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In the mid-1980's I bought a
racing book. It had a P-51D Mustang displayed in the book. The
photos were black and white. The caption said it was painted all white,
with look-alike black "Zebra" stripes. The plane caught my
fancy, and one day down the road, I was going to build it. And build it
I did !!!!!!!
I used the Hasegawa 1/32 scale
kit. I built it almost "out of the box;" except for the prop
blades, and a few minor revisions.
Since it's been over 15-years,
this will be a "more-or-less" photo story.
| I used the kit's cockpit, and
scratch-built the instrument panel, from a black and white photo. The
owner, "Mr. Ed Weiner;" had changed it to meet some of the
"then" present day instruments; (1966 & 1967).
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| I did not do any revisions on the
main landing gear wheel wells. However, I did spruce-up the gears by
adding some parts, and making new gear doors.
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| The fuselage, tail plane and wing
sections went together just fine. However, one day Matt Matsushita came
over to look at it, as it was almost ready to paint. Matt took a good
look at it and said !! "Rodney, what are you going to do about the
"warp" in the aft section of the fuselage?" I was stunned
!!! When I looked down the "center-line," from the spinner to
the verticle fin-rudder, it had a bad curve towards the left side ! I
had no answer ! So Matt said you have to saw 1/2 through the left side
of the fuselage, aft of the cockpit, and stick in maybe .015" to
.030" thick styrene sheeting . Well I did just that, but it still
had that darn warp in it, so I cut aft of the first application and inserted
more styrene. This solved the problem, so I thought. This made the
left "elevator," out of "alignment." I then cut through
the elevator, and part of the stablizer, and inserted some round rod.
Can't remember what diameter the rod was, but maybe .020" / .030"
diameter. Anyways, this method solved my alignment problem.
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| The spinner was revised, and I
crafted the prop blades, using the blades from the 1/32 scale Hasegawa
F6F-3/5 kit.
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| I added a rear deck, aft of the cockpit for the canopy
track. I 'really don't know if they did this to the real aircraft !
They did remove the WW-II radio, etc.
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Rodney
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"HI TIME-II" A RENO
AIR RACER" 1/32 Hasegawa P-51D part 2
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1/32 Hasegawa
P-51D "HI
TIME-II" A Reno Air Racer" Part Three
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