Vexillum Militaris - North American P-51K Mustang Mk IVa

Supposed to be a quick build, and I guess for me it is. Second one in a year! Another ‘lockdown’ build during 2020.

This is the Airfix P-51K Mk IV Mustang – the Dooleybird boxing. It’s also my first Natural Metal Finish (NMF) attempt.

I chose a NMF RAF Mustang, other that Dooleybird to test my NMF skills. The model represents a Mk IVa from 93 Squadron based in Italy in 1946. From my research the squadron only had the Mustang for a very short time and post war, about a year from the end of the war, so I kept the weathering down, a bit i.e. no extreme gun port smoke/oil as there’d be far less combat at this time.

The mode is OOB (Out Of the Box – no modifications or aftermarket parts) – I only added the radio aerial which I’m not sure was fitted (by this time Spitfires radios no longer needed the ‘clothes line’ aerial having it embedded in the mast), and new decals from Xtradecal, sheet X48176.

I used a mix of Alclad2, mostly Polished Aluminium for most of the airframe. There are patches of darker Alclad2 around the exhausts and over the ammunition compartments, and the leading edge/front half of the wings have been painted in Tamiya’s LP-11. Again, like my Hunter F6, I struggled with the final top coat opting to use Tamiya’s X-22 with some rubbing down.

Generally not that happy – my last two builds have been difficult and have been lacking in the final result based on my hopes. But hay, I now know that LP-11 will be my paint of choice for a High Speed Silver Meatbox.