Old Crow Conversion to Black Crow

Conversion from OLD CROW to BLACK CROW

Using BadCatToys P-51D-20 NA 1/18th scale Twentieth Century Models

OLD CROW

OLD CROW is a fine model of Clarence “Bud” Anderson ’s plane fought in the 357th FS 383rd FG 8thAF in August 1944. His crew had once spent all night removing olive drab and neutral gray paint utilizing gasoline and rags after he just mentioned that it might fly faster if the paint were removed.



Old friends in Atlanta started a new business in 2007 and named it Black Crow Oil, Inc. They had a superb logo made up which I thought might lend itself to a P-51D OLD CROW converted to BLACK CROW. I further thought you, Rob, at BadCatAviation could be helpful in a conversion project and indeed you were. Not only did you supply me with aircraft model itself, but also the swastika decals from VEXDEC to fill in the white circles of OLD CROW’s kill markings.



Critically, you also got me in touch with MARV and Lair Gilbert of VEXDEC to make the project possible. MARV redesigned his work on OLD CROW using the same font to create BLACK CROW, while simultaneously reproducing in decal form the supplied Black Crow logo in a black circle and placing the names of the CEO and CFO of Black Crow as Pilot and C/C on a black rectangle to cover the Pilot C.E. Anderson,C/C A.M. Zimmerman name block.



Knowing that the model was to be shipped by UPS to Atlanta , I kept the model in its component forms. Very light sanding removed the OLD CROW decal, and MARV’s new BLACK CROW decal was so beautiful and so well spaced that I applied it on both sides of the anti-glare panel with all the carrier film left in place. Using a brand new Number 11 Xacto blade I cut around each letter to remove the film and checked the progress with a digital photograph blown up. After two more passes with the blade all the film was gone and all the decals- the BLACK CROW, the company logo and the kill markings- were all fixed using a Testor’s Dullcoat spray can, masking the canopy, wings, tail plane and fuselage aft of the wing trailing edge, completely blending in the decals making them seem painted on.



Only new landing gear outer doors were fashioned out of card stock and fitted with strengthening interiors, brake lines and repainted with invasion stripes. Aluminum tube within tube gun barrels replaced the drilled out kit holes, a small bit of smoke weathering on the ejection slots, wings above and below the guns and the exhausts, and a bit of mud on the landing gear completed the project.