P-47D Thunderbolt Razorback - TRUMPETER - 1/32 - “Lonesome Polecat IV”

Furie · November 25

Well, I'm going to continue with my “big babies”, and after my Tempest, which is waiting to be photographed, I'm going to start on this P-47.
I chose to do the “Lonesome Polecat IV” of the 351 FS because I absolutely want a P-47 painted in NMF and with a nice checkerboard on the nose.
I've never made a model in NMF and I've got to start sometime.
Hopefully I'll get there soon, and see you soon for more chubby adventures!

scvrobeson · November 25

Looking forward to another awesome project Denis

Matt

FW190A-5 · November 25

Am also contemplating a 1st NMF. As you say; "got to start sometime".

Will follow along and look forward to seeing your Tempest. John

alain11 · November 25

hi Denis

it's a good and easy kit , don't waste your time with all these plastic stuffs inside the fuselage ( my humble opinion ) . the main challenge will be the checkerboard .....I will follow your thread :thumbsup:

Alain

MikeMaben · November 26

Cool project Denis, are you gonna leave out all the internal guts ?

Saves alot of time.

Greif8 · November 26

Looking forward to following this one Denis.

Ernest

dennismcc · November 26

I have one of those all lined up to go when I have finished the C200 and Ki 44 so I will follow with interest.

Cheers

Dennis

Phil88 · November 26

Ohhhh funny, i will follow too.

willysmb43 · November 26

I will also follow this beautiful project

Shoggz · November 27

Yay, another Denis build! Will be doubly interested in seeing how you get on with this, having built it myself.

ROM · November 29

NIce markings!

do you have the decals for it? especially the nose art?

Furie · November 29

Thank you Matt, FW 190, Alain, Mike, Ernest, Dennis, Philippe, Willys, Richard and Romain for your messages of encouragement.
I could use some, as I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into!
Indeed, I'm going to “lighten” the interior elements which, by definition, serve no purpose.
I'll have enough to do with the NMF, the checkerboard and the nose art, which I'm going to do with a laser printer and a sheet of transparent decal.
I'm thinking of using MRP paints in their metallic range, as I've never had any serious problems with them.
I'll try to get the surface absolutely perfect and I'll follow Romain's advice by finishing with Tamiya compounds.

The logical place to start is with the P&W 2800.
It's the soul of the P-47, so it's important to try and make it look nice, as it's going to show a lot.
I started by collecting photos to get as much detail as possible.
As there are a lot of surviving P-47s, it's a pretty easy job, but I also relied on old photos, as there have been a lot of different versions of this engine, and in the absence of relevant information I had to make choices (not necessarily wise, but that's how it goes!).

Etc etc etc...

The first thing we notice is that Trumpy has done a very good job, although there's room for improvement here and there.
You can see a metal box at the bottom right of the P&W with a pipe running to the underside of the engine, 2 metal pipes running from the center of the crankcase to the bottom, the spark plug wires which are in duplicate and linked together by a metal clip, yet more hoses running in all directions, backwards, forwards, upwards, downwards, in short, this P&W can be detailed ad infinitum, you just have to put the cursor in the right place to stop in time!

I also made a small box between the propeller and the P&W housing, but I didn't put it in place for these photos.
I used 0.5mm tin solder, mainly for ignition coil wires, pipes and drains.
I also made the spark plugs with pieces of metal syringe needle.

Which isn't much use, as the ignition wires hide everything.
It's imperative to paint the sub-assemblies before gluing the engine parts, for obvious reasons.
I've used MRP dark alu, steel, bronze and even OG for the crankcase, and I think it looks pretty good.
As you know me well by now, there were howls in the depths of a small French town when I had to assemble this engine, especially with the whole engine exhaust system...
Here's where I'm at, I've gloss-coated everything so I can apply the panel liner.

As you can see, the result is far from perfect, but from a distance, it gives the illusion.
I also bought an Eduard set to replace Trumpy's ugly soft plastic wheels, supposed to represent real tires.
In my opinion, a really bad idea...

See you soon!