A Tale of Two Thunderbolts

[ChuckD]

Needing to keep my fingers busy while I wait for Maketar to ship me my B-17E masks, I decided to tackle a project I've been thinking about for a while.  I've had both a Hasegawa bubbletop and a Trumpeter razorback P-47D kit in the stash for a long time and have been thinking of doing a dual build.  I'm interested in comparing the two kits to see how each manufacturer approached the subject matter.  For a while now, I've been on a big Pacific war kick.  So, I initially went on a search for Pac war decal schemes.  I was able to find a set for the razorback, but all the ones I found for the bubbletop were either for N model airframes or were out of print.  Despite what this thread may lead you to believe, I'm not a total P-47 fanboy, so my assumption is that not a lot of bubbletop D models saw action in the Pacific.  Anyway, I've landed on this set for the bubbletop and this set for the razorback.  I'll be using the OD green for the latter.  I'll also be adding a set of HGW seatbelts to each.  All of these are on order, but should be here soon.  Outside of those, I'll be building these pretty much out of the box.

 

So, off we go!

 

I'll follow along with the directions for the most part, but I may skip around a bit to keep the build somewhat parallel.  Here are the cockpits.  The dark gray is Hasegawa and lighter gray is Trumpeter. 

 

Trumpeter took a strange approach to the instrument panel.  They molded the IP itself in clear, which isn't terribly odd.  What is odd, is that they didn't cut out the instrument dial faces like they have done on some of their other kits.  So, I was forced to use liquid mask to mask them before painting.  Note the film to provide the instruments themselves.

 

Here are a few shots of the cockpits dry fit together.  

 

 

Note the difference in sizes.  The Trumpeter offering is both wider and longer than the Hasegawa kit. 

 

 

In terms of overall details, I'm not sure there's a clearcut winner here, though I tend to lean towards Hasegawa for crispness and inclusion of more levers and such.  I worked from home today as I was in a tele-training class for 9 hours.  During lunch, I got a quick minute to prime and paint the bits to get them moving along.  

 

More to come!

[1to1scale]

Wow, looks like a 1/32 and 1/28 cockpit.

[MikeMaben]

Interesting     

 

 

[ChuckD]

Been a busy couple days at the bench, having plowed through a good chunk of my Swamp Ghost build.  I have somehow found time to get the cockpits for the Thunderbolts around.  Painted dull dark green with Tamiya paints, detailed painted with Vallejo model colors, chipped with a silver pencil, and washed with Ammo wash.  So, at this point, I'm just waiting for the seatbelts to arrive before calling the pits done.  Sadly, tracking for one of them shows that the package probably fell off the conveyor belt at the shipper's post office.  Tracking has been stuck on "shipment received, package pending acceptance" for days.  I see just now that it has an update today, so hopefully it'll be here soon.  The other set of seatbelts should be here soon too.  Hopefully before the holiday so I can keep cracking on these two.

 

Anyway, pics...

The Hasegawa cockpit.

 

Trumpeter

Both fit together really well, but the more I dig into these, the more I'm leaning towards the Hasegawa cockpit.

 

Instrument panel comparison:

As both of these are P-47D's, I would assume (big assumption on my part) that the panels would be very similar.  However, there are clear differences.  The clear glass of the trumpeter instrument turned out pretty well all things considered.  The liquid mask did a nice job.  I'll put a drop of future into the dial faces of the hasegawa IP later to help simulate glass.  I'll also paint those white wings on the trumpeter IP black before I button everything up.  Since the "dials" are just clear film, you need a light background color to make them appear in the dials.

 

Mocked up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The size difference between the two is stark.  It'll be interesting to see how the two compare in size as we progress through these builds. 

[MikeMaben]

 

 

[Sturmbock]

Really beautyfull work so far you've done on the Cockpits! Love it!!

I' m working on Trumpi's P47D Bubbletop right now and I have desided to replace the Mk VIII Gunsight with parts from Quickboost and Eduard because of the overdimension oft the kitpart! 

I will follow your build with much interesst!

 

Cheers!

Lutz

 

[Gazzas]

Both pits look nice!  I'd believe the bigger pit to be closer to real...  such a huge aircraft!

[ChuckD]

Hello, LSP crew.  Been working on the Thunderbolts lately.  Somewhat myopically, it would seem, as I have forgotten to take a lot of pictures.  Truth is, this project is meant to be a bit of a palate cleanser after having the Swamp Ghost looming large over me for the last year.  So, I'm focusing on the fun of the builds, rather than perfect little details.  That said, I'm not spending much time on things that will never be seen... like the entire turbocharger assembly in the fuselage of the Trumpeter offering.  It's huge, complex, clunky, and - based on several reviews - makes the kit fit poorly.  So, it'll stay on the sprue.  Likewise, much of the stuff aft of the engine on the trumpeter kit won't be painted either.

 

Anyway, over the past few days, I've gotten both engines built and wired (more in a bit) and the seatbelts from HGW completed.  They were as fiddly as ever, but the finished product looks very nice.  I have a bit of a love-hate thing with these.  They look really good, but holy cow are they a pain to assemble - and yes, I know the trick of leaving the buckles on the PE fret while you're threading the belts through them. 

 

Here are the engines as they went off to the paint booth.

The top row is the Hasegawa offering.  The rest are Trumpeter.  Parts count for the two kits is on the right.  Sadly, however, when I took this picture, I mistakenly forgot to count the individual oil lines that are part of the Trumpeter kit, so the final parts count for what you see before you is actually 97.  Each one of the valve covers is 3 parts.  The two large rings on the lower right are brackets that, as near as I can tell, are supposed to attach to the rocker covers.  That seems to be the vague area to which the arrows in the instructions are half-heartedly pointing, so that's my best guess.  They're a bracket of somesort, likely to brace the cowl on the real aircraft, but they don't even begin to come close to fitting anything anywhere.  So, I'm just leaving them off.  

 

You might be tempted here, as I was initially, to sneer a bit at Trumpy for this ridiculous parts count.  Here's the thing, they provide a clear-molded cowl in this kit (which I'll promptly paint in and out), so clearly their intent up the detail and allow you to display it as such.  Neat, I guess, if you're into that sort of thing.  However, if you're going for a quick build, the hasegawa offering is the way to go, coming in with 91 fewer parts.  :|

 

The good news is, that they both end up as pretty nice engines.  Certainly, with what will be seen once the cowling is installed, there will be little discernible difference.  At this point, the engines are wired up, and base painted.  I need to paint the wiring - always a riot - and do the usual wash and oiling.

 

Here is the current state for both.  I've built the wings and tail for the Hasegawa kit and filled the seams.  Next is sanding and finishing.  Since it'll be bare metal finish, I'll probably polish the plastic on the wings and fuselage once I've finished sanding and scribing.  The engine is dry fit at this point.

 

For the Trumpeter kit, the fuselage is together using the bare minimum number of parts required to securely hold the engine in place.  The engine is held to the kit by the exhaust and intake manifold wiring, despite building a geometrically-complex engine mount.  The engine is permanently attached at this point.

 

Lastly, here are the HGW seat belts.  First, the Hasegawa.

 

And the Trumpeter

 

Next, I'll probably build the wings and tail for the Trumpy kit, then it's on to sanding, scribing, and re-riveting.  So, it may be a bit before the next update of any substance.