(Again, no preamble this time; only building reports. )

The exterior set contained one item overlooked by many; behind the set of holes on the cheeks of the chin scoop is a set of interior grating; What this is FOR, I have no clue, but it’s there, and the fun part of hogging out plastic on a small rectangular part is, well, not there. But it’s mandatory, and I’ve put it aside for now so I can finish up the rest of the other review items I have lurking in the “to build” pile.

The final item provided in the Big Ed set is a set of canopy masks. Now, mind, I will remind myself to check in the future, because this is not your ordinary set of masks. No. It includes the interior masking! So, after I had dutifully fitted half the INTERIOR mask around the EXTERIOR of the bubble canopy, I realized there were not two sets of masks for the sake of providing them, but were specifically called out as interior and exterior.

I felt pretty dumb.

Carefully peeling (not “PEALING” as in a bell making noise, but PEELING like a grape or apple or… well) I remembered the really forgiving nature of kabuki tape. I was able to reapply the masks to the interior of the canopy, which saved a lot of extra work. Spraying both interior and exterior in flat black, after which I carefully polished the flat paint to a gloss, then applied Tamiya Bare metal silver over that. Let all dry/cure, then remove the mask and clean up any under run (of which I fortunately had none). GREAT idea.

Unfortunately I had hand-painted the interior of the windscreen assembly with interior green and installed it permanently, so there is a little bitty discrepancy in the two interior bits. Let’s just say the crew chief had a bad night and painted accordingly.

This concludes the Big Ed Portion of the Revell P-51D-5 saga… Part 4 of my missive will cover the use of SAC landing gear for this kit.