Whoever said “Box art doesn’t sell” obviously has never laid eyes on this particular box. Because it absolutely made me pull the kit off the shelf at Frontline Hobbies in Newcastle NSW and march straight to the checkout.

Prior to this, a few friends experience with building the Eduard Mustang had left me with the impression it was one of Eduard’s more fiddly kits to assemble. That and the fact there were a few 1/32 examples of the Mustang resting in the stash made me slightly ambivalent about building the Eduard 1/48 example.

Construction

There is certainly some merit in the suggestion, the better the kit, the better the result will be. Of course a decent result can be achieved from any kit, but when, say, talking about the Walrus I did earlier in the year, far more effort is required to deliver a good result as opposed to a newer tooled kit like this Eduard kit. From opening the box to applying the final navigation light took me about a fortnight, it would have been less if I had not diverted some effort into filling the wing panel lines to represent the puttied wing joins of the Mustang’s laminar flow wing. Initially this seemed like a simple task, super glue being flowed into all the lines with a toothpick. In fact I was congratulating myself on my fast work and how easy this simple task had been.

Until the first coat of primer revealed a few infuriatingly still visible panel lines. These stubbornly remained so despite 2 other filling and sanding sessions. They finally disappeared when medium super glue was used instead of the thin CA that had previously been used.

The rest of the model assembled flawlessly, with very few fit issues, although part PE42 left me perplexed. It appearing far too small and having no real locator of any substance, It wouldn’t surprise me if there is a larger plastic piece in Weekend Edition boxings

Ensure also that you sand flat any burrs or glue globs off the top of the assembled wheel well top and bottom before sandwiching it between the wing halves. talking about the wheel wells, John Colasante from Matters of Scale FB page and PPP Podcast fame has generously shared a mask set he created for painting the spars Yellow Zinc Chromate , if you want to finish your well this way.

Download is here https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdrive.google.com%2Ffile%2Fd%2F1_YhMnMfNkFKw5rmcnJnBeAj5_50ol1pn%2Fview%3Fusp%3Dsharing%26fbclid%3DIwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0qu-N6dP3icPgdzLQSvrnG57iiswOR74Mj3EGm1xqwj8IIM2nq5VdSCd8_aem_o4kzKpw0kSuFAi7NWiVYYw&h=AT3evXFZRQLjhfcgPEo_QMAZkIQJOXXKapXGveyzuhWuLvYF6DEZHIQXvvDB_Nkv4ONbbYu9WaeYNhREejFgU7DeC4hxFmBzu40k4FlY6nnaBi9lbdbJ3a_ufUCqUFR2E3j_ag4&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT12ShwH-ekLdtqAN0q6n7vwcTOyXALRjvAl7585CMtWeF4k3TCOKjMNAnQuUGE_WDYITGq-GvFQNXhbf8YRCEIhBGR2VbWJv_5fhdZpXxVkQYMfHIZQH_HMrCHm66ocDise3DSDbhmQtQF9c3UUyukbKenF5HkUemHw85N4hDgDZWCbYbeX2QZC238qaYk. And I highly recommend having a look around John’s page at his fabulous work whilst you are there.

The tailplane was also a little bit of a loose fit on mine. Another fit issue I had was the spinner halves. A dry fit without the blades gave a nice tight fit, with the blades………. Not So Much, with a gap between the front and back of the spinner.

Leading me to assume the prop hub was the issue. To resolve this, the blades were cut from the hub and inserted once the spinner halves had joined. I have seen no other mention of this issue in any other build blogs, so maybe it was something I had done. On my next Eduard Mustang, I will shave the little boss moulded onto the spinner backplate that you glue the hub to, and see if this also resolves the problem.

These niggles aside, the model flew together. The Mustang, does suffer from the Achilles Heel of all Eduard kits, in that the location tabs for all control surfaces and undercarriage legs are weak and poorly engineered..

Eduard also deserves a smack on the arse for the very poor attachment points on the ordnance and pylons and having the modeller assemble PE sway braces for the stores. This is just silly.

Painting and Decalling

One of the prime aims with this was to simulate a worn natural metal finish. To this end all parts of the aircraft that were left unpainted are primed with Mr Surfacer black, the wings having previously being primed with Mr Surfacer Grey, then sprayed with Tamiya LP11 before being masked. The Black primer was then rubbed down to remove any irregularities. The next stage was to apply a light grey random mottle through a splatter mask. Alclad’s Polished Aluminium was then sprayed followed by Alclad Hi Speed silver , this time through a very fine splatter mask. I have seen people use a torn piece of of teased out scotchbrite pad to achieve the same effect. Alclad white Aluminium was then sprayed, again through a fine spatter mask to leave me with a variegated silver finish, which is exactly what I was after.

The red nose was sprayed by way of upscaling the Eduard paint instructions to the actual kit size, then cutting a template from the painting guide. To do this measure the kit fuselage and then the drawing fuselage size. It’s then a simple matter of dividing the kit part measurement by the drawing measurement. In this case it was 1.16, so the drawing was enlarged by 116%. Instead of using the kit red rudder border decals, I cut a mask on my silhouette machine and sprayed it. The anti glare panel was SMS OD lightened with middle stone. The panel immediately in front of the windscreen was left in neat OD to suggest a replacement panel.

The model was then clear coated with Alclad AquaGloss to prepare for the wash, in this instance Tamiya Dark Grey panel Line accent. However wiping this off with odourless thinners also removed some of the red and Alclad Polished metal. Not sure what the underlying cause of this was. Polished Aluminium is notorious for its fragility, but I thought the clear coat would protect it. Either way, the damage was repaired and the Polished Metal binned. I’ve amassed quite a selection of different branded paints over the years, but these days the ones that don’t consistently perform get binned rather than getting pushed to the back of the drawer.

Eduard’s decals performed magnificently, being bedded down between Micro Set and Micro Sol. The carrier film was removed with nil damage to the underlying decals. The decals then being sealed with another coat of Aquagloss.

As one would hope, the resin 108 gallon drop tanks are far superior to the kit provided ones, being one piece with better defined detail. Although Eduard provides the PE fuel lines, I decided to complicate things by making my own from thin copper wire.

The kit exhausts were drilled out and added, the fit being very tight. Eduard’s resin wheels must have been reprinted. A couple of mates who have built the kit previously, reported their resin wheels were slightly too big in diameter. This necessitated them trimming the bottom of the strut where it joins the yoke, so the wheel fit without rubbing.

Conclusion

Eduard’s Mustang for me was a throughly enjoyable build. There are two more in the stash, and they will get built. Is it the best 48 scale Mustang out there? That will depend on what matters to the builder. I loved the finesse, surface detail and overall buildability of it, with the caveat that some modellers my find it a bit too complex and “over engineered” for their liking, but the modeller can virtually build any sub variant of the Mustang from any boxing. That has to be a plus. For me, it’s the best Mustang currently available, well, until Tamiya decide to retool their ageing 1/48 P-51D.

Well, that’s the “Would I build it again” answered. My other question is always “Where could I have improved?” Well on this one, whilst happy with my general construction, my finishing skills again let me down. The mottled NMF technique still needs a little refinement, as does my weathering, especially the blending of the oils, and – again- I can see Ive not cleaned up the wash too well in some places. You always find this out once the matt varnish has dried!

There’s only one way to fix this.; Build. More. Models!

P-51D-10. 355th FS. 4thFG. 8th AF U.S Army Air Forces Debden UK 1945