Great build, Nige!! You are quite right, this one is ready to knock out some panzers.

Thanks for participating

Today I got started on painting the exterior. I first painted the wheel wells and insides of the gear well doors with yellow zinc chromate, then masked and painted the yellow stripes to the wings and horizontal stabilizer.

Next it's time for the canopy frames, then olive drab and neutral grey.

Quite a funny thing happened with the canopy brace. Although I originally bought this kit to get one national insignia decal, it also ended up donating the canopy brace part. So, I had to make a new one from styrene sheet. I had it all finished and painted up when I was checking it's fit with the canopy. I somehow managed to turn the part sideways in the slot behind the cockpit. It fell inside the fuselage. For a while I tried to get it come out through the cockpit opening. No luck.
Aftert a few gentle shakes I was sure it wasn't going to come out, I carved yet a another new part from styrene sheet.
This time it all went smoothly. I glued in the brace, attached the canopy with PVA and held it down with tape. When I sat down to take off the tapes, what did I find between the windscreen and gunsight? The first part that was consumed by the fuselage! Fortunately I was able to get it out of the cockpit with mild shaking.

Hi all!

Wow, so many nice models and most P-47`s, looks like the production line at Republic!

I experienced a strange thing when building the big Hasegawa P-47!

I determined it was time to join the fuselage so I got the wing spar/cockpit assembly In place and glued the fuselage halves together.
They mated so perfectly, I had no use of any clamps, pins or even any tape!
Yes, NOTHING to hold the fuselage together!

Well, as that went so well I just slid the wheel wells in place in the wings, slid the wings over the spars and glued them to the fuselage.
Before I knew It the tailplane was glued too.

Suddenly, within minutes, I had a P-47 in my hands, and man, that thing Is really BIG in 1/32!



All joins fitted absolutley perfect and there´s hardly any need for filler!

I used a little filler on the underside, but that was my own fault as I left It to dry upside down!

Now I´m trying to get the engine to look a little better, wiring It up.

I glued two strips of 1mm diameter plastic rod side by side.
When dry I sanded the end straight, drilled a hole in each rod and cut it off, about 2mm long, repeat 18 times (one for each cylinder ).

Next I shaved off the stubs on the crankcase egnition ring and glued my home made stubs in the correct position.

Here how It looked when dryfitted.



Here I have started wiring each cylinder with 0.3mm steel wire, you can see the wires painted in the left corner of the pic.



A little work, but a job I really enjoy as this can be clearly seen on the finished model.

I also sanded off all seams on the model, a 5minute task!

Until next time...

Cheers!

Stefan E

Hi Stefan, looks great! That engine is really turning out beautifully. Some very nice extra detailing.

This is really a big bird. Remember also to start building an extra shed close to your house so you have a place to display it when it is done.

Thanks for sharing - looking forward to see more

Some progress again. Neutral grey for the bottom is on.

I hope to get the olive drab for the upper side painted today.

Painting finished:

Next it's time for a gloss coat and decals.

Wow Eetu, you are really moving ahead with your Thunderbolt. I am trying to keep up with my Hs 129

I have given it the undercoat and masked it for the camouflage scheme on the upper surfaces.

Progress pics of my 1/32 Hurricane IID. Waiting new decals from Eaglestrike as kit ones fell apart KIt sheet looked great,no yellow or fade.Anything else to look for to prevent disaster?Any sure-fire fix?




Cheers!

Hi Rick

Sorry to hear about the decals Sh** happens. Anyway, good that you have replacements on the way.

I love the idea of having the Hurricane mounted on a base just above the ground. Great idea
I were playing around with the thought of "basing" my Tomcat for the Bye Bye, Baby campaign in a similar fashion over water, but the lack of pilots made me discard the idea.

Jesper- Yeah,nobody makes a sitting pilot for any era in the big scales.Had to take the kit's dummy and give him a new lower right arm so he could grip the stick.Gave him a proper British moustache and he turned into a snappy little chap!

Good-looking hurricane you have there. That in-flight display base works great for the campaign.
Talking about those disintegrating decals, a pretty fool-proof fix is to first test with one left-over decal to see if they have the tendency to break apart when dipped in water. If they do, apply one or two coats of liquid decal film (I use microscale's stuff) to prevent this. Then apply them normally, just remember that the liquid film from a new carrier film and you must cut the decals accordingly.

Great looking Hurricane !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All the builds for this campain are utterly amazing.

Keep up the great work guys.

Ted

Things are moving ahead with my Hs 129. I finally have my airbrush working again (actually just bought a new one ) sp I can finally start work on the camouflage. I have masked and airbrushed over the last few day and are quite happy with the result so far. Only a few scratches in the paint and some light overspray at the underside of the rear fuselage.

Now I need to paint some details, then markings and a little bit of weathering. Should be able to finish in time

Looking good. What paints did you use? Is that the usual RLM 71/70/76 scheme?

My thunderbolt's got it's markings now.

I also got the engine painted and all wired.


Devastiting devil (P-39) is also near being finished. It has the initial flat coat on plus some chipping painted with metallics. Next I'll apply some pastel weathering to the panel lines, dirt on the wheels and do the exhaust stains.

Jeps, that is the colour scheme. Normally I spray with Tamiya colours, but for this I used Testors paints as I wanted to touch up on smaller mistakes afterwards with normal brush. Tamiya paints are awfull to brush paint.

I used Testors RLM 76, Dark green, and Olive green. The colours look a little bright in the pictures as I were using flash, but I think they are very close to the standard colours.

Your kites are moving along very nicely. You must be a busy model building man as I can see you are also building for the Armorama campaigns.

The standard is 65/70/71 ... but your light blue looks o.k. in the picture. The others are too bright, maybe shoot a few pix outside when you are finished (but rather try indirect lighting than direct sunlight) .

cheers

Steffen

Hi Steffen thanks for the comments

You are right about the RLM 65 vs. RLM 76 as always But I had to go with what was available in Latvia.

The greens are too light - also in normal daylight. However, in the pictures they seem much lighter than real life. I had more correct Tamiya colours, but I need to correct a few mistakes here and there by brush, so I choose to go with the Testor colours eventhough they are a little too light.
I guess the sun over the Russian steppes can make paint fade really quickly

When I have finished it, I will take the final pictures in daylight.

Well, I'm not really that busy, I'm going to finish these two planes before I start working on that T-34 (...again after several years) over at armorama. And btw, working on three kits at a time wouldn't be possible. I'd run out of space on my desk. Okay, perhaps there is room for 3 projects, but only if I learnt to keep my desk tidy. Now it's cluttered with tools, paint bottles and other stuff plus the kits I'm working on. And if that weren't enough, I'm working according to that Murphy's law that defines the working space for each desk as an area of five inches from the front edge of the table!

Hi Eetu!

I think your P-47 looks very good with French markings!

Jean-Luc

Got mine done.





BFBs will but them tanks.





So will BFGs

Pardon my ignorance, but I have a question... I don't like the bombs Revell gave with the P-51, and I'm looking for alternatives. I have an AM Avenger which has both bombs and rockets, but I have no idea if the Navy used the same ordinance as the Airforce. (Well, it wasn't separate from the Army yet, I think.)
Do you think I could use them? (Either.)

@Carl: beautiful birds you have there. Absolutely stunning. I especially like the camouflage job on the ME 262. Looks great! Thanks for participating!

@Andras: I am not enough into details about US ordnance to say if Navy bomb and/or rockets could be used for your P-51.
However, I can say that your bird will qualify for the campaign if it has bombs or rockets on the standard hard points. Also if it turns out to be historically incorrect to use them on your P-51. In relation to the campaign: if you feel like using them because they look better, go ahead. Afterall we are here to have fun and history/accuracy demands are not that strict.

Thanks I try to achieve a balance between fun and accuracy... But I'm afraid it can raise some eyebrows. Bombs that is.
(The rockets go to the Avenger. Does anybody know if the wings were ever folded with the rockets attached?)

A Most Excellent FW. Great job on that one.

Hi all!

Finally, after some fiddly work I got It wired!





I have done some sanding on all seams and been busy with the undercarriage.

Paintshop is coming closer really fast now!

I do have some concern about the choosen scheme, though.

Gabreskis machine is quite well documented on the top side, but the bottom is very uncertain.
Hasegawa says Medium Sea Grey, full striping on the empennage.
Techmod states all NMF underside, with only white striping, outlined with black at the rear.
I have also seen NMF wings, MSG lower fuselage and full rear striping!

Confusing?

nah...

Cheers!

Stefan E