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Ugly Mustang strip and rebuild, can it be rescued?


Jon H
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Yea nice. I came across that and a few like it earlier. They tick all the simplicity boxes and give me an option to try out some silver paint spraying as i will need that experience later for the Yellow Aircraft Spitfire XIV which is waiting its turn still. 

 

I should clarify a bit, its not the number of colours that is the real issue its all the masking. I have looked at a number of RAF camo schemes as they require little masking. Anything with loads of stripes on it need a bunch of masking....unless i go for WWII style invasion stripes and do them freehand. 

Edited by Jon - Laser Engines
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Yikes...chrome ? Looks good though and i could always do a simplified version. 

 

What i think i might do is see how the surface finish ends up. If its good i will probably go for an overall silver, if not then something less likely to expose any flaws in the structure. I am going to keep looking at options though  

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Silver (or any high gloss colour) are a nightmare for surface imperfection's so i am going to see how things work out. I have RAF colours in stock and can easily slap them on if i have to. An intermediate step might be a green mustang with a grey belly. Even if its not 100% scale, who is really going to care? 

 

But that is a long way off. I need to do my shopping this week so i have my materials in stock for the weekend. That said, the long range forecast for my field is looking half decent so i might try and get some air time instead. 

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  • 2 months later...

Been a while since an update so here we go. 

 

First off, i found the chap below sat in the corner of my parents garage. He has been there since his last mount, a Pica P40, bit the dust. After some time in the field hospital/garage he has been sent to a new squadron and fly a P51. Best of luck to him. 

 

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I have almost finished paint stripping the model with only the cowl left to finish off. While i was at it i have glued a wedge to the front of the cowl to cancel out the offset they put on it for right thrust. The angle was massive and there was no way to mount the engine any way other than straight so it had to go. 

 

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Next it was time to try and put the shattered remains of the various ribs back together. 

 

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After that i committed myself to the plan of filling the wing with expanding foam. The reason for this is that everything is so damaged that i need to glass the surface to help hold it all together. The problem is, there are big holes in the structure and the structure that is there is very fragile. I am also missing ribs in places as well. So i installed a tube for the servo wire and went wild with the foam. 

 

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Once dry this was cut/sanded back to the ribs i did have to give me a smooth and level surface to stick the bottom sheeting to. 

 

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This has made the wing feel extremely solid and i have far more faith in its integrity. The only downside is that it had added a fair bit of weight, more than i expected. Its not like the wing is a complete brick though and given the size of the model and the power that will be available i am not massively concerned. 

Edited by Jon - Laser Engines
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Check you guys out with your eagle eyes. 

 

I swiped the flux off my dad years ago and he had it for donkeys years before that. Its probably not allowed any more as every time you dip the iron into it everyone within a mile radius gets cancer. Its certainly very good though! 

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7 minutes ago, Jon - Laser Engines said:

Check you guys out with your eagle eyes. 

 

I swiped the flux off my dad years ago and he had it for donkeys years before that. Its probably not allowed any more as every time you dip the iron into it everyone within a mile radius gets cancer. Its certainly very good though! 

If my memory is good we used to mix acid with some shavings from a boat anode,,,

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Having mounted the engine to the front of the mustang I decided to see how she looks. All in all, not bad I don't think. Had a weigh in and she's 12.5lbs as is. That's the airframe, retracts, pilot and engine installed. I think I should be able to finish it for 16lbs...Maybe? It's a bit fat but not the end of the world and similar to the pica p40 I had at 15.5. If weight is a big issue I can always use a lighter pilot and I may remove some of the foam but I doubt this will change much. 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok we are back after another day of work on the worlds ugliest P51..

 

Well, it was. Its actually starting to show signs of becoming a swan now that the bottom surface of the wing is back together. 

 

I started by sheeting the back half of the wing over the expanding foam filler. I put a smear of pva glue on the foam to help hold the sheets and cyano on all the wood to wood contact. This went very well and i then proceeded to the front end. 

 

This meant i needed to make some dummy ribs over the wheel wells to hold everything in place during construction. These will be chopped out when the wheel wells are cut.

 

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Once finished, permagrit block sanded, lightly filled and finish sanded it looked rather smart. Its a bit of a mosaic pattern as i will be glassing it anyway and i didnt see the point in using all my good balsa so some of it ended up a bit of a patchwork. The balsa i used was all scrap bought at wings and wheels years ago from slec as a bargain bundle. There were issues like poor finish, thickness variation etc but for my purposes it was just fine. 

 

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With the sheeting in place i did a flex test as the wing has been pretty wobbly up to this point. To my delight the thing is now tough as nails so hopefully it will not fall to bits first time out.

 

Then, the glass

 

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Once the top is glassed i can finally tidy up and get ready for painting. In order to spend as little as possible my La7 will surrender its spinner for the project and my as yet unbuilt DB Spitfire will donate its spare spinner to the La7. This will all be after the maiden flight as i will use a more disposable spinner for that just in case. 

 

 

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Not sure yet. I may use up some of my supply of solarlac silver as a test for its potential use on my yellow aircraft spitfire a little later on. I have some spectrum paints i could use for the green areas. Once i finally make up my mind on a paint job i can get into it in a little more detail

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  • 1 month later...

Another long delay but i have been off work this week so have been getting into my model work. First off my La7 got its retracts repaired and reinstalled, then i chased down a problem with the ailerons, then repaired the tail wheel and finally adjusted the tension in the rudder cables. 

 

With that done my attention turned back onto the mustang. 

 

I have been working on it in the background for some time and a fair bit of progress has been made. 

 

First, the wings were sprayed down with primer and rubbed back. They are ok but need loads more work to be paint ready so my intention is to film cover the wings as its simply not worth the effort or expense to get them to a paint ready finish. 

 

Next was the cowl. It had so many holes in it but they have all been patched in my normal way. Cut a balsa fill for the hole and cyano it in place. Sand to match the cowl, glass inside and out, fill, sand, prime, sand..etc. The result was better than expected. 

 

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Next it was the usual. A cutout made in the wing to clear the fuel tanks. 

This was a real pain as my retract servo was in the way and the length of the engine moving the firewall aft further limited my tank choice. 12oz total will have to do. If its not enough i do have another plan...

 

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Cooling was next. For this i decided to use a cereal box to make card templates before cutting the real parts out of something less rudimentary. This went out of the window as the card was doing a great job and bent in all the right ways. Once its plastered with glass resin and painted with black engine enamel i am sure its humble roots will not be apparent. 

 

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this one is fuzzy. autofocus says no. 

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onwards ever onwards

 

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Oh i also fitted the dummy rudder horn balance and a retracting tail wheel but cant find the photos on my phone. 

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