357th FG Model Gallery

Anyone who builds in this scale knows that this is the only kit worth building of the P-51. It still has the best outline of the type and by adding a few extras that I will explain here in the text, it turns out very nice. These dies are starting to show their age though, the fit in some areas is getting a little rough,thank god for Tenax-7 and Krazy glue. The cowling area always left something to be desired with this thing, with a little filing you can get a decent fit. To finish it out though it requires some sanding and re-scribing of the cowling area panel lines. I center drilled the exhaust pipes with a pin-vise to make them look more realistic.

I decided to model an early D model of the Mustang, these P-51's were delivered minus the dorsal fin that was later added to the vertical stabilizer. This is a pretty simple conversion. I decided to remove the dorsal fin before assembling the fuselage, just seemed like it would be less work. I added some sheet styrene to the holes it left and sanded them to the right shape after I had the fuselage all put together. Some of the other work I did to the fuselage was I tossed out the kit radiator and scratch built a new one out of sheet styrene and some scale brass screen, sorry, don't have a pic of it for you! I also added the splitter to the radiator intake. I also pretty much scratch-built the whole cockpit interior. I only used the floorboard and the seat back and headrest from the kit, the rest I whittled and filed out of plastic and used the Waldron P-51 placard set to finish out the side panels, throttle quadrant, radio, etc. I'm really sold on the Waldron stuff, they make a great product. I also used their instruments and bezels to scratch-build the Instrument panel.

Next came the wing. Before any assembly I cut out the flaps and of course tossed them in the spare plastic box( the trash can). I replaced the flaps with a pair of Paragon resin flaps, its a nice flap set but they are not quite long enough at the large end of the flap( the wing root). You need to add about 3/32 of plastic to the large end and file it to shape, when that's all done they will fit nicely into the flap recess that was cut out from the wing. I also drilled out the gun ports with a pin vise and added some brass tubing to better simulate the guns.

Now is what I call the fun part of my modeling, the color scheme and the painting and decaling. I chose to model a 357th F.G., 8th AF Mustang flown by Arval Roberson, "Passion Wagon". I've always thought this was one of the most colorful P-51's in the whole 8th AF. There was no nose art decals for this a/c at the time so I hand painted the figure and the scrolling onto clear decal paper and applied it to the model. The 357th for some reason did not use the standard US issue Olive Drab for the upper camouflage , but instead used the much greener British camouflage green over standard US neutral grey. I used Testor Modelmaster colors for these. Next was finding the right squadron codes and serial numbers. Well who else but Mike Grant had come up with a set of these, this guy does some great decal work so if you like to model 357th Mustangs in this scale Mike has some real cool decals to choose from. To finish out the model I added the extra fuel tanks and some resin after market tires. If you look real close at the extra fuel tanks you can see piping running from the fuel tank into the wing. Steve Negley.

P-51D "Passion Wagon" built by Phil Marchese

Capt. Chuck Weaver`s P51 Passion Wagon by Les Wells

Another view of Les Wells awesome model.

"Mr Period" built by Tom Goodwin

View Tom's Display on Web Shots