Search the Community

Well, after much consideration, and complicated by the vast pool of amazing talent on display here at LSP making me feel like l am in the company of master craftsmen, I have decided to post a build log of my first LSP as an adult. A bit of background, like most here I was an avid modeler as a boy, 1/48 was my chosen scale, almost exclusively aircraft, and those were all world war two military aircraft. Then I went away to school, started a career and family, and suddenly, decades later, I saw a modeling magazine, and decided I could use the distraction of another hobby, something I could do at home. I started with 1/35 armor, thinking my fat fingers could re learn the hobby with something larger and less dainty than aircraft. I learned a lot, PE, resin, scratchbuilding, patience, stencils rather than decals, weathering, oil paints, figure painting, and the wonderful community of the internet. Rather than reclusive loners toiling away and safeguarding secrets, I found a worldwide community of people anxious to share tips and techniques. Well, it was bound to happen. At a raffle, I won some wingy things, notably Hasegawa's 1/32 P-47, and I am ready to build it. And blog it. Warts and all. Now that I'm grown, money isn't as tight as it was when I was on an allowance. So I do indulge in aftermarket stuff occasionally, but I like to add details the old fashioned way, too. So let's list the kit and aftermarket I have planned, subject to change should I mess up the kit engine, or decide not to use an AM part: Hasegawa P-47 bubbletop Big Ed PE, including exterior and colored cockpit details. (I will first paint the kit panel, then decide if its acceptable. I will likely need input on that.) Quickboost gun barrel covers RB Productions seat belts Custom masks by Mal Mayfield. I am going with Gabreski's bird, I know its been done to death but I love the colors and I built one in 1/48 that came out well. I plan to detail the kit engine, see below, but that is subject to change if I muck it up. I am aware of some pitfalls, I already filled the wing and fuselage sink marks. I know I need to drop the engine mount by a millimeter, but will likely ask for some help on exactly how to do that. In the past couple weeks, I masked the detail around the sinkholes and filled them. I planned to use Mr Surfacer, but my pot dried up. Luckily, I had some Tamiya white putty. Stinks worse than the old squadron green, but it was easy to work with. Then I started on the kit engine, which is nothing to write home about, but I guess not much will be seen. The detail on the cylinders is pretty soft. I painted the cylinders with a testors non buffing metalizer I had on hand, cant remember if it is steel or aluminum. I did several washes, starting with Flory dark, which didn't want to stick at all, so I switched to some home brewed oil wash, van duke brown and white spirit. Then I drilled for plug wires, and added the oil piping from .9mm lead wire, it's a little fat but I want it to be seen since I bothered to put it there. While contemplating a resin motor, I looked at a lot of resin and photos of real engines, and decided the Hasegawa motor is pretty lacking. The ignition cable assembly is some kind of combo between the round and square cross section. I decided I will build the round, so I cut off the detail and cut some small brass tubing to serve as the openings for the plug wires. I will add the wires next, but here are some photos of where it sits today. I work very slowly, and sometimes I cant get bench time in for a few weeks, then I will log time every evening for a week, so I apologize in advance if updates are sporadic. Boring wing fix Engine work Wedding ring for scale. Even though these parts are over scale, i dont think i can work with parts much smaller. Inter ear drain tubes added. Rear bank, the front ones came out smaller and tidier Dry fit, just to see how it is fitting. I will add ignition wires next. Any comments and criticism are welcome. This is good exercise, but is it worth it? Thanks for reading, Bill

Well I have been hammering away at this project since December of 2016, and finally (FINALLY!!) it is done. Here is a link to the long build if interested: Here are the pictures, warts and all. Apologies for the amateurish lack of good background and other professional picture taking skills. Aside from that, let me know what you think: I will post this now, as I don't know what limits there are on pictures per post. More next post.

Hello folks. Some of you have seen my work on a 21st Century Toys (21CT) P-51D (Miss Velma) a few years ago, and more recently a P-38J (Lucky Lady), both multi-year mod projects. If you will indulge me, I intend to finish off the big three with a P-47 Thunderbolt. A nice winter project to get started. It will probably take a couple of years like the others. Then some day I will get going on the F4U Corsair, and then I will not have any 1/18 scale models left to modify. As is customary, I must show you the unmodified P-47 toy first, and then let you know my plan of attack (if there is one yet). Here are some shots of P-47D "Jabo": Unlike my last two efforts, I see no real challenges that risk not being able to be overcome, save one (the engine). If the engine doesn't pan out, I will just hold my nose and use the existing one. Although the toy looks as toyish as the others, I believe it has more potential for realism than either the P-38 or the P-51, where I had to live with some inaccuracies that were beyond my skills to fix. The biggest projects are going to be the landing gear, wheels/tires, wheel well, control surfaces, cockpit, and canopy glass. My previous two efforts had equivalent projects. But the big project they didn't have, that this one does, is an engine which can be seen. And that is the project I intend to work first. To see the engine up close, of course I disassembled the fuselage: As you can see, and not surprisingly, this is a BIG model. But you have to understand that the P-38 build redefined my notion of size. So I am not intimidated. The engine (unmodified) looks like this: That, my friends, is a somewhat plausible effort by 21CT at a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp. Note the cylinders only have the front half (the rear half being invisible). Anyway, I have decided that I will salvage none of it save perhaps the bulkhead it mounts to. Instead I will scratch build the R-2800, at least what can be seen looking into the cowling from the front. I will not attempt to include the exhaust or intake pipes, or the aft portion of the engine block. I thought about it, but no - it would be too much. I will include all 18 cylinders, their push rods, rocker arm covers, spark plugs with wiring, engine block, and all the clap trap in front of the cylinders. That alone will require hundreds upon hundreds of little parts, and will take me a few months I suspect. I found alot of pictures of the R-2800 (early versions), and wish I could get drawings but cannot find. Also I purchased a Vector resin 1/32 scale R-2800 shown here: It is a good representation, and will be useful for scaling and copying. First order was to determine the size of the engine - one has to consider the thickness of the toy's cowling (.07 inch) which scales to 1.26 inch full size. That means the engine has to be slightly undersized to fit. So I did all that layout work and out popped a cylinder size. Also I decided to construct the cylinders using 0.01 thick plastic for the cooling fins, and 0.01 inch plastic for the spacers between the cooling fins. Actually this is a little too thick and results in fewer cooling fins than the real engine has. But it is more than you typically see on R-2800 models I think. What you see here are flat patterns of cooling fins and spacers for the cylinder heads of the front row of cylinders (9 cylinders): Whaaaaaa? Patience. Here is the prototype cylinder I made a couple weeks ago: What do you think? I thought I would have to trash it, but it actually is good enough to use. Here it is next to the 1/32 Vector cylinder, and a photo of a real R-2800: Note the pieces that make up the cylinder head have a 90 deg bend, and a little port for the spark plug. The pieces of the cylinder itself are much easier - simply round, scribed with a circle template. That is all for now. I hope this generates some interest. Next post will show some results of some real drudgery - making cylinder after cylinder - nine of them. And perhaps the engine block which will be turned on the mini-lathe. Then one day the aft row of cylinders. Many challenges, and an unreal part count. Stay tuned.

I bought this kit few years ago, before Eduard made their Limited Edition P-47 set, but i lost my appetite for this big fish . Now i have new airbrush from Gunze so it was a good time to check how it works. I used these additions for P-47: - Eduard resin wheels, - interior PE set, - RB model gun barrels, - Montex masks/decals

Hi everyone! I've been a lurker here for far too long! For years. I've learned so much from all your builds and got heaps of inspiration, so thank you! On the bench the past few weeks, (started 15ish years ago) is my Trumpeter hog. I'm building a 1991 Desert Storm 23rd TFW. To me, it's the classic hog. Growing up in the 80's, this was my favorite jet and I loved watching them at the local air shows. The Trump kit has a strange mix of old and modern detail, so there's going to be a lot of mods to backdate it properly. I've got all the usual aftermarket goodies lined up for it: Cutting Edge Cockpit Cutting Edge Exterior Set Cutting Edge Decal Sheet Master Model brass gun & pitot Cutting Edge Dual Rail Adapter Cutting Edge wheels AMS Resin Mk 20s & ALQ-119 Zacto or Cutting Edge Sidewinders Random bits in the box: Reworking the front wheel well. The kit detail leaves a lot to be desired, so I'm trying out a little scratchbuilding. Today, I removed all the kit's detail, and blocked out a new wheel well box. At first. I tried just removing the molded in detail on the kit part, but this looked really ugly, so I decided to completely replace it. Here's my new detail-less well box: Pretty happy with the fit! Took lots and lots of sanding and dry-fitting. Here's the inner fuselage, I had to fill some gaps here, note this is before sanding! And here's the fit check with the Cutting Edge cockpit. Doesn't look like it, but this took half a Sunday of hard (but fun) work! That's it for now, next will be scratching in all the detail for the front wheel well. Thanks for looking! Any and all comments appreciated! Aaron

Hey folks This would have been a full WiP thread but like a few other folks here I had a bl**dy nightmare of a time with Photobucket over the last few weeks which only seems to have resolved itself now. Anyhoos here's my almost completed Hasegawa P-47. Eduard etch belts instead of HGW ones as I had them in-stock. Barracuda resin wheels which were two different types when I opened the pack but I used them anyway. Kagero decals from the 'Top Colours' book and AK Xtreme Metal enamel lacquers - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !! So the next time you see it (probably Saturday) it should be all done !!. In the meantime thanks for taking the time to look and/or comment. Ian.

The Bubbletop being a Brazilian machine with aftermarket decals, the Razorback one of the 325th Checkertail Clan using kit decals. For their age, the kits are decent, although lacking in cockpit detail. The Tamiya kit is superior, but the Hasegawa can often be found and swap meets for 5 bucks, in fact that's what dad paid for it about 15 years ago when he bought it for me. It was a 2 in 1 special edition.

Just a general question to the P-47 Cgnoscenti out there about the Jug. What would the relative temperatures from the five main vents/exhausts on a P-47 be? I am guessing the Waste Gates on the nose after the Oil Cooler flap would have jetted hot air (and dirt) based on the pictures. Logically the ventral turbine exhaust would have done something similar...but what about the side Intercooler vents? Would they have had cold air flow, or would this too have been hot gas? Hope someone can help.

Hi, After a lof of struggling with this model I finally was able to finish it. Model as an early Trumpeter is not perfect, it has a lot of errors and a lot of work is needed to do it properly so I wouldn't recommend to beginners. I add resin cockpit (in set was also a resin gun muzzle), Eduard exterior and armament sets, another metal gun muzzle for gun on a trailer and additional model of VW Beetle from Airfix (a terrible, terrible model). Trailer is a scratch build, a few details were added to resin engines frome the kit and to the gun (from kit) on a trailer - especially the ammo belt. Model was painted in three tone grey camo called Flipper. i know it was not used on A-10N/AW (as it only existed in one prototype) but I liked it much more over a standard grey-green camo. I only add a little of oil wash and weathering. No dust pigments were added as I wanted to keep it quite clean. Just to mention as one of the inspiration was probably well known old photo of VW Bettle copared to GAU-8 gun. Ohh, and one more thing - I've noticed than some masks were not removed from front windscreen. Please watch and comment (and be gentle):

For info: What look like some nice resin wheels for the Kinetic kit or VFS one if you have that. Three tyre types to choose from. DEF Model...click on the corresponding thumbnail Lucky Model has them in stock for about $15USD HTH. Cheers Matty