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Paint fuselage color?


StuartMont

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I introduced myself in the appropriate forum admitting that I am a “newbie” since it has been many years since I attempted to build a plastic model.  Also, I overstretched myself by starting with the Tamiya 1/32 P-51D.  As suggested by a responder to my “introduction” I read all of the instructions and highlighted areas where I am confused and there are many unfortunately.  I hope to figure most of them out as I work through the model but I have to ask the following.

1.  ”When no color is specified, paint the item with fuselage color.”  There are variations for painting the fuselage, correct?  Can someone please help me out and let me know which color should be used for the unspecified items.  There is one in the very first step of the engine assembly.  The main fuselage color according to the paint schemes appears to be Tamiya AS-12.  Is this the color I should use?

2.  To that end, is there a “non-spray” equivalent to AS-12?  If the answer to the first question is yes it does not seem practical to paint such small pieces with spray paint.

I do hope this is the correct forum for these questions.  If not please let me know and I will cut-and-paste these into a new topic in the correct forum.

Thanks in advance for your patience in answering such basic questions.

Stuart Montgomery

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Welcome to the forums. 

There are many possible color schemes, what I do is research the aircraft on the internet and pick your favorite plane and build away.  

I would recommend investing in a inexpensive Iwata airbrush for painting and get a decent set of camel hair brushes for detail work.  

See my earlier post for my P-51 prototype in Sn J natural metal finish.  

Learn to airbrush basic color schemes first and with practice it gets better.

Edited by Mister300
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On 11/1/2019 at 8:02 AM, StuartMont said:

1.  ”When no color is specified, paint the item with fuselage color.”  There are variations for painting the fuselage, correct?  Can someone please help me out and let me know which color should be used for the unspecified items.  There is one in the very first step of the engine assembly.  The main fuselage color according to the paint schemes appears to be Tamiya AS-12.  Is this the color I should use?

2.  To that end, is there a “non-spray” equivalent to AS-12?  If the answer to the first question is yes it does not seem practical to paint such small pieces with spray paint.

I don't have the kit in question (wrong scale for me) but I'm assuming that the item to be painted fuselage color is some engine component or something engine related in the engine compartment. In this case you could probably paint it any metallic "silver" color. On another forum, one modeler has suggested a 50/50 mix of Tamiya Chrome Silver and Tamiya Aluminum to replicate a natural metal finish. Both these colors are available as non-spray paints. But keep in mind that Tamiya's bottled paints have a much larger grain size, so you won't get as smooth a finish as you would using Tamiya's spray cans. One solution is to remove all the items from the sprues for which no color is specified, mount them on a piece of cardboard, and spray them all at once with the AS-12.

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Thanks so much for the two responses. Great advice. I need to find a location in the house to work before I invest in airbrush equipment.  Right now I am in my basement and proper ventilation is non-existent. All my spray painting will be done into a cardboard box in my open garage for now.  I like the idea of attaching to cardboard. Are you allowed to give me a link to premium brushes?  Mine are horrible. 
 

I’m excited about getting going on assembling the mustang but worried about ruining an expensive model that should not have been bought yet. 
 

Stuart

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Most models, out of the box, can be built, painted and decaled in one of multiple choices, generally three.  Towards the end of the instructions or on a separate color sheet, they'll have top/bottom/left/right pictures of each of these variants, showing the placements of all the decals and the paint colors of the major bits of the airplane.  When the instructions say something like "paint with the fuselage color", they mean you're supposed to pick one of these variants and paint the bit with the color specified for the fuselage from the pictures for that variant.

I'm not familiar with that particular kit, but it's very likely that each variant uses different pieces as well, like maybe an airscoop is shaped differently or something.  These will be called out in the instructions as well, so be on the lookout for those.

So, the first thing you need to do when you open the box is look over the variants and decide which one you're going to build. Then just keep your choice in mind when reading over the instructions.

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