and when dry I removed the masking from the Yellow tips and airbrushed on a couple of coats of clear in preparation for the decals. The decal sheet has the prop logos and Yellow decals for the base of the blades. The problem with the Yellow stencils was that the Yellow wasn't dense enough and they just kind of disappeared on the Black of the prop blades. So I dug into my stock of decals and came up with a decal sheet that I bought from IPMS - Spruce Goose back in 1995 according to the postmark on the envelope that had both Yellow and White stencils on it and they solved the problem. I next took the Green painted spinner and where the markings and painting instruction called for Silver, I have wanted to try the Bare Metal Foil product of which I had acquired several sheets. This seemed to be the perfect trial spot and it went on very easy and to me at least looks nice. I then applied the Black stripe decal to the spinner and with a lot of pushing and shoving it gave up and finally went into place. As noted above, the wings and tail planes fit very well, so I decided to decal the wings and tail surfaces before gluing them to the fuselage. I next applied the decals. As opposed to the F-14 decals that rolled up on me when I trimmed them I was able to trim these decals and they went down with no trouble at all. They fit the model quite well and look good. This is the first model that I have ever built that the decal sheet included decals for the eyes and eyebrows for the pilot, a little large but effective. After the decals dried I cleaned up the excess decal glue and residual Micro Scale softening agents. I now added the decaled wings and tail surfaces to fuselage. I added the landing gear and the very nice pilot. There was a hole in the cockpit area to locate the pilot but it was so far forward it sort of shoved the pilot's face into the instrument panel. So I drilled a hole 7/64th of an inch further back and he looks much better in the new location. Lastly the canopy was set in place and it didn't even require glue as it fit so well. All in all another fun build. My thanks to IPMS/USA and Dragon Models USA for the kit and a great addition to my model shelf.