P-51C Mustang Firewall and Oil Tank - Construction Part 1

Well its been a busy week so I haven't had much time to work on my model, but I did manage to get some things done and had a few headaches along the way. On top of that, I was bidding on my next few projects on eBay, two 30 year old kits: Star Wars X-wing and Shuttle Tydirium. The X-wing I built when I was a kid, but now I need to do it justice and the Shuttle Tydirium my dad built and it sat in the garage taunting me my entire life. Time to get my hands on one!! Should be some fun projects.

Anyway, on to the Mustang...

Before I could add any of my scratch built details, I had to remove the kits molded details, if they can even be called that. I clipped them off with wire cutters, filed them flat, and then used fine sandpaper to smooth the surfaces.

Do the same for the oil tank, but leave the molded-on straps. Digging out the strap clamps was fun. I used an X-Acto and sharp tipped file to get it all out. Everything else was fairly straightforward.

With the oil tank cleaned up, it was airbrushed with Model Master Acryl Yellow Chromate. This was my first time airbrushing with this type of paint. When I painted the oil tank, I didn't use any thinner since I had read online that this paint can be airbrushed without it. The tank came out ok, but not as good as I would have hoped. I thinned the paint when I painted the firewall and it came out much better.

To attach the metal straps, I scratched the paint off the molded straps and drilled a little divot, because I left a little bit of an extension in the simulated bolt that holds the strap together.

The straps were bent to shape as close as possible before gluing. This made life a little easier. They were glued down with super glue.

I did the same for the firewall details. Standard old super glue is the best thing I found to attack aluminum to plastic. Scuff the mating surfaces first and clear away any paint and it should hold fine. I wouldn't use it for any load bearing joint, but these are just light details.

Already things are looking much better than the molded details. Everything else was just glued in place. I took two videos to show the pieces. Please excuse the occasional blurriness. They were taken in a hurry with my phone.

Hopefully with a Christmas break from school I'll be able to get more done...

P-51C Mustang Firewall - Oil Tank Mounts and Brackets

I could title this blog "More Fun with Soda Can Aluminum" but I'm getting the sense that this title would apply to many blogs in this project. I'm finding it to be a very good medium to work with and a good scale metal. Mathmatically speaking if the real Mustang used 1/16" inch aluminum then in 1/32 scale it would be .0019" thick. Soda can is .003" thick and well if you can see the .001" difference then I'll eat my next soda can. The aluminum is strong, yet you can cut it with a razor, X-Acto knife, scissors, and can scribe it easily as well. It can be smoothed and shaped with fine sandpaper and doesn't have much spring back when bent. Granted, if you bend it too many times it will snap. It can be drilled even with small drill bits without damaging the bits. And the best thing about it is it is free and plentiful, if you drink a lot of soda :)

So now let's get onto it. The Mustant oil tank is held on with two metal straps (see previous blog). These straps are secured to the firewall with a variety of mounts and brackets, which is what this blog will be about. I'll take it piece by piece.

 I'm not sure what this piece is for, but it sits by itself over the oil tank mounted to the firewall. It was a simple rounded triangular shape with a bent flange. Reference photos provided the shape and size.

The oil tank straps are fastened to the firewall with this bracket. It is made from a thin strip of aluminum. I cut one end into a point, drilled the hole in the middle with a .015" carbide bit, bend the shape, drilled the second hole, cut it to length, and then rounded down all the corners.


This bracket attaches the strap to the mount in the previous photo. This annoying little beauty was made from an aluminum strip cut as wide as the piece is long. Again reference photos were used to get this length. The piece of bend over the edge of a .040" plastic sheet and then cut and sanded to shape. The holes were drilled last so they would line up right.


This second annoying little booger is mounted low on the firewall. It actually holds two supports arms that are mounted to the bottom of the oil tank. It was made using a similar method as the bracket above, only this one had the added bonus of being angled. Hopefully it is visible in the photo, but the vertical flanges don't protrude straight out. They point towards the top of the firewall. It took a couple of tries to get the angle and shape right. Luckily the usability of soda can aluminum made this a little less of a headache.


This next part is the mount of the oil tank where the supported arms mentioned above will attach. Ironically this flat piece proved the most difficult simply because of the curved cut necessary. Its much to small to just take a pair of scissors and cut it out and you have to get it to match the curve of the bottom of the oil tank. To make this easier, I filed and sanded a piece of thin plastic to match the oil tank contour to act as a template. Then I laid it over my metal and scribed it with the sharp point of my dividers. With a nice groove carved into it, you can now cut it the rest of the way with an X-Acto knife and clean it up with fine sandpaper.


These are the finished mounts cut to shape with the holes drilled.

Here are all the detail pieces for the firewall laid out around a dime for size reference. All made from soda can aluminum. My only tools were simple hand tools and a little creativity.


Next up - a little destruction of the original kit pieces to make room for the new improved details and some painting. This is, hopefully, where I'll start to see all the hard work pay off.

P-51C Mustang Firewall - Oil Tank Straps

Continuing on with my personal quest to give myself headaches, I tackled the oil tank straps next. The kit pieces have these elements molded on and I suppose they would look fine with a little paint and maybe some weathering, but I'm not going for fine, I'm going for mind-blowing. So these have got to be replaced.

I cleaned the edge of my soda can aluminum so both sides were bare metal. Then I cut a strip of soda can aluminum .040" wide and cleaned the burrs off the edges. You have to be careful doing this because you can very easily snag the end of the strip on the sandpaper and badly bend your nice flat strip.

The major pain in this piece is the slot in the middle of the strip, however there is an easy solution to this. Now I don't have access to a milling machine or a punch set, so I had to improvise. First, create the shape of the piece by laying the pin material over the strip and wrapping the end of the strip around it to form a loop. I initially thought using an old eyebolt rod would be the right size, which is what you see in the photo, but decided it was too small to look scale. For the actual strap, I used a .021" steel rod made from the same material used for fuel and oil lines on the engine.

 You have to use a reference photo of the oil tank to get the shape of the loop and the length of the mounting tab accurate. I tack glued the tab to the strap with super glue. This glue joint will break several times during the next few processes which is sure to cause a number of headaches, but it's really just there to hold the pieces together momentarily anyway.

Now to get the slot, I cut a pilot slit with an X-Acto knife in the center of the high point of the loop. If you're careful, you can even cut a little V groove in it. Next, I took my razor saw, that has a blade of .020" thick, and very carefully sawed along the groove until it broke through. Only saw in one direction using the back side of the saw teeth or this method won't work. Move the blade slowly, don't try to rush this. Once you get a good groove, told over some fine grit sandpaper and clean the slot. Use an X-Acto blade tip to clean out any flakes inside the loop. And presto, a clean slot. 

To simulate the bolts that hold the loop down to the strap, I will use some old eyebolts from a ship model I built years ago. Another lesson in never throwing old parts away. I decided to drill a small hole to insert a piece of the tail of the eyebolt. Use an X-Acto tip to drill a small pilot divot in the center of the loop tab. I used a .014" carbide drill bit to drill out the hole. Chances are this is where the glue tack on the tab will break, but that's ok if it does, clean out any residual super glue. We'll hold this thing down later. You'll have to slightly enlarge the hole with an X-Acto knife to allow the eyebolt to fit.

To secure the eyebolt pin, and the loop tab, I used JB Weld applied with the tip of my X-Acto knife blade. I held everything in place with tweezers until it had set. Fast JB weld will set in about 5 minutes. I cut down the tail of the eyebolt pin leaving a small protrusion on the back of the strap. I did this for a few reasons: 1. Cutting metal that is only held in place with .006" of gluing surface will most likely result in the pin breaking off and that means I would have to do the whole process over again. 2. I will drill out a space in the oil tank itself to hide this protrusion which will give me a little more gluing surface when I finally attach the straps to the tank. This is beneficial because the spring back of the aluminum could pop it free at one end. This little protrusion gives a more solid anchor.

P-51C Mustang - Firewall Dzus Fastener Mounts

After getting a 97 on my A&P General written exam, I could finally dive back into my Mustang. First task is to create the Dzus fastener mounts to replace the ugly molded squares on the kit firewall. Now at times doing this, I did question my own sanity and you'll see why at the end. It took some playing around to figure out how to do this, but they came out pretty good.

First up, I cut a thin strip of soda can aluminum .040" wide. Soda can aluminum is thin but tough, but the good thing is you can cut it with a sharp razor. Working with it is quite the pain though, especially at this size.

As with any metal, there are always burrs to get rid of after it's cut. Soda can aluminum also has a film on the inside and colored ink on the outside to get rid of. The best way to accomplish both is to scrap it off with a sharp razor. Clean up what's left with some fine sandpaper. You should see the natural shiny aluminum surface. The difference is quite clear.

I had to make a jig so that my Dzus fastener mounts will joggle evenly. Those are just .020" plastic strips glued to a .040" base. The spacing comes from folding a scrap piece of soda aluminum over the edge of a .040" piece of plastic. You'll see how this works below.

Take the strip of soda can aluminum and fold it over the edge of the .040" sheet. This doesn't make perfect corners in the metal, but it gives you something to start with. I cleaned up the corners by pressing a thin metal ruler into them.

Once the corners are formed, I took a really small drill bit and drilled a hole in the center. Now place the bent strip back on the edge and hold the jig on top of it.

Hold this down firm and use a razor blade to bend down both tails of the metal strip.

Again this won't create perfect corners, but it gives you an edge to work with, but most importantly, it gives you even joggles. I used the sharp clean 90 degree corners of my dial caliper to clean up these corners.

Once you cut off the excess tails, you end up with a pretty good looking, yet insanely small Dzus fastener mount.

On the real Mustang the mounts sit on L shaped brackets, which are simple enough to make. Cut a strip, cut to length, and fold it in half. Simple right...And it looks pretty good

The kink is this bracket is not straight, it's curved. And I don't have a microscopic stretching machine to bend this piece. So what to do? The answer: Cheat

Here is the finished piece with the mounts sitting on it to make it look cool. But how is it bend? It's really just an illusion. The piece is technically still straight. I gently bent down the ends of the horizontal side to give it a curved appearance and then filed down the corners of the vertical side to make it look more round. Together, this creates the illusion that the bracket is curved. I may even add more of a "curve" to the piece before I glue it to the firewall.

So if you're now questioning my sanity, I agree with you. This is nuts, but really this looks so much better than the little boxes on the kit piece and they will look even better once they are glued in place and painted.

Next up, replacing the metal straps on the oil tank....

P-51C Mustang Firewall - The Thought Process

Since finishing my Mustang's engine, I haven't had much time to work on my model because I have been studying for my General exam to get my Airframe and Powerplant license and I've been waiting for my sister to have her baby. So its been busy. But while I'm sitting here eating a terrible TV dinner before work, I decided to throw up a quick blog that doesn't show how things are detailed, instead I give new modelers or perhaps people who are new to superdetailing an insight into one modelers thought process when I first look at the kits parts. The oil tank and firewall provide a simple, yet good opportunity for this.

At first glance the Tamiya kit provides a good amount of details, much more than some Mustang kits I've seen. Just a bit of paint, maybe some dry brushing and weathering and it should be pretty good, right? Sure if you want to take the easy way out. The firewall has a lot of potential for detailing, if you know where to look. This is where research comes in. Luckily the P-51 Mustang is a well documented aircraft and you can find dozens of books and websites with pictures of almost every part of the airplane.

The first thing that has to come off is that ugly tab with the hole on the bottom of the firewall. In the kit this is where the engine mounts via a screw to the firewall. On the real Mustang, the engine was on mounts and so it shall be on the model. Why Tamiya decided to do this is beyond me, unless the plastic engine mounts don't have enough strength to support the engine, in which case they will have to be reinforced later. So I'll have to keep that in mind.


Around the upper edge of the firewall are these little blocks to represent the Dzus fastener mounts. One look at a picture and it is clear that these also have to go. I'm thinking soda can aluminum cut into thin strips and bent into the right shape. I will create the hole for the Dzus fastener by gently poking the aluminum with the needle on my dividers. This will create the hole and the dimple all in one motion. There is also a bracket that holds the Dzus fastener mounts in place which is not shown on the kit piece. This can also be made with soda can aluminum. This picture also shows the molded weld bead on the two oil tank halves. Unfortunately if this was a real Mustang, I'd fire my welder cause the beads are way too big. In this scale, the bead would be very subtle. So these molded welds will come off too, and I will trust that the glue bead that will ultimately hold the parts together will simulate a more accurate weld. Now before I remove any of these parts, especially the Dzus fasteners mounts, I will measure their width and mark their locations on the firewall so the new details go back in the same place.


The metal straps that hold the oil tank to the firewall are fairly accurate, except the turnbuckles used to tighten them down. They are very flat on the kit piece, but if you look at the real one, they actually stick out quite a bit. I will leave the metal straps on the kit pieces, but will have to carefully scrape off these turnbuckles. They can also be recreated with soda can aluminum and thin wire. Now the reason I'm going to keep the molded straps on the pieces is because the real Mustang's oil tank straps have a thin cushion between the tank and the strap. I will create new straps from soda can aluminum and will round off the corners just slightly on these molded straps to make it look like the metal straps are sitting on the cushions. Then I will install the new turnbuckles.

The area on the firewall that holds the oil tank is shiny chrome in every picture I have ever seen of the real Mustang. Luckily the kit makes this area quite promiment. I'm think about using the shiny side of aluminum foil to create this. And since the oil tank will be covered most of the compound curves in this area, I only need to foil over the flat areas that will be seen. Sometimes modelers have to think like movie set designers. If it won't be seen there's no point in creating extra headaches. There is a material called Bare Metal foil that has an adhesive backing which could also be used, but it can get rather expensive depending on where you buy it. Aluminum foil is cheap, easy to work with, and can be glued down with white glue, super glue, epoxy. Just scuff the plastic surface with some light sandpaper before gluing.

The bolts on the firewall are not painted, but instead are a natural silver steel color. After the firewall is painted green zinc chromate, the bolts will be painted silver using the tip of my X-Acto knife the same way I painted the bolts on the engine.


The oil return line looks OK, but the thing with molded round tubes is that they don't come out round. There is always some little mold seem visible even on the best kits. Sanding them down can be a pain because that often leaves little flat spots which become even more visible when you paint it. There is nothing more distracting than to see flat spots on your round lines. I'm thinking that this line will be replaced with a metal rod of the same diameter bend in the same orientation. This is one of those often missed little details that can make a world of difference. Besides seeing a real metal line will always look better than painted plastic. The rubber hose clamp will be simulated with a thick layer of black paint. I'll mask off the area with two or three layers of tape and then apply 3-4 coats of flat black paint. I want there to be a definate lip on the paint, which is usually a painting no-no. This time it will work in my favor.

I'm sure there will be more things to detail once I actually start working on it, but I have to get through this test first. So there may not be any blogs for a while, but thats how life works. Business before pleasure. But I hope this offered a little insight into how to look at kit parts and see bigger and better things. Once the process begins, you'll see more.

P-51C Mustang Rolls Royce Merlin Engine Completed

Finally after several months of work, the engine to my 1/32 Tamiya P-51C Mustang is completed. I had some pictures taken on a good camera to get a decent all around view of the engine. Next I'll be doing the firewall and oil tank as soon as I get the time. Until then, enjoy the engine pictures.

P-51C Mustang Engine - Fuel lines and Atomizers

I almost missed some really cool details on top of the engine. I found them while trying to figure out where, what I thought was, the last fuel line actually ran. On the top of the engine are 6 fuel atomizers connected with a very thin fuel line that leads back to a splitter connecter, can't think of the actual name for it, but since I'm still in the process of building that it will be mentioned in the next blog.

Each Atomizer was made with a piece of .040: plastic rod and a thin wire that was folded into a "U" shape. I used the side edge of a razor blade to fold the wire. It was then very carefully glued in place on the wire. At this point the wire legs were longer than what you see in the picture below. This made it so much easier to handle while gluing it in place. Once the glue was dry I used fingernail clippers to snip them to the proper length.

As you can see in the picture above, there are three colors on this tiny little thing. The outside of the rod is black, the top face of the rod is gold, and the prongs of the wire are silver. Once the paint tried, I carefully cut the end of the rod off leaving the thinnest sliver behind. Forgive the blurriness of the photo. My camera can't focus on things this small, but for size reference, the atomizer is sitting on a piece of college rule notebook paper.

The atomizers were glued in place on top of the engine.



The fuel lines that connect the atomizers have a neat joggle in them which proved to be quite the pain until I made a jig to bend them on. I used the placement of each atomizer to make this jig out of a popsicle stick. I bend the wire over it and test fit it on the engine, tweaking the jig as necessary.


I used a very thin .007" wire for the fuel line. It bends very easy, but is very finicky. You have to be careful when handling wire this thin cause you can spend 10 minutes bending the perfect joggle then accidentally knock it totally out of shape. The fuel line runs underneath the ignition wires already in place. The two lines are mirror images of each other. The picture below shows the two lines in place on the atomizers.


Only a few more things and the engine will be complete...

P-51C Mustang Engine and Supercharger Details

The left side of the engine has a few less details than the right side, but this doesn't mean that you can't add a few little things to spice it up. One of the lines on this side is connected to the intercooler with a rubber hose held in place with metal clamps. I first cut and bent a paperclip to simulate the line. Then I carefully masked it off and painted the end with a few layers of gray paint to simulate the rubber hose.

I cut a thin strip of soda can aluminum and bent it around another piece of paperclip to create the curved shape. Once the pieces were glued in place, they look very much like metal clamps holding the rubber tube in place. I'll admit, they could have looked a little tighter, but sometimes you just have to live with what you got.

Another paperclip was used to make the second main line on this side. I couldn't see where the top of this line connected on the real engine, so it won't be seen on the model either. That's one of the benefits of model building. Its all an illusion sometimes.

The details on the supercharger can be a little confusing to look at since there are a bunch of black rods that seem to wind all over it, but really its quite simple. First a little surgery was necessary. I'm not sure what this rod assembly is called (Its part E13 in the kit) but its placed too low to be accurate.

So I had to carefully cut it off and raise it up. The red arrow shows the original location and how much it had to be moved up.

This little stub here was also not the correct shape and was removed.

The replacement was made using .030" plastic rod and a blob of JB Weld that was filed to shape. The finished part is seen painted and installed in a later picture.

On both sides of the carburetor duct is a simple round pivot point that is missing on the kit. This was added by drilling a small hole and inserting a .030" plastic rod that was cut to length and painted black. A thin aluminum wire was fastened to the center of the completed pivot point.

The connecting rod was fairly simple to make. A blob of JB Weld was used to create the connection down at the carburetor sanded in a similar fashion as several other lines on the engine.

With the new piece painted and added to the top of the supercharger, the little connecting rod could be added.

On the right side of the supercharger were a few more aluminum lines as well.  These were made like the others...with pain and aggravation.

At the bottom is a small arm (seen above) made of thin plastic. To make the connecting rod here, I bent the wire and then flattened the ends by squeezing them with pliers to simulate the appearance of the actual part.

Here is the arm in place on the engine.

Only a few more details to go and the engine will be finished.....finally.