1/32 Dragon P-51

by Troy Hoskins

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Ah, yes.  The now nearly infamous Dragon Mustang.  I was excited when this kit came out.  Inspite of a few choice reviews I decided to acquire one and be my own judge of it's merits.  I'll not go into specifics, but I'll say that my take on the kit was that it presented me with a perfect base for my own skills and creativity to go wild.  Two months of modeling time went into what turns out to be my second most ambitious project yet, the first being a Banner Arizona with two large photo etch sets that still haunts my dreams.

Being that the kit was very new on the market there were no aftermarket correction sets available at the time of the build so everything I wanted to correct or build came from scratch.  Now off to some details!
Starting in the cockpit I found the floor was to narrow. Who needs resin?! My quick fix.

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A little paint and some Mike Grant gauges add life to the floor.
The instrument panel is really nice and came to life with some decals from the kit and Mike Grant.
It's been said that the kit's gunsight is one of the nicest parts of the kit. I agree.
Additional detail was added to the seat. Wrinkles, supports and the kits PE belts.

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The kit comes with the option of having both gun bays open. I wanted to display the guns but the detail was poor. I decided to open just one of the gun bays to save myself some repetition and redundancy of work. Plastic stock and rod were used here all the while looking at reference pics.

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The guns look great but all that nice detail is hidden once assembled. I didn't care for the blast tubes molded on the front of the wing so I came up with my own solution. I used aluminum tubing to make the tubes. Chucked up the tube in my Dremel Stylus and run it against sand paper to thin the walls.  
There was no detail whatsoever on the gunbay doors so I had to do something. More plastic sheet and bits and some left over PE bits added life to the gun cover door. I wish I'd have found a decal for the info placard on the inside.

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Next came the engine compartment. Though better than the Hasegawa kit engine, the space is still lacking for detail. I added various hoses and lines along with some control cables to busy up the area. Thank goodness for reference photos!

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The kit exhausts needed the walls thinned some to look more to scale.  Test fitting also showed that the exhausts sit back way to far into the cowl when installed.  I shimmed the pieces to bring them out of the cowl.

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The landing gear and bays are another area where I felt compelled to make changes. The gear legs got a rework and I eliminated the silly springs and glued them solid. The kit tires are a real challenge to use and didn't fit the wheels at all. I made them work with CA and a few choice words.

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The gear bays were the biggest challenge of the kit since I decided to completely rework them to correct the rear of the bay and the hose detail for the coolant lines. Unfortunately, in progress pics of this have gone missing so all I have are completed pics. Dragon forgot to include door actuators so they had to be made.
Here one can see the corrected rear of the wheel bay.

The rest of the kit went together as usual. The over done rivet and line detail was muted with many, many coats of auto primer from a spray can and the wing panel lines were filled with Mr. Surfacer 500. The gear doors needed to be corrected so I filled the offending depression with CA and used the Dremel to make a new slot. Rivets finished the modification.

Troy 

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Photos and text © by Troy Hoskins