J 26 Mustang, Swedish Air Force - Airfix

The same tiny red box as the Spitfire. 

Side opening box, which is a bit of a pity - I like those lid opening boxes where you can store your assemblies during the build phase. 

One colorful US Air Force version is provided - but it is not the one I intend to build. 

The decals look really well printed - Airfix are doing a great job with these recent kits. 

But instead I bought this decal sheet from Moose Republic, printed by Cartograph, to build the Swedish "Blue Niklas", the fastest Mustang in the Swedish Air Force. It was painted in a test camouflage of olive green top sides and blue gray bottom. The paint became extremely faded and worn after a short while - that should be fun! 

Fret 1 - fuselage. 

Fret 2 - wings 

Fret 3 - transparencies. They look reasonably clean and without serious warping, but pretty thick. Two canopies are provided, make sure to pick the correct one! It can also be posed open if you wish. 

Deep panel lines that should survive even a ham-fisted brush painter. But for a more delicate airbrush work, they are a bit too trench-like for my liking. 

A wee bit of flash, but nothing alarming. The surface looks kind of uneven and rough in the photo, but it is not nearly as bad in real life. 

The cockpit wall details are pretty simplified. If want to have the canopy open, you might consider doing something about it. I am not sure yet, I might add some scratch build stuff, but we shall see. 

Separate flaps that can be added in an extended position, that's pretty unusual for a level 1 model kit! 

The standard Airfix morning newspaper-style of instructions. A bit annoying format, but not the end of the world. 

Very, very easy to follow instructions. A few cuts will need to be done here and there and also some holes drilled if you want to add the external fuel tanks, but it's all pretty simple. 

Not going to do a lot of third-party additions, but a PE dashboard is a must. I love these. I will probably also add some generic PE seatbelts from the stash. 

I just love using precut masks, they make life so much easier. 

Resin exhaust stacks. My local shop had these on the shelf, so I couldn't resist picking them up. They are intended for the Tamiya kit, but might fit the Airfix as well, we shall soon see. 

Starting to paint the cockpit. I added some support braces to the seat from styrene strips and seatbelts from the Eduard WW2 seat belt collection. The dashboard is from Yahu and is excellent - it even has the glass on the gauges. The joystick cannot be removed from the fret without breaking, so its shaft was replaced with a thin aluminium rod. 

Cockpit assembled and slightly weathered. Then gun sight is still missing and will be added later, also the wires on the battery pack. The Swedish J 26 had a luggage shelf behind the cockåpit, but that is not represented in this kit and I couldn't bother trying to reproduce it. 

The cooling radiator grill mesh is enhanced with some black Tamiya Panel Liner. Remember to remove the extra locator pins if you intend to pose the radiator cowling in an extended position. 

Dry fitting shows that the fuselage halves are pretty warped. Surprising for such a new kit. 

Some brute force is required to hold the halves together while the cement cures. I join the fuselage halves section by section, clamping them together as I go. I am using a cloth to protect the surface from any marks from the clamps. 

With a little effort, the fuselage is now in one piece. No gaps or steps, although some sanding will be needed to fully unify the halves. If you want to pose the canopy open (which I haven't decided on yet), I would recommend leaving off the seat and joystick after painting as it is easier to mask off the cockpit without them.  

You need to drill out the marked 1.0 mm holes for the underwing tanks if you want to use them. I have not yet found a single photo of a J 26 with underwing tanks, but the pylons are there anyway. 

I padded the insides of the upper part of the wings with some styrene sheets to avoid a step where the top wing half "sinks into" the recess on the bottom half. Note the three gun barrels - this is so far the only detail on this kit with a poor molding. Also if not fixed, the barrels will cause some fit issues with the top and bottom wing halves. Before joining the wing halves, I will cut off the barrels, keeping the fairings only, and will be replacing the barrels later. 

The wing top sides are attached to the bottom. 

The fit of the wings to the fuselage is so tight that it would stay in place even without cement. No need for any filler anywhere. 

I cut off the molded gun barrels, drilled holes in the front of the fairings and used the Air Master Series brass gun barrels. Not sure it's worth it though as they are too small in this scale to make any real difference. I might as well have used tiny pieces of alu pipes instead. 

The model can be posed with flaps either raised or extended, which is quite unusual for such a simple kit. There are different parts for both cases, so make sure to pick the right one for your choice. 

Flaps extended of course - looks much cooler. Just a drop of Revell liquid cement on the tabs is enough. 

I did not use the resin exhaust stacks as they did not fit quite as well as the kit's part. But I drilled open the exhausts with a 0.4 mm drill bit for some interest. 

Stabilizers added and also the rudder, slightly offset to add a bit more life. The fit is flawless. 

The separate intake lip of the cooler duct had some flash and molding damage on the sprue where the plastic was actually missing and had to be repaired with molten styrene (the darker spot in the photo). 

The tail gear is nicely detailed, but the provided bay doors are too thick and I could not cement them in position nicely, so instead I fabricated my own ones from some styrene strips and rods. Artistic license and stuff. 

Windshield and canopy joined using acrylic adhesive (Gator's Grip Thin Blend). I decided to display the canopy in closed position as it suits the sleek shape of the Mustang much better this way. The tiny gaps around the canopy are filled with Microscale Micro Kristal Klear. 

Transparencies masked off with Eduard flexible mask and masking fluid.  

Finally all surfaces rubbed off with isopropanol alcohol and cotton swabs to remove fingerprints and handling grease that could interfere with the primer sticking to the plastic. 

Primed with UMP Ultimate Primer gray using my H&S Evolution airbrush. The landing gears will be added after painting as I think they are too fragile and are prone to breaking. 

Now let the primer cure for a day before continuing. 

Panel lines traced with black paint for a pre-shading effect before the actual paint layers. 

Underside sprayed with my mixture of Tamiya XF-19 Sky Gray and XF-23 Light Blue. Thinned with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner and applied with my H&S Infinity, 0.2 mm needle at 12 PSI. It almost feels wrong to paint a Mustang in anything but silver, but camo it shall be. 

Landing gear bays masked off with Tamiya masking tape ... 

... and sprayed green. It will later be washed and weathered. 

Underside being masked off. 

Top surfaces sprayed with Tamiya XF-65 Field Gray, which oddly enough seems to me like a near perfect match for the sun-faded Swedish test camo. I deliberately let a bit more of the underlying pre-shading shine through as the green paint faded extremely quickly. The panels lines will later also be treated with a brownish wash. 

While the fuselage dries, the tips of the propeller blades are sprayed white as base and then yellow. Without the white base, the yellow color would look much too subdued. Some people advocate pink color as base, but I am sticking to white. 

The spinner is sprayed glossy light blue (Tamiya X-14 Sky Blue) 

The yellow propeller tips are carefully masked off and the propeller is then sprayed grayish black (Tamiya XF-85 Rubber Black) as pure black would be too stark. 

Model coated with Tamiya X-22 Clear Gloss, thinned with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner and then oversprayed with pure Leveling Thinner to further melt the gloss coat to a near mirror finish. The model is then put aside for a few days as the surface is a bit sticky and prone to collect fingerprints until the varnish is fully cured. It looks a bit toy-like now, but after decaling, the surfaces will be restored to a semi-gloss sheen. 

Starting to add the decals. They are a bit thick but beautifully printed and conform nicely to the panel lines with some softening solutions. 

Applying some weathering to the surfaces with various AKI Paneliners and 502 Abteilung oil paints, diluted with AKI Odorless Thinner (Turpenoid). 

More weathering applied with pastels and oils to give the model a slightly worn and dirty look. Finally coated with Tamiya XF-86 Flat Clear to seal in the paint and make the finish look a but dull. Now only the landing gears and some antennas remain. 

And hereby I declare the project finished! 

Finished 

Finished 

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Finished