Here is Pic set 3

The notorious Jug wheel well seam was covered with the hyd line from the Emergency Auxillary pump resevoir (at least thats my story and I'm sticking to it)


The seam inside the supersharger exhaust was covered by a turbine (AKA also known as a rescribed Arri/otaki P-47 wheel cover



Yes, thats a K-14 gunsite disguised as a K-9..Please don't tell. A sequin from my daughters dance recital dress was punched for the mirror.

The rear of the canopy needs some resanding, as I rushed it to finish the build for my club meeting the next morning..I spent most of that night rebuilding the cowling I dropped on the hardwood floor.....

My only thought is the large paint chips out of the cowling don't seem to go with the cleanliness of the rest of the aircraft. The majority of the plane looks new, while the front shows too much wear imho.

Maybe add some wear to the wing where the pilot would climb into the cockpit, as well as wear down some of the rivets around the engine as if it's been worked on.

Otherwise, very beautiful plane.

DC8Big Brown,

I tend to agree with Nokinja, with a caveat. Some pilots & crew chiefs kept their charges very clean, Don Gentile's P-51 Shangri-La was described as "immaculate". My P-51--a shameless plug! If this was such a plane, then the chip on the cowl can be attributed to a replacement part, or wear on a high maintenance item.

I would also suggest a bit of grease/oil and chipping around the ammo bay doors. With the several kills displayed, these doors had had some use...

...same for landing gear bays. I do not believe they were always a leaky as I make mine look, but these do look a bit tidy.

Impressive D-Day stripes. How'd you mask them?

Impressive hollowing of the vents and louvres.

The only seams I see are at the wing root, but they IIRC they are along the edge of the fillet, correct? Regardless, your seam work is enviable.

Sorry guys, I can't go with most of those suggestions...

The a.c depicted is pictured along with many other color pics of 63rd FS P-47s...

The Red cowlings were newly painted on worn aircraft...Many /some show paint peeling, I assume due to either paint failure (improperly applied in the field, or not allowed to cure before use)

The same thing happend to Don Gentile's and John Godfrey's P-51's, if you read the book...New paint on the spinners, a quick flight through rain (very abrasive at high speed) and the new red paint peeled all off exposing the spinner beneath. Later it was repainted again.

BTW, Gentiles aircraft was far from immaculate, but it was rather clean. Lots of oily rags wiped down his aircraft.

American aircraft had little to no chipping of paint. They were carefully painted with quality paint, unlike Japanese aircraft late in the war. Gentile's had a tiny amount, around the wing walk area, but this is more an execption than the rule. The few chips on US aircraft are usually on the walkway, and on the push in steps...and are very small in size.

As for chips on the cowl panels, haven't seen any in those color pics... I try to stick with my references, and not get too hypothetical...

If you look at the model and pictures of the real aircraft, you would notice the d-day stripe are freshly overpainted on the top...therefore notice there is no chipping, or black powder stains around the ammo panels. Even on old paint, the only stains I have seen from the guns on a P-47 were from the shell ejection ports. I could add a bit there...

The landing gear bays are too clean. The model wasn't quite finished when these pics were taken. That needed to be fixed.

The D-day stripes were done with good old Green plaid scotch tape....

Hi DC8B.B.,

What book are you referring to?


That Shangri-La was immaculate is a quote from the following books I have perused: The Mighty Eighth in Color, 9Th Air Force in Color, Fighters of WWII in Color, Carrier Air War in Original Color , Jeff Ethel's and Roger Freeman's books on the P-51 and P-47, and others.




In these books, you will find numerous pics of our paint coming off. A color photo of 56th F.G. razorback UN*B shows a large, probably 1 ft X 1 Ft area on the tail that the paint peeled away from Close-ups show chipping all over the m,aintance areas, and a few shots of P-47s that show the top of the wingroot shows large areas where the paint has worn away.

Further, B-26s tend to loose the paint along their nose in long jagged peels.

Interestingly, F4Us on carriers had a fair amount of wear along the leading edge wingroot, and the front fuselage.

Something to keep in mind. Our paint was superior, but at the same time, our planes didn't always last long enough to weather heavily. Attrition saw to that. An exception is the famous B-26 Flak Bait. And in England, the maintenance crews had more opportunity to touch up. Then there is the B-17 "Nine-O-Nine" who's OD was faded to a khaki, without any noticeable chips on the front fuselage. But there wasn't much walking/leaning on there. However, on many of these planes, you can see darker (fresher) areas of paint here and there where, no doubt, they were touched up.

Our planes did loose paint. Not like the Japanese's when they were painted improperly, but loose paint, we did.

I can supply you with particular aircraft and their scars with page numbers of the specific books, if you'd like. Understand that I am not trying to bust your chops, but weathering is one of my favorite aspects of modeling and I have studied it for decades. I am very interested in new source material to either prove or dispel my ideas.

Very clean build and great paint work.
In my opinion I think that some of general weathering and an oil wash to enhace the panel lines could add a lot to this great model.