Monogram P-51B Mustang, "Short Fuse Sallee".

Monogram's P-51B Mustang, circa 1968, finished as Short-Fuse Sallee.

My latest work was again the result of a group build on the $20.00 Dollar Modelers Club Facebook page. This time the idea was to get a ton of Mustang builds posted to boost the morale of a member who was having some health problems. I decided it would be a good opportunity to build on of  the models in my stash, an old favorite, the Monogram P-51B in 1/48 scale.

The old soldier in all it's glory. the molds date back to 1968!

An interesting personal note. As a teenager, I had found a photo of Short-Fuse Sallee in a book in the public library in El Cajon. This was in the dark ages before the vast resources of the internet. I had sketched out the markings of Sallee in hopes of recreating the scheme. Well, 47 years later, I have done it! It helped that I happened to have picked up a Superscale Decal sheet with Sallee featured!

The sketch I drew of this subject...almost 50 years ago!

Well, so much for nostalgia, time to build! One disappointing feature of the old Monogram kit was the very plain representation of the fuel tank/radio set installed behind the pilot's armor. I shaved off the molded box and built up a representation of that area.

Building up the fuel tank/radio compartment.

With that completed, I then painted the interior and highlighted some of the nicely molded details, picking out a few items in red and yellow. This might not be absolutely accurate but it does add a nice feel to the interior. I toyed with the idea of building an intricate little instrument panel, but after one attempt, decided to go with the decal sheet representation.

Interior painted and detailed. not looking too bad!

Real construction was now under way. I assembled the fuselage halves, wings and elevators. I then installed some of the glass. The little rear windows needed a bit of attention. They are a little undersized and have a poor fit to the body. I added a couple of pieces of sprue to support them, then applied some putty to shore up any gaps. Once I was happy with them, I masked everything with Tamiya tape.

Lots of filling with "Perfect Plastic Putty". Really good stuff!

With the basic airframe assembled, I primed it with Tamiya Grey Primer from a spray can. It's the first time I've used this product and I was very happy with it. It sprayed on nice and evenly and dried fairly quickly. I then started to work on some of the small detail parts.

Airframe primed and lots of little details started!

I decided that the drop tanks looked a little plain so I dressed them up a bit. I carved the shackles a little and added a few bits of sprue to make them look interesting. as with the interior, They were not 100% accurate but pretty close, and I thought they added a lot to the look of the kit. I also drilled a couple of small hole in them for "plumbing" later on.

Detailing the drop tanks.

The first coat of primer revealed a few problem areas, gaps, etc, so I with over the airframe again with some putty and files.

Cleaning it up!

Time for the drop tanks to get wet, too!

Finally, it was time for some color coats. My favorite and most feared time of the build! Nuetral grey underneath and of course, OD on top. Unbelievably I had run out of OD paint and had to run down to a nearby hobby shop and pick up some more.

OD over Neutral Grey of course!

It took a while, I found a few spots that needed a little smoothing, but I finally was satisfied. Next came the ordeal of painting the I.D. stripes on the wings and elevators!

After carefully masking and painting these, I removed the tape to find quite a bit of white paint bleed over the grey and OD. I had to the mask the white and spray some color over the bleed. It went well enough but was just extra work I could have avoided a couple of different ways. someone suggested painting the stripes first then the color over them. another good suggestion was to spray some clear coat over the masking first, then the white, any bleed through would be clear!

At any rate, I eventually had some nice white striping on the bird. Next up was a few coats of Future for a glossy base for the decals.

Identification stripes completed, Future on.

With the glossy Future base dried, I now began decaling. Using the Superscale sheet I applied the stars and bars and squadron codes to the fuselage and the serial number to the tail. The high point was applying the Short-Fuse Sallee personal marking to the Mustangs nose. This model was now feeling like it was becoming a success!

First decals applied.

I had a difficult time finding a reasonably accurate star for the wings. They are slightly larger that the fuselage stars given in the Superscale sheet and for some reason Superscale omits the wing insignia. The kit's decals were hopeless, not even accurate representations of the real thing. I finally found one set that was pretty close, from an old TBF kit. I used them, but it took lots of Solvaset to get them to seat properly!

Decals are now done here. Note the tiny drop tank stickers!

One problem presented itself towards end of my build; The Malcolm Hood proved to be difficult to finish. I tried to hand paint the framing but the old mold's raised framing just isn't as sharp as they used to be! It just looked bad. I finally decided to use painted strips of scotch tape. That turned out to be fairly easy to do and it looked pretty good!

One final step was the addition of "plumbing" for the drop tanks. After examining Google images I came up with a patter made from thin soldering wire! They came out pretty well, although as with some other tiny details, they are probably a little off.

Almost there! Canopy isn't done, but the drop tanks are!

Completed at last!

The only weathering I attempted on this build was a little paint scratching along the wing root, and dry brushing some flat black and rust on the exhaust. Photos of the real A/C didn't indicate a lot of exhaust staining or much else for that matter and I don't like to overdo that sort of thing.

All in all this was another enjoyable build. The old Monogram kits are really marvels of concise model engineering, this kit has only about 30 parts compared to modern kits with parts numbering in the hundreds, yet it makes a nice looking model! This was certainly a nostalgic build for me and I have several more old Monogram kits in the stash! I'm looking forward to meeting these old friends again!

Completed model, the antenna a strand of fine brass rod.

Well, after some 47 years, it's nice to have Short-Fuse Sallee on my shelf!