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Heavy Mod - 1/18 21st Century Toys P-47D Razorback


JayW

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"Will you preserve these markings? "

 

Yes Jim I intend to.  Not my all time favorite paint scheme, but significant in that this aircraft was part of the WW2 unit my uncle served in as a pilot - 354 FG, 353 FS.  My all-time favorite?  "Whooooooooo!"  405 FG p-47D-25.  And one I could never hope to duplicate in 1/18 scale.  Nor do I want to - there are differences between a -25 and a -30 (mine) that most would not know of, but I now do.  Mostly in the cockpit.  At any rate, for sure mine will look battle worn, as I handle the fuselage thousands of times, and patch-paint all over the place.  

 

One big mistake I made - I saved all this miscellaneous (and often heavy-handed) fuselage work for last.  Now I live in fear of damaging protruding fragile things like the armor plate back and the gun sight - both would be uber-tough to redo.  Have already knocked off and lost the oval gun sight glass, and the tiny windshield defroster tube.  Worked my tail off on those little details and now I get to do them over again.  :(

Edited by JayW
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Your doing beautiful work but your putting yourself though hell with the fasteners. I make them in 1/32 by sharpening a hypodermic needle on the outside a bit. I twist the needle to make the circle and make the slot with the tip of a knife. This is also how I make flush rivets. Your way looks great in 1/18 like I said but that is a LOT of work for what will end a subtle effect and would be much more difficult in 1/32. Keep up the good work!

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Twohands - I am not exactly visualizing how you use a needle to make fastener outlines.  Can you clarify further?  Also - anybody know who makes custom decals?  Were I to obtain 1/18 versions of the above Whoooooo scheme with the wolf, I might be tempted to convert over.  Can you imagine that in 1/18?  As many great decal makers there are out there, seems like some outfit would do it given enough money!

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Keeping y'all up to date on the P-47D fuselage work, I have finished drilling and filling the Dzus fasteners.  Yay!!  Mind numbing task behind me.  Now, things are going fairly fast.  Panel line work is largely done too.  I will not show specifics, except to say the area just in front of the windshield was a heckuva mess.  I basically puttied it all over, and began from scratch.

 

I want to show you the windshield work, and with it, a 100% complete cockpit.  No, you have not seen it 100% complete - just about 95% complete.  First, the original windshield looks (looked) like this:

 

    jorI7V3l.jpg

 

Why did they not paint the side posts?  This part is very devoid of detail; I will add some.  And as I may have already mentioned, the windshield and bubble canopy are not to scale - a bit too large, and also the windshield doesn't have enough slope.  But I am going to live with the shape, and otherwise try to make them the best they can be.  So off to work on the windshield:

 

qatIXzLl.jpg

 

Side posts get primer as well as the rest, and fastener divots.  And the inside:

 

7nHIp0Vl.jpg

 

Added the rear view mirror.  And for the first time ever, I showed nuts from all the screws that attach the windshield to the fuselage, and the window panes to the frame.  Why?  Because they can be easily seen, as shown in the next couple of shots:

 

47vCZp5l.jpg

 

4cfk3yWl.jpg

 

And, what you see is a 100% complete cockpit.  What was left was to attach the oxygen unit lines that were dangling loose, and route the RH rudder cable (fishing line) through its pulley wheel on the floor, aft through a hole in the Sta 180 bulkhead, all the way back to the end of the fuselage where it is glued in place.  And because I am so proud of that detail, here's a pic of it:

 

v5H0mN6l.jpg?1

 

It's that silver diagonally pointing line that dips behind the seat.  

 

Lastly, this shot shows some of the panel line work I did, and some of the aft cowl Dzus fasteners:

 

urkytjll.jpg

 

Also you can see plastic strip around the periphery of the windshield.  That is meant to depict the flange that attaches to the fuselage skin - something the real aircraft has, and this toy does not.  I will fill in the fillet with epoxy, paint it all silver and hopefully it looks good.

 

I am not sure what you will see next.  But probably the canopy rail structure, oil cooler flapper doors, and the engine firewall (not really the firewall, technically, but the bulkhead I mount my engine to).  Eventually the repaint has to happen.  It's going to be a challenge.  If it goes badly, I may select a different paint scheme.  See you soon, and thanks for looking in!

Edited by JayW
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  • 2 weeks later...

This is a big day for the P-47.  After some critical fuselage work, which I will show you, the engine was final installed to the fuselage.  Recall the engine was begun 1 1/2 years ago in December of 2016.  I finished it 6 months later in May of 2017.  And now, one year later almost exactly, it finally finds its home in the cowlings of the fuselage!  Yay!. 

 

First, some fuselage work that was necessary:

 

My engine mounts on the "preheater" fairing.  In real life it mounts on a truss-work which is hidden by this preheater fairing.  Here is this thing rough cut - it gets trimmed and sanded a little later:

 

  rFSe1zgl.jpg

 

Some of you may remember this part.

 

The oil cooler flapper doors and waste gate shield also were replaced:

 

Before:

 

N3Ljzfll.jpg

 

After:

 

K12xDJGl.jpg

 

The canopy of the P-47 is driven by a chain drive electric motor, and is supported on rollers that travel in tracks.  The aft track and chain drive are contained in a strange looking structure behind the pilots armor.  P-47 experts know this.  It was absent on the toy so I built it up:

 

  9efczQ8l.jpg

 

It lacks the chain itself - it is basically a back-to-back bicycle chain - how in the world to model that.....

 

The fuselage received a whole lotta love in the form of paint restoration.  This bottom view shows the different shades of silver for  the bottom fairings (some of which are stainless steel, and some of which are aluminum):

 

pKFJY0zl.jpg

 

Once the repainting was done, and all those details I described were done, I felt like I could install the engine.  Here she is:

 

Opu3gtSl.jpg

 

DbPyVmTl.jpg

 

rnZ1tBDl.jpg

 

N9m8ULHl.jpg

 

Note the nice smooth radiused edge of the preheater fairing.  

 

Next is to get in some hoses for the oil coolers, an inlet horn for the windshield defrost/defog, and (drum roll please) the cowling flaps.  In parallel, I will be heavily modifying and improving the canopy.  Have started already by reshaping the frame to be more accurate:

 

 IQ5gn75l.jpg

 

Hope you like the progress.  This project can be all consuming, and I struggle to make sure I lead a balanced life.  :)  Till later.

Edited by JayW
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"Not sure if it would be the right scale for this, but Tamiya, HiroBoy,and TopStudios all make a 1/12 scale PE motorcycle chain set. They look fantastic."

 

OMG - every links must be assembled!  Well, the smallest motorcycle chains have a half inch pitch.  Many have 5/8 inch pitch.  This one for the T'bolt has a 3/8 inch pitch.  Right off the bat that would be an error of 1.33 times too large.

 

And then scale error would be 1/12 to 1/18.  that's an error of 1/5 times too large.  Total is 1.33 x 1.5 = 2.0 times too large. 

 

Still, that might be better than no chain at all.  Thanks for the tip Nuker!  Will cogitate on that.   

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"Killer work! Can hardly wait to see it done,


Cheers, Ian"
 
Oh Ian - hope you are patient.  I can't wait either, but keep reminding myself that the joy is in the making more than the finishing.  What is it - A year and a half so far?  It'll take alot longer.  Especally if I occasionally slap myself in the face and demand that I get a life and do other things too.   
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