So I enlisted in the Zemke's Wolfpack campaign as I haven't built a P-47 in recent memory (last thirty years at least) and other campaigns got in my way (my bad!) so I'm now faced with a speed build go figure! Although a possible extension has been mooted but that awaits on Damians discretion. Anyway I've finally cut sprue as of last night and here's where I'm at this morning.

I was blithely assembling the floor and backrest of the cockpit only to realise I was building the P-47D version of the cockpit. Note to self pay more attention to the instructions fella!

Since this kit has the parts to build a dizzying array of possible P-47 marks you really need to keep an eye on exactly what parts you need. But the fit of parts is excellent as per usual from Tamiya and the engineering seems so far foolproof (as long as you FOLLOW the instructions!).

I popped down to the local hobby store, as local as it gets in Christchurch as we only have a couple, to pick up some Tamiya acrylic paint for the interior. While I was there I picked up some nice fine brass tube that I'll use for gun barrels and the pitot tubes on my Astrokit Mc.200 build. (Shameless plug!) It has four diameters of tube and looks really good.

Chris,
Nice start to a great kit. I really like that tubing set with the 4 different sizes. Got to see if my local online retailers carry it.

Joel

Joel! My thanks for your kindness. Always a pleasure to see you in one of my blogs! The tube set is also available on evilbay in a number different sets, some that have for different diameters of brass tube that all fit inside one another ... ohhhhh the possibilities!

Well after some rather industrious building I'm now applying paint to the various parts and assembling them. The fit has been excellent so far and I'm trying a couple of things that are new to me. They are the addition of wires at the rear of the instrument panel and base painting the cockpit black and then spraying the interior colour in the direction of falling light. I saw this on one of Joel's builds I think? It has motivated me to try it and I have to admit it really does work well.

Detail painting and an oil wash complete the cockpit. I dry brushed it after the wash with a light grey to make the various raised detail pop and added the decals of the dials for the instrument panel. Should really have done it with the I.P. out but it seems I like to make things harder than they should be in this build. The P-47 is 80% together now and I'll be moving onto the camo job soon. I have a bare metal paint for aluminium from Gunze that I'm going to try on this kit as I feel it should make it look pretty darn good. Anyway here are some pics for you to get an idea of what I've been up too. The rather large blob of blutack you can see is holding the trailing edge of the wing flush while the glue dries.

Smashing it Chris, really nice work to this point mate!

Cheers, D

Getting further long but things are slowing down as I prepare the model for paint. Canopy is on and now masked. I've sanded down the putty that I've used to fill various oopsies. Now I've got to mask those areas of the fuselage I don't want painted. The metallizer I'm going to use doesn't like masking tape so I'll do the upper camo first and then mask that. First however time for a little black undercoat over the areas that'll be bare metal. And over the canopy as the inside of that was painted black. Okay here are some pics to show you folks just what I'm gabbing about.

Okay so I've shot the base coat of black which is a satin by Vallejo. The metalizer is a lacquer which may or may not cause problems. I'm going to give it overnight to dry and harden before proceeding further. I think I'll spray the drop tank first to see what sort of reaction I get from the primer.

Hi Chris

This is turning out a real beauty! It reminds me that I bought P-47s when they were first released but have still never built one! I definitely need to spend more time at the workbench...

All the best

Rowan

Thanks Rowan! Would you believe that I've only used the merest smidgen of putty on this kit? The seam joins and engineering were just that good. I can see why the modelling community refer to this kit as the jewel in Tamiya's 1/48th crown. The level of detail and fit are just truly gratifying. LOL does this encourage you to build your own?

Okay enough of kissing Tamiya san's honorable butt. I've taken the chance afforded by me being the only person up to shoot some of the Gunze metallizer over the drop tank I'll be using. And I'm pleased to announce no detrimental effects on the base coat. I've got a nice satin sheen that I was hoping for and it looks pretty convincing. See for yourselves.

Sooooooooooo while I was working out my approach to painting the camo scheme I was looking at the landing gear and thinking about the brake lines and came up with this idea (so much for out of the box). I had some micro silicone tubing that I'd used to detail a large scale (1/8th) BMW motorcycle and thought it would provide an excellent representation of the flexible rubber hose that provides flex around the scissor link. I think it turned out pretty well what do you guys think? It'll probably be a little overscale but doesn't look to be to bad.

It's a fairly simple idea, feed a thin piece of copper wire through the tubing so when you go around the scissor link you can bend it into the desired shape and the wire will retain that shape. I did find it problematic as to where the line actually goes into the hub but from what little I could see it seemed to go into the shaft the wheel rotated on. I'm sure Nige or Damian can give a better idea of exactly how and where but for my purposes this was as good as any. I drilled a hole close to the shaft of the oleo and super glued the wire in and let it cure. I then bent the wire around the scissor into a shape I thought worked took it around the oleo and up it. I then superglued it in place. You can get varying sizes of this stuff so it may be possible to do something similar on larger scale kits. It's actually fishing tackle and I got it from the UK.

I've got the top colour mixed according to Tamiya san's instructions and sprayed the top of the P-47. I then masked and sprayed the natural metal finish. Went on quite well but I've damaged the nozzle of my .2mm needle and had to switch to the .4 which gives me way more paint than I'm used to for very little movement of the trigger. So a bit spotty in places just requires finer motor control than the .2mm but I got it done and it's passable.

It's taken awhile to get to this point as I've been fighting the Tamiya decals all the way. Why is it that Tamiya is one of the undisputed leaders in model kits in the world today yet their decals are decidedly third rate? While they are reasonably resilient they are brittle, thick and refuse to conform to kit detail without some serious softening agents. Ands that's with floating them on a bed of Klear/Future in an effort to glue them down. This is a technique that usually works pretty well even with Monogram kit decals but Tamiya resists to the bitter end.

To top off what has been a frustrating few days I found that while I knew that the kit had a missing prop I didn't realise that the spinner I needed for this build had been removed as well. So break out the drill press some carving chisels and a little ingenuity to manufacture a replacement. The first attempt wound up being lost to the concrete monster but the second attempt worked out fairly well. I found that one of the aluminium tubes I had was the exact internal and external diameter I needed it was just a matter of turning down the end of the spinner. So I grabbed a length of thick sprue I'd kept from a kit for just such purposes and locked it into the drill press. kind of like a vertical lathe I guess with the carving chisel being the tool. Not a great couple of first attempts but I'll get better with practice. So I've got it made and in place the stencils mostly on the kit just a few items left to paint and a wash and weathering to be done and I'm finished. (Just he says doesn't that sound like I'm tempting fate?)

Anyway take a look at the pics and check out my progress.

Chris,
I'm really impressed how you turned that prop hub. I would have been there for hours on end with files and emery cloth.

paint really looks quite good, as does all the decaling. Well done. your NMF on the bottom side looks just fine.

Joel

Love it Chris, looking great mate!

Nice recovery on the spinner, some scratchbuilding tools and skills never go astray in this field of work.

I can only agree with you on the Tamiya decals as well, they always fight me and it just doesn't make sense that a company with such a fine styrene product would not invest in state-of-the-art decal production. I generally look for AM decals for my Tamiya kits.

Cheers, D

Joel coming from you I consider that high praise indeed. The NMF did work quite well but can't really be masked so it was done in reverse from what I would've done naturally. The decals were literally forced into the panel lines with the round point of a tooth pick.

D my thanks kind sir, your appreciation of my work is always a boon. I will get aftermarket decals from now on too it's just this had exactly the subject I was looking for. And of course the time frame was rather tight.

Thats really impressive work. !

Thanks Bernd!

Okay so I've got the wash on just some weathering to go. I've started to add the delicate stuff like bombs landing gear rockets etc. Then an overall weather and a little dull cote on top to lock it all in. I'll use satin/semi gloss on the bottom to try and retain the look of weathered aluminium.

I've got some replacement barrels in the mail from master but the kit barrels are slide moulded and will look pretty good once painted so I'm going to give that a go first.

Here are the usual pics showing where the build is at.

Very nice, doing a great job! The Tamiya barrels come up well, I give them a spray with Alclad Airframe Aluminium, no primer, and a drop of thinned black in the end to finish it off.

Cheers, D

Getting closer to having this build finished and it's been an enjoyable build from a kit with practically no construction vices. The decals were a frustration but no deal breaker just a disappointing surprise. I've got most of the fragile parts on so handling will be reduced to a bare minimum. Just a little weathering and the wing tip lights, pitot tube to glue on. Then a coat of flat on top to seal it all in and I'm done ready for the gallery.

Looks very nice my experience with Tamiyas dacals are mixed too. Some went fine on, some were horrible.

The fuselage insignias on a P-47 are a difficult area, even with extremly well working decals.

Great looking Thunderbolt !

Bernd

Chris,
Your Jug is really coming along quite nicely. At this point I'm quite confident that you can clearly see the finish line.

Tamiya decals for the most part have been, and continue to be a major issue with their kits. What I've found is that they will settle down and conform to the various nooks and crannies but you need a stronger decal sol and set then Microscale's and even stronger then Solvaset (that I now use as the last step in my decaling procedures). I've found that Mr. Mark Sol and Set really tames those pesky Asian decals just fine. The only issue I've had is that I couldn't find anyone that carried both here in the states, so I had to go the ebay route to the Orient to get them. Then again, it's the same for Tamiya's Black panel line wash.

I'm also more then impressed with the NMF finish you achieved with the Gunze Metalizer. I'm assuming it's also Lacquer based.

Joel

Bernd always a pleasure to see you in my build threads! Thanks for the compliment buddy!

Thanks for your kind words Joel! Regarding the Metallizer it certainly smells like it, however I've found practically any solvent will lift it once it's sprayed. I used a gloss enamel varnish (huge mistake) to seal it. I found my panel line wash which was oil paint and Tamiya enamel solvent went on okay but when I removed the excess wash with Tamiya thinners it attacked and dissolved the gloss and the metallizer. I let everything dry and then re-coated with an acrylic gloss. Worked a hell of a lot better. But the minor damage worked to my advantage with the weathering wash etc.

I'll take your advice about Tamiya decals on board and look for the Gunze products, I'll probably have to follow your example and resort to evil-Bay to get it.

Chris, great result of your Jug. Good to see another "M" in the gallery soon. Mine is the two-tone M there.
About Tamiya decals, opposite to all others here, I cannot complain about them. I had only one kit where the decals were old and brittle and tore apart in warm water. That was on my Leopard 1A4 early last year. But with all other kits I had good luck and never a problem. But everyone of us makes different experiences with decals.

Torsten

Getting close now Chris, and it's coming up beatifully. I agree with Joel, I use the Gunze decal softener and setter on every build.

Cheers, D