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. |
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The instrument
panel is really nice and came to life with some decals from the kit and
Mike Grant. |
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It's been said
that the kit's gunsight is one of the nicest parts of the kit. I agree. |
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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.
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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. |
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Here one can see
the corrected rear of the wheel bay. |
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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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images below to see larger images
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