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Rebuild a tired 1.20 CMP P-51D

Well it’s time to do a rebuild on my tired P-51. This has been a great model for the past few years a well as a joy to fly. To date this plane has made countless flights and a few crash landings. One crash was due to an engine failure and the other a landing mishap. Currently the models weight is about 12lbs and it is powered by a Magnum 1.20fs.

Some notable info about the construction of the P-51produced by CMP: This model is nice looking and an extremely good quality for the price but they are not intended for the first time builder. The landing gear is extremely weak and is prone to failure even on gentle landings.

During this rebuild I intend to do the following: Strip the model to the bones and rebuild the landing gear bays and install bigger mechanical retracts and gear. Repaint using a distinct WWII paint scheme, Glass the wing (never done this before) and paint to match fuselage.

I will post pictures as I make progress but I don’t think this will take more than a week to accomplish spending between two and three hours a day mostly at night. Please feel free to offer feedback as I go along but don’t expect a long stretched out post because I want this model back in operation ASAP. I intend to change the paint scheme from the old silver to solid green. I really want something different because I am tired of going to the local warbird events with another "copy" of a P-51D….


Day One- Stripping the fuselage:

The first step is to completely disassemble the model. This is easy to do as you can imagine. I am basically removing all hardware and components so I can sand and repaint. Sanding was a simple process but many parts of the model had soft spots from the use of 30% nitro. These areas had to be completely scraped off and sanded clean.

In the pictures you can see the model is sanded and ready for repainting. I have masked the canopy and prepped the fuselage for priming. I will prime it after I glass the wing. The wing is next......

Sturtz

My Feedback: (20)

Gee Broken,,,, it doesn't look tired. It was starting to look like a real frontline fighter. Broken-in.

Sturtz

My Feedback: (20)

That scheme should look killer Broken. Let's see pics as you go. ??

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Sturtz- I just hope the added weight of all this paint and glass does not change the flight characteristics too much.

Day Two- Wing rebuild
The wing needed to be completely stripped before I could begin building new landing gear bays. I used my heat gun to ease the covering off the wing. I am surprised to see such a nice wing under all the ugly covering. That gives me hope that I will be able to glass this thing. My plan is to cut new bays and replace all the mounts for the landing gear. Here are some pictures of the wing structure in place. I used an exacto knife to cut new landing gear bays into the wing. I then used my soldering gun with some wire attachments to cut out the foam. Using the soldering gun makes the foam cutting clean. I am still going to use mechanical retracts so I will need to make sure the servo alignment is still good but I moved the landing gear out about 1.5” and cut the wheel bays so I could mount a bigger wheels. I finished installing the new rails for the mechanical retracts so I turned my attention to the finish and sanding of the wing surface. After I finished sanding I sealed the wood with minwax sanding sealer. Tomorrow I plan to glass it.

You can see in the photos that I am also testing the glassing on a few pieces of balsa. So far so good.

BTW I am trying to keep my area clean as I go so I keep my shopvac at my side all of the time. An unintended consequence of all this vacuuming is that all of my pens and one exacto-knife have mysteriously disappeared! I guess I will have to get them out later.

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Things are moving fast I had a good chunk of time to work today (4hrs). I thought glassing would be a tough thing to do. It’s not! I have been using covering for many many years and glassing is way easier than ultra-cote. I wonder why the heck I never did this before. In any case you can see by the picture that the glass is on. I used a basecoat of minwax sanding sealer to protect the wood from the water based polyurethane. Once I apply the covering I am using several light coats of minwax water based polyurethane to “glue” the covering into place. Once everything has dried and is in place I will use thinned epoxy to add strength to the covering around the wheel bays and servo hatches. Once everything was relatively dry (thank you heat gun) I was able to cut the bays and hatches on the bottom open and install the servos again. I was able to test the landing gear covers and hatches. I use serial box cardboard for this because it is easy to shape or reshape on the fly and it takes paint really well. Make sure if you ever use it to sand the printed side with 150 grit sandpaper.

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Let the painting begin!
I am using a basecoat of automotive primer to see all the defects. I had to sand several areas to reduce the number of visible defects. I was able to make everything fairly smooth and remove the most serious blemishes. Again, this is not a pro build so I won’t go for absolute perfection just good looks. The paint scheme I am using is closest to Mustang# 413518 “Horses Itch”. I have decided to give myself some artistic freedom and make is one of a kind. I am using flat camouflage from Wal*Mart. No one else has the colors I want in the quantity that I need.

Colors Used:
Flat Green
Flat Black
Flat White
Everything will eventually be covered with lustrekote fuel-proof flat clear when all he spraying is done. I also got real lucky and got the majority of the painting done just before it started snowing. At least I will be able to stay on track and get the rest of the painting done using latex and other non spraying indoor friendly methods.

Also-
I hate letting paint dry but it is critical that I let it cure before moving on so I will have to wait to do more layers if needed. So I will finish some of the other details like the cockpit seat and make the wheel cover attachments. Oh! and clean with the shopvac.

Sturtz

My Feedback: (20)

That's gonna look great Broken !!
And what a killer view you got from your paint booth. Terrain is flat as a pancake here.

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Flat as a pancake Surtz!!!! That means lots of places to fly! Right?

I had a chance to look at the results of the painting in detail this morning. I am very happy with the way it turned out. The wing surface is not silky smooth but it looks fairly good. I also masked some stripes on the fuse (Normandy Strips) but this is where I am going to deviate from the norm. I plan to paint some stripes on the fuse and leave the wing alone. (what your crazy!) Yes! I am but not all aircraft had the proper photo-op paint jobs. Many were in locations that had limited resources and did not have enough paint to complete the perfect scheme.

In any case I have a plan, and it is to have a authentic and unique look.

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I will need to clear coat the plane before I can do much more but I was still be able to start putting everything back together. I have placed a few cockpit details in just to add some flare. I printed a real cockpit photo and glued it in place and added a seat back. The decals are standard sixty sized warbird decals from Major* Because the paint takes a while to cure I did not want to mess with it too much but I was able to draw on all the panel lines using a small silver paint/pen. I didn’t go nuts with lines but I did make sure every surface has some in the right spot. A cold snap has just happened and has stopped my efforts dead in their tracks. I need to clear coat I outside, and I like it to be above 50 degrees when I use a spray paint so I will take a few days off of painting and add some details to some other parts until the weather clears.

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More Pictures-

I managed to get a clear coat on today. Now just some simple reassembly and I'm done.....

Sturtz

My Feedback: (20)

That looks SO MUCH better than it did IMHO.
Also,,, I don't know how many others do their mechanical retract wire gear like we do. (Straight 3/16" with alum coverings.") But I'll share this with you Broken. Two of my smaller warbirds have the straight wire and have had ZERO troubles. I beefed up and blocked the gear rails prior to ever sitting the things on the ground and they hold up, give slightly on landing and work greaT .
The factory wire with the curled bend has given me more hard times than your straight wire concept ever. In fact I had my 8" inch custom built Robinaire struts in for repair and wanted to fly my CMP FW190. Your gear design I made still works killer. I maidened that bird with those alum covered wire struts too btw. I cut small sections of fuel line and slip them down on the wire . Then work the alum arrow shaft tubes onto them. A drop of CA keeps them there.
Got my fancy oleos back on the 190 now,,, but if they break the rails or go bad again I'll grab those wires and go for it anyday.
Posted a pic of my 50 sized CMP Mustang with the straight wires and mechs. Also found a killer tool for bending gear wire while still on the plane at Lowes the other day. Works great even with the alum covers.

P.S. Raidentech has a decent WWII pilot bust for about $5 or $6 bucks each that might go into your Stang.

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Surtz- that p-51 looks great! What did you do to the exhaust? It looks much better than normal... Your tool for bending landing gear is a great idea can you give me a part # for that? I have been happy with my 190's landing gear. I plan on putting bigger tires on this summer so I will spend some time evaluating the setup to see if anything can be improved..

The mustang project is getting really close to being done. I started putting all the parts back together today after putting a fuel proof clear coat on during my lunch break. My new spinner arrived yesterday but I ordered the wrong part (oops!) So I will pull the spinnerplate from my 190 so I can keep going. The 190 will just have to wait a few days for the replacement.

Sturtz

My Feedback: (20)

[link=http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=133652-273-FR28SWMP]The tool at Lowes[/link]

And here is the company's site along with movie of tool.

[link=http://www.cooperhandtools.com/ad_pages/rapid_rench/index.cfm]CooperTools Rapidrench[/link]

Along with bending retracts it's just plain handy at the field or in the shop. Glad I picked one up.

Broken... the exhaust stacks came with the CMP Stang. I just opt'd to drill 12 holes into the manifold and epoxy the stacks instead of glue them on the face of the fiberglass. Mine allow heat to flow out from the cowling . I re-painted this plane from the box. I used a Saito.72 for power. Flys like a trainer. Well,,,, maybe not that good. lol
I attached the bottom cowling by making rails along the inside of the cowl halves and securing them from the inside so there are no screws sticking out. Pic of the bird with regular type wire gear. They bent first landing. And it was a softy.
Also a pic of how it looked from the box.
KEEP THOSE PICS COMING ON YOUR STANG REWORK !!!

Sturtz

My Feedback: (20)

P.S. Did you ever get anything for the use of your CMP FW190 photos from the online dealers ?
I'd say you should at least get one of those new BF109-F's when they hit the states.

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I really didn't press the FW-190 thing... I should see if Nitroplanes could give me a discount or something. I would love to build one of the new warbirds for them.

Here are the latest photos. It gained about a pound during the rebuild (not bad) considering the many layers of paint that I added.