1/48 Academy P-47D

Hi All
Fresh off the workbench (dining table!) is this Academy P-47D, which I sarted well over a year ago. The kit is the nose art boxing which I bought of e-bay and included Verlinden and Eduard detail sets, not bad for under ten quid!! However, both details sets were made for the Hasegawa kit but with a bit of persistance I managed to utilise the Verlinden cockpit and some of the Eduard PE bits. Not having an airbrush I decided to try BareMetalFoil, which went down really well, taking my time. That was in December 2011, and the kit got consigned to the garage over Christmas 2011. Upon retreiving it last Spring the BMF looked more like an Aero Bar with bubbles all over the place and I left it in the garage for another year. However, I took the bull by the horns earlier this year and started to rescue the foil job. I replaced some of the foil panels and with the assistance of a very fine hypodermic needle, I pierced the bubbles on the others and smoothed them down. Job eventually done! But then the Academy decals just would not settle on to the foil and came off in my hands to the lightest touch, with the exception of the nose art - wiered!! But I had a set of national insignia from Sky Decals and stencils from Crazy Modeller which all went down fine. It's not perfect, but I'm still quite new to this and have learned lots in doing the kit that I can apply to my next challenge. A good thing about the P-47 is that a lot of your hard work to complete the cockpit is still visible after you close the fuselage up and attach the canopy. I'll certainly be watching e-bay for another one!!
Enjoy the pics!
Adam

That's a stunner.
Next step, one of the Group Builds. List of them for 2013.

GB 18 - May 1st–Sun Sept 2nd 2013 -Heavy Hitters of WWII Allied or Axis, Single to Multi Engine. -
Bombers, dive bombers, tank busters, ground attack, anything that delivers a heavy punch.

GB 19 - Aug 1st–Sun Dec 1st – Aircraft Nose Art. Aircraft must be based on an actual example of
flamboyant personal or squadron markings. This one has no set period.

GB 20 - Nov 1st– Sun Mar 2nd 2014 – Aircraft in Foreign Service WWII. The last run of this build
brought up some interesting subjects, it's worth running again.

Looks very nice Adam.

Great looking Jug !
Ed

Nice fix!

like the look of that, well done Adam!

Very well done indeed, Adam! That is a beautiful bubbletop. I'm electing you to give an on-line tutorial in another thread on the application of Bare Metal Foil. Personally, I find the stuff difficult to work with!

Never tried it myself and would welcome a tutorial.

Nicely done Adam, it looks the biz! Bit of dark grey or similar on the edge of the windscreen frame, to separate the red, will improve it even more, not that it needs much improving though!
This was the very first Academy kit I tried, bought at Duxford around 8 or 9 years ago for a 'Tenner', and I was really impressed with it - a very nice kit, which I must finish off some day!!
I haven't used foil since Moses was a Corporal, so I, too, welcome any hints, as products have changed lots over the years (last foil I used was kitchen foil, both sides, attached with liquid cement). At some time in the future, I have a EE Lightning F2 to do, in a mix of various metallic paint shades, and foils for some panels where needed, and I'll be using the aluminium electrical/heating tape, which is basically the same material as the BMF, but on a roll, and therefore a lot cheaper!

Nice work!

Beautiful!