Trumpeter 1/32 P-47D Razorback "Eileen"

[Greif8]

Nice progress John.  I think both IP's look pretty good and like Woody I have chosen to go with Eduard's stuff over Yahu's from time to time.  

 

Ernest

[Woody V]

3 hours ago, Daniel Iscold said:

I would try that! You´re not crazy. To do really small masking like this I use a small amount (tea spoon) of white glue mixed with two or four drops of dish soap. Let it dry till it turns tranparent, then aplly the varnish or paint, then pell off the dryed layer of white glue, using the tip of tweezers or a xacto blade.  Try this in a spare clear part, tell me latter what you think. 

 

Another great tip to add to my arsenal of things I've learned on LSP.

[Dpgsbody55]

Nice work so far.  I like your engine, a real beauty.  Incidentally, I mounted the cowl mount rings to the rockers using ordinary styrene glue, and they're still there depite the cowling being on and off a few times.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!  This Yahu panel is definitely layered brass photoetch using a different (and superior) printing process than what Eduard uses.  Before I get to work on the cockpit, I wanted to report on the clear engine cowling.

 

I had a hard time trying to scribe the fasteners on the clear engine cowling.  So I decided to take a different route...

 

 

I filled the fastener details on the cowling with black CA glue.

 

 

You can see that some of my scribed fasteners were ok.

 

 

While others were not.

 

 

The fasteners that I fashioned out of thin sheet plastic were glued into place with CA glue and then sanded down to reduce their height.

 

 

Here is the cowling after the the panel lines were rescribed.  The rivets were wheeled on using a circular rivet tool and the cowling was given a primer coat.  In hindsight, I wish I would've persevered with the scribing of the fasteners instead of doing them this way but it's too late to go back.  Regardless of how they turned out, I think they will be largely camouflaged by the checkerboard pattern.

 

[Dennis7423]

John over here putting on a clinic... again sir, extremely clean work. Very impressive!

 

- Dennis S.

   Mount Juliet, TN USA

[LSP_Kevin]

Looking good, John! I thought you might be interested in Chris Novak's technique for adding panel, hatch, and fastener details to his P-47 builds:

 

https://www.largescaleplanes.com/articles/article.php?aid=566

 

Kev

[Gazzas]

Those fasteners look killer, John. 

 

I have noticed that one of the main complaints about the Turmpeter Jug is that the cowling is more shaped like a horse halter or something like that.  How does it look to you?

 

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!  I appreciate the comments!

 

15 hours ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Looking good, John! I thought you might be interested in Chris Novak's technique for adding panel, hatch, and fastener details to his P-47 builds:

 

https://www.largescaleplanes.com/articles/article.php?aid=566

 

Kev

Whoa... similar to what I did but the use of heat is interesting.  Thanks for that tip!

 

 

14 hours ago, Gazzas said:

Those fasteners look killer, John. 

 

I have noticed that one of the main complaints about the Turmpeter Jug is that the cowling is more shaped like a horse halter or something like that.  How does it look to you?

 

Thanks Gaz! I've heard that comment too but I'm not sure what that means.  The cowling looks ok to me but I've not done any in-depth analysis of it.  I almost DON'T wanna know what the issue is because when you see something like that, you can't UNSEE it! 

 

The arrival of the Yahu instrument panels completes the shopping list for this project so I can start on the cockpit.  There is a mixture of painted and unpainted brass parts in the Eduard set and also overlap between the Eduard and Yahu sets so I have to look things over and determine what AM pieces will be utilized, which will not, which ones will be installed prior to painting and which will be attached after painting.

 

Speaking of cockpit painting, here are the AK Real Color paints that I picked up for this build.  I will be using the Dark Dull Green for the cockpit.  Just going by the names of the colors, it might guess that the Dark Dull Green and Bronze Green are swapped but they are not.

 

 

I've previously noted the tiny holes in the Yahu main circuit panel that correspond to the switch and toggle positions.  I've ordered a set of toggle switches from ANYZ to play with on this build.

 

 

I pre-painted a few toggle switches and placed them on the Yahu circuit panel to see what they look like.  Only with a coat of paint on and under extreme magnification was I able to discern that I had chosen the flat-sided toggles.

 

 

And it's probably very difficult to see but in the upper left of the panel, I've inserted a tiny piece of copper wiring to simulate a raised switch.  Adding toggles and switches will be very fiddly work, I predict.  I think it will be best to glue the panel onto the port sidewall first.

 

 

Tackling the throttle linkages is next.  I don't have the dexterity to recreate the physical connections between the throttle quadrant and linkage rods so I just fabricated mounting points that will be hidden from view.

 

 

Thin brass rods will be used to simulate the throttle linkage rods.

 

 

 

I scraped off the cockpit light that was molded into the port sidewall and fabricated a new one out of plastic.  The cord was spun around a small drill bit.

 

 

The back of the instrument panel was populated with wires.  Most of this will not be visible as it is blocked by the coaming that holds the gunsight and armored glass.

 

 

 

[Out2gtcha]

Looking good! 

[Greif8]

Brilliant work John!  Your solution for the fastners was quite clever.

 

Ernest

[Madmax]

Really enjoying watching your 'Jug' take shape John. The difference between Trumpeter and Hasegawa's approach to the same subject make it particularly interesting. Lovely brasswork in the cockpit btw!

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Troy Molitor]

We're all in for another great treat with this one.  Thanks for sharing your builds with us John.  

[chuck540z3]

19 hours ago, Thunnus said:

 

The back of the instrument panel was populated with wires.  Most of this will not be visible as it is blocked by the coaming that holds the gunsight and armored glass.
 

 

While I've had my head up my own build I missed looking at this one in detail until now, and it's not even German!  Your comment above makes me smile John, because that's one of the reasons why your models are so good.  You go the extra distance, just in case a wire or two might be seen from some obscure angle later.  I'll be checking in on this future masterpiece from now on.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Thunnus]

Thank you everyone!

 

Here is an overall view of the cockpit parts as I've been adding some details and photoetch.

 

 

The gun sight assembly has been painted.  The Type II RAF gun sight was taken from a Barracuda Spitfire set and includes the tiny decals on the gun sight body.  I still need to add the manual crosshair sights.

 

 

The Eduard inserts for the fuselage cutouts behind the pilot were strangely extending beyond the cockpit bulkhead.

 

 

So trimmed them.

 

[Citadelgrad]

Super neat, as always, John, and the photography is basically a textbook on presentation of macro subjects.

 

Can't wait to see it with paint.  

 

Although it's humbling, its also informative.