T Bolt's 1:1 P-47 Cockpit

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Where exactly does one find/steal/barter/purchase a P-47 windscreen?
Picked it up at K-Mart

Just kidding Jim. Warbirdparts.com, but I checked and its no longer there. Glad I got it when I did. If I remember right I only paid a couple of hundred for it. Tony got one from them a few years later and paid a whole lot more. When I was looking for the place just now I found another place that had a P-47C windscreen frame with no glass and they wanted $8000 for it. Another place had a control stick grip like mine but with the wires cut off and they wanted $750 for it. I don't remember what I paid for mine but it wasn't much over $100. There's no way I could afford to put this cockpit together today. It's a good thing I have all the parts already, just need the time to put them together.
 
Looking really good, reminds me of the P-47N that a couple of friends and I recovered years ago.
Although on that one the instrument panel was sort of smashed.
 
It's probably a little late in the game to be mentioning this, but aircorpslibrary.com has something like 40k original P-47 blueprint scans available online for $5 a month.
 
Yep, my screen came from same place, Jay Wisler. His inventory went to Fagen Fighters. Jay had bought the P47 screens from the old Corning plant who made them. One day, they decided they did not need any more screens. So they put down tools, locked the door. Jay bought them years later, one end of the line were basic internal carcasses going all the way to complete ones with mirrors at the other end, just needing final pass off. Mine still has paper work. I'll pop pix of my project on my fleet thread. Be kind, because it will not be as lovely as Glenn's.
 
Good god its been over 5 years since I've worked on this thing!

I had to move it out of the way to gain access to the back side of the furnace a week or so ago and decided to work on it again.

After I made the firewall bulkhead panel 5 1/2 years ago (see post #323) I tried to make the corrugation visible behind the instrument panel out of wood strips but was not happy with what I was coming up with and gave up. A few years ago I was in Lowes and saw some transparent corrugated panels I believe were intended for a greenhouse roof and picked one up. Jump ahead a few more years till the other week when I cut the pieces for the upper bulkhead and bolted them on.
I first painted it aluminum in case there are any chips or scrapes in the finished paint (first 2 photos front & back) than the closest spray can green I could find as all my chromite green had dried up (3rd photo).
I have since ordered more chromite green, sprayed it on, and installed the upper panel but did not take a picture.

I still have the lower panel to do and I'll post some pictures of it installed.

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Trying to finish up the prop switch box

I had made up the cover plate some time ago, now I made the box from an electrical box carving out the back to make room for the prop switch, and made up the mounting bracket and shim plate. Still needs paint before I assemble and install it.

All the assorted parts. Box, bracket, shim, breaker, and surplus Curtiss electric prop switch.

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Can't spray the primer in the house and it's 7 degrees F outside today so will wait for the warm up Saturday. Also noticed I had not put a couple of decals on the face plate. Will try to locate them and put them on.
 
Can't spray the primer in the house and it's 7 degrees F outside today so will wait for the warm up Saturday. Also noticed I had not put a couple of decals on the face plate. Will try to locate them and put them on.
No it 70 & a light breeze coming off the gulf. My wife and sister in law on the seawall at Galveston. Just now.
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I may be cold Don, but I don't have to worry about hurricanes or rising sea levels :lol:
Well, you do have a "lake" and it do kick up some storms and I've never been as cold as I was when stationed at Grissom or gong to Chicago or South Bend or St Joseph/Bentonville Harbor. That was in the mid 80's and still frozen in my brain. Damn cold.
 

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