Sweetwater Jug: Hasegawa P-47D-40

[Madmax]

Ok, party's over! Can't face any more fruit mince pies

 

Here's that wing fit issue I mentioned last time...

 

 

Using the stub spars as the kit was designed leads to the upper part of the wing being 'twisted' below the root faring at the trailing edge, where the flaps sit. I sanded the spars until I could position the upper surface flush with the fairing, but here you can see how that messes with the fit on the bottom of the wing. 

 

 

Rather there than on top. It was relatively simple to sand the bottom bit flush, although there is still a step on the inside of the flap recess. Notice the little wedge of styrene to fix the rounded edge on the wing T/E.

 

 

The step can't be seen with the flap in place, so no need to fiddle any further. I wonder how many other Hasegawa builds encountered the same issue? 

 

 

In order to get some paint on, I like to glue the windscreen in place first. That meant completing the K-14 gunsight with its reflector glass (cut from leftover clear vacuform canopy sheet), and since I was busy on the canopy, adding the jettison mechanism to the internal frame. Now that everyone else has added this detail, I didn't want to be the odd-one-out! 

 

 

While checking out the fit of the canopy, I noticed that the kit sills were a bit wide, and trimmed them back a bit, as you can see on the right. I also added a styrene rail for the canopy.

 

 

Then it became apparent that the canopy doesn't sit well on the fuselage in the open position, since it is too narrow at the front for the width of the cockpit at the seat. I tried hot water and even a hairdryer to ease the canopy apart since I want it posed in the open position. This is almost always a disaster, and I wouldn't try it if there wasn't a second (closed) canopy in the kit. Here is exhibit A in why not to mess with canopies... See the fine stress cracks in the top canopy? Lucky the bottom one could be cut free of its windshield and is ready for some polish.

 

 

All sorted and ready for silver paint. You may notice that I painted black first since the inside of the canopy frames is painted black. This will feature again shortly...

 

 

Paint at last! I primed this one, like my previous F-86 build, with Tamiya AS-12 'Bare Metal Silver'. I copied this approach from Tom (Uncarina) and must say that it is great under Alclad topcoats.

 

 

 

Although the AS-12 sticks like glue to the kit styrene, it doesn't sit that well on resin (or I didn't get rid of the release agent properly). The prop shed its paint during my chipping efforts, so now it is going to become a freshly refurbished job - no weathering. 

 

 

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow I will revisit the canopy frame colour.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[LSP_Kevin]

Fantastic progress, Sean!

 

Kev

[Citadelgrad]

Looking mighty fine.  That's some extra scratch/detail work on the canopy that I see?  

[Uncarina]

Sean, I just got caught up. I must have set a personal record for the numbers of reference photos I saved in one reading! I have a Hasegawa kit on the way for a prospective P-47M build, and I have you, Thunnus, and John1 to thank for this. I’m also honored that you used one of my go-to practices!

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Madmax]

On 1/9/2023 at 10:23 PM, LSP_Kevin said:

Fantastic progress, Sean!

 

Kev

 

Thanks Kev!

 

On 1/10/2023 at 12:03 AM, Citadelgrad said:

Looking mighty fine.  That's some extra scratch/detail work on the canopy that I see?  

 

Hi Bill, it is indeed. I would like to say it's your fault for adding the fiddly canopy jettison mechanism to your build, but there are earlier scapegoats. John1 added the same to his P-47D, but the seed was planted (like so many others) by JayW when he first 'Heavy' modified the 20th Century P-47 till it looked like an instructional airframe for Republic Aviation engineers! 

 

On 1/10/2023 at 5:44 AM, Uncarina said:

Sean, I just got caught up. I must have set a personal record for the numbers of reference photos I saved in one reading! I have a Hasegawa kit on the way for a prospective P-47M build, and I have you, Thunnus, and John1 to thank for this. I’m also honored that you used one of my go-to practices!

 

Cheers,  Tom

 

Hey Tom, glad you stumbled across this P-47 amongst all the other Thunderbolt entertainment going on at LSP. That's one of the risks of looking at all the inspiration on display in this forum - the desire to then build one of whatever lit you up. I, for one, would now also like to build an Alouette III, a Beaufighter and an HS. 129 too... 

Edited January 11, 2023 by Madmax
Accidentally called a Thunderbolt a 'Thud'!

[Madmax]

Only once I had sprayed the Olive Drab anti-glare upper surfaces did it dawn on me - I'd forgotten the black undercoat for the windshield frame. Aargh! I Peeled the masking back and peeked inside to see if one could live with it being silver instead, but the answer was quite simply: no. Ah, well, what's another hour?

 

 

 

Then I got down to one or two detailing projects I enjoy, as a distraction from the inevitable stuff-ups. The weapon pylons in the Ferris painting looked odd to me, given they had no sway braces, but then I found reference photo's that show fairings over the draggy bits when not in use. Easy mod, as well as one more set of supports on the back of the central canopy rail, and a more pronounced fuel tank brace arm at the back of the pylon.

 

 

Then all the detached bits got a coat of AS-12.

 

 

With that complete, I turned my attention to the national insignia, the 'stars and bars'. I have a set of Montex masks for this exact purpose and the only quandary I had was the sequence in which to paint the colours. At least in this case, it is only blue and white. I have however seen all sorts of variations on the theme and it can become unnecessarily complex. The desire to paint white first is an obvious modelling consideration where too many layers of white are required to get an opaque coat over a dark colour like Insignia Blue. This makes the mask placement pretty tricky in my opinion. So, what did the spray painters do in the 1940's?

 

 

 

The Aircorps site is a wealth of information. https://www.aircorpsart.com/blog/how-to-paint-a-world-war-ii-aircraft-insignia/

 

As one may have guessed, they painted the blue first! The question was, how many layers of white will it take with Tamiya Acrylic? The answer is: three...

 

 

So, with that doable in my mind, this is how it went: outer mask in place (good luck finding accurate placement of the wing insignia) and spray insignia blue.

 

 

Leave the outer mask in place and lightly buff the matt blue surface to improve the seating of the next mask. Soapy water to slide everything into position. The tape around the edges was to prevent bleed trough on the outline, but probably an overkill. Spray three coats of white.

 

 

Voila!

 

 

The fuselage was a bit trickier due to the supercharger intakes, but a bit of careful planning of cuts makes it all doable. All in all, a far better result than decals!

 

 

Now to mask these closed again so the Alclad can turn the toy-like surface into metal. Alchemy - simple stuff... 

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Uncarina]

Sean, I had two questions that I hope doesn’t interfered with the flow of your awesome build:

—what paint(s) did you use for the dark dull green in the cockpit?

—what specific reference do you have for the SAM aircraft drawings? I’m also interested in riveting my build.

 

Thanks!  Tom

[Madmax]

1 hour ago, Uncarina said:

Sean, I had two questions that I hope doesn’t interfered with the flow of your awesome build:

—what paint(s) did you use for the dark dull green in the cockpit?

—what specific reference do you have for the SAM aircraft drawings? I’m also interested in riveting my build.

 

Thanks!  Tom

 

Hi Tom,

 

As it is I'm busy creating trouble for myself with masks lifting the Alclad, so I am going to sit on my hands until the mess dries properly.

 

The plans were published in SAM Volume 10, Issue 3 (March 2004) - drawn by Richard Caruna. PM me if you can't find them. The Dull Dark Green was my own eyeball mix, and I'm afraid I didn't record the recipe . What I can tell you is that Tamiya XF-5 is supposed to be a good approximation, but I couldn't find a bottle at the time I painted the cockpit. Container was stuck in a harbour somewhere.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Uncarina]

Thanks Sean! I end up eyeballing mixes my self quite often. In any case, I really like the effect you've achieved.

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Thunnus]

Re-reading this build thread with new eyes!  Some overlap between what you and I are doing but there are some clear differences too, which is interesting to note!  Great work and I may take some of your ideas like adding some detail to the tail wheel area.

[Uncarina]

That’s what I love best from these builds: we are all learning from each other.

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Uncarina]

On 1/10/2023 at 1:29 AM, Madmax said:

 

 

 

 

The Aircorps site is a wealth of information. https://www.aircorpsart.com/blog/how-to-paint-a-world-war-ii-aircraft-insignia/

 

As one may have guessed, they painted the blue first! The question was, how many layers of white will it take with Tamiya Acrylic? The answer is: three...

 

 

So, with that doable in my mind, this is how it went: outer mask in place (good luck finding accurate placement of the wing insignia) and spray insignia blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sean,  apologies if you already do this. When installing these masks I always place the positive masks first since they are easier to position, place the negative masks around them, then carefully remove the positive ones.

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Madmax]

Ok, so I eventually got some Alclad onto the model. White Aluminium as a base coat overall, and then a combination of Airframe Aluminium (not terribly good), and Polished Aluminium (my favourite). Some panels got a few more layers than others, and I added a bit of Jet Exhaust to the Polished Aluminium (mixed) to get some darker shades on the underside panels. I bravely buffed this lot with 8000 micromesh cloth and, as it is, it looks like metal! The last thing I want to do now is kill that effect with a gloss coat, just for some stencils. I tried a little corner stencil on the flap with some gloss just under the decal (HGW wet transfer), but it is not possible to get away without it sticking out like canis genetalia.

 

 

Then I figured, what the hell, just put the decals straight onto the Alclad! In theory, this is not possible, since the decal setting solutions required for the wet transfers ruin the metal paint. But strangely, not Micro Sol or Set! I seem to be able to paint either or both onto the Alclad without any disaster, but the snag is that not all of the HGW decals 'take' on the Alclad. I've managed to get some on however, so I'll just take whichever ones happen to stay on... 

 

 

Where the decals do stick like glue however, is any surface coated with gloss varnish (X-22)! I accidentally fell into the trap of placing the Hamilton Standard logo's too far inboard on the prop, as HGW laid them out, and it is nearly impossible to get them off once they're on. No sellotape will pluck them off, they have to be sanded down. Here you can still see the residual bump haunting the prop after I thought it was long gone.

 

 

The logos are meant to be in the middle of the blade as far as I can tell, so after spending way too much time on a propeller, it is finally done.

 

 

I must say that the HGW decals do add a fantastic level of detail to a model. One could literally adjust the prop based on their fine printing.

 

 

I took a freshly bought milk-tart (a traditional South African tea time treat) to Nick's house, along with a rudimentary sketch of the unit code on the Ferris painting. Look at what a lovely mask the talented Silhouette cutter, Cheetah11, produced!

 

I even got some coffee... 

 

 

Here it is in action...

 

 

 

Thank you Nick!

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[MikeMaben]

Nice work Sean 

[Tolga ULGUR]

Looks beautiful.