NAA P-51D-5 Fred Ohr

Steffen Arndt
So today I took some photos of my progress so far. As mentioned previously the cockpit is the hardest part on these projects, which costs a lot of time and motivation. This time I kept most of the plastic and added some PE here and there. Except for the instrument panel where I like the Eduard PE sandwich pretty much (photos when I have finished it). The Eduard cockpit is pretty nice oob and looks the part. The fit is "good" to "o.k.". You have to be careful to align the seat and the bracing that is glued to its back.
I really do not get the painting guide for the wheel bay (almost everything is labeled "silver" but is not consistent in shading on the drawings. In the end painted it mostly zinc cromate "yellow" as did Jan Nowotny on Eduards FB page. I intend to keep the main doors almost closed as in the picture of the real thing (still curious if the kit will allow that).

Nathan Dempsey
Great work so far. The wheel wells came out very nice.

Stefan Schacht
Hallo Steffen, nice start, i take a seat. Cheers Stefan

Steffen Arndt
Cheers Nathan and Stefan! Hope to get this project finished for our Show at Gatow .. .fingers crossed.

Steffen Arndt
I have added some pix of the central cockpit assembly. Nothing spectacular here. Just followed the instructions (more or less).

Steffen Arndt
Yesterday evening I closed everything up and glued wings and fuselage together. On the fuselage still are some join lines to fill and sand.
The fit of the wings to the fuselage is very very good. The upper part of the wheel bay is interlocking with the cockpit floor (pic 10). You can see a bright line at the lhs wing to fuselage join. This is a very small misalignment I did . It is over-emphasized by the light reflex and really no big deal (+ my mistake and no kit flaw).

Steffen Arndt
I completed the instrument panel with coaming. The picture does not do it juistice. It is really nice and much better than anything I could paint.

Steffen Arndt
This is how far I got until yesterday evening. I attached the tail planes and rudder as well as the ailerons. I also built the landing flaps, but I am still undecided if I should glue them on or paint them separately. Instrument panel and windshield were also glued on. As always I damaged the clear part but I will have to wait how much this effects the end result. For now I just masked it, so I do not have to see the flaw all the time...

Urban Gardini
The IP looks marvelous!

Steffen Arndt
Thanks Urban. I like it too but my photograph is rather bad.

Today I started paniting the thing. The wings were sprayed decanted TS 30 (Tamiya rattle can silver) and masked. The rest was primed X-18 semigloss black. I added another layer of X-22 as I wanted a shiny surface. (the pic was taken when the X-18 was still partly wet) ... next is AK Xtreme Metal Aluminum

Steffen Arndt
Aluminum is dry...

Steffen Arndt
Of course progress is rather slim during the week. I just got the panels around the exhausts painted dark aluminum yesterday and the tail airbrushed yellow today before the next steps I will give the whole model a gloss coat to protect everything done so far (tomorrow)

Steffen Arndt
Not much progress during the week, but I got the anti glare panel, red nose and yellow stripes painted. The right outboard strip got a big fingerprint which had to be removed and repainted which resulted in some thinner crawling under the masking tape and leaving somedamage. This still needs to be taken care of.
I am not sure what to do with the slightly different inboard stripes (one is a tad broader than the other) .. .I measured both several times but still gut this difference...

Steffen Arndt
I just took a photo (under artificail light) to better show the mistakes

Steffen Arndt
I have reworked the band and repaired the damaged paint job. It is interesting how the AK Xtreme Metal Aluminum ailerons and the TS-30 wings look the same color in this picture and totally different from other angles

Steffen Arndt
It is always surprising how much a dark wash improves the metal appearance on a model... I applied Tamiya Panel line wash dark grey and black on the fuselage and just dark grey on the tail

Steffen Arndt
Today I started applying the decals. Very good quality but that was expectable as I got a kit from the first batch with Cartograf decals ... I am really curious to try out the new Eduard laser printed decals

Steffen Arndt
In the past week I applied the many tiny and tiniest stencils. Numbering on the (small) stencil area is hilarious so you have to search for almost every bit. But one day you have them all on (or at least most ... I lost a few due to own mistakes). I sealed everything with a layer of Klear.

The I started to add all the remaining parts mainly undercarriage. The tail wheel leg was a difficult fit as there is no positive "klick" when it is in place I am still not sure if mine sits right. Furthermore the "fork" is a wobbly thing and it will break - for the moment I rest the tail on a piece of foam while I still handle the model. I hope Eduard will have a sturdy solution in the Bronze line...
I used the Brassin wheels as I prefer them over the kit parts. It is difficult to represent the diamond tread in a one piece plastic tyre...
Everything was finally sealed with a good layer of ultra smooth flat by Gunze. There are still some shiny spots when you look at the model from different angles but that is intentional. Still I do not believe in this ultra polished metal finish many modelers prefer on their models.

Still a bit to do (e.g. drop tanks) but I hope I can finish it for our show in Berlin Gatow at the weekend

Steffen Arndt
P.S. I found another picture of the original plane that shows distinct red overspray on the cuffs ... I had this panted separately so I did a touch up to replicate the real thing

Steffen Arndt
Here are two pix of the 99.9% finished model as shown on the IPMS show in Berlin-Gatow