**** DONE: 1/48 Republic P-47D - Mediterranean Theater of Operations

[JKim]

Engine done. I added a wire to simulate a piece of tubing coming out from the bottom of the crankcase.

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[dneid]

Great job on the engine. Damned shame s much will be hard to see once it is in the cowl.

 

[Crimea_River]

Superb work John!

 

[Wayne Little]

SWEET!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Fantastic engine John, but them pics took a while to load. To many pixels, so if you could see your way to reducing them, that would be great.

 

[Wurger]

These images aren't too large Vic. There are 1000 pixels in their width. Both of them have been resized down by the system to 932 pixels. The main reason for the slow downloading might be the picture source that is the Photobucket site. As we know , the image storage at the site isn't a good idea. The data transfering from there reminds me the ZX Spectrum era.

 

[JKim]

A little more progress to report.

I didn't like the exhaust port on the kit... just a little too flat for my taste. So I drilled out the opening...

Added some contour to the port...

And then added the PE part. I had a heckuva time trying to position the circular piece correctly. Need to get some slower setting CA glue!

Painted and added the turbocharger exhaust to the fuselage...

Port fuselage ready for mating...

Fit, as many of you might have guessed, is excellent!

Skipped over to some smaller details while the fuselage dries. I hollowed out the business end of the rocket tubes.

The ammo chutes under the wings are molded open but the plastic is thick here...

I grinded the plastic around the openings with a dremel tool...

The wheel wells were dressed up with the Eduard PE parts and some scratchbuilt lead wiring...

I added a small decal to the gas strut and gave the wells a dirty wash...

Back to the fuselage... I fine sanded the glue seam. Only required a dab of Mr. Surfacer on the spine around the canopy opening.

The engine/cowling assembly has been completed and the PE cowl struts are placed on the front of the fuselage. They stick straight out and will simply be bent into shape when the cowling is pressed into place.

Fuselage is mostly complete.

 

[Wayne Little]

Real nice work!

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

Took a while to catch up here. Really nice work John. I've been looking for another photo of that brace but no luck so far. It looks like it might be for when the fuel tanks are attached. I'm not sure if you noticed the exhaust on the underside of your aircraft. A lot of aircraft had these painted but yours looks like the paint has burnt off kinda like these...

...I'll see if I can locate that brace.

Geo

 

[JKim]

Thanks George! That brace is built into the wing rack of the Tamiya kit in a retracted position. The PE set has a metal replacement if you cut off the molded piece. I'm guessing it is an anti-sway device for external fuel tanks when they are mounted on the wing or maybe they prevent the empty paper tank from swinging up into the wing upon release? I'll have bombs in the wing position so I don't think they come into play.

 

[chris brown]

Great work so far John! All the details look really sharp.

 

[Catch22]

Awesome work John, looks fantastic.

 

[Crimea_River]

I agree. It's gonna be a beaut. That brace that George is pointing to is, I believe, a strut that prevents the tank from swinging up and damaging the wing when it is jettisoned. I'm thinking it has a breakable link at the wing connection that allows the strut to release once the tank is clear. I don't have a good photo either.

 

[javlin]

Well your work has been most excellent thus far John

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Very nice work there John, lovely detail.

These images aren't too large Vic. There are 1000 pixels in their width. Both of them have been resized down by the system to 932 pixels. The main reason for the slow downloading might be the picture source that is the Photobucket site. As we know , the image storage at the site isn't a good idea. The data transfering from there reminds me the ZX Spectrum era.

Thanks Wojtek, I'll get back in me box…………..!

 

[JKim]

I didn't get much done over the weekend due to the activities of the Thanksgiving weekend but I do have a few things to show/report. Here's a view of the cowling from the rear... you can see the added detail of scratchbuilt and PE parts.

Moving on to the machine gun barrels... like I reported earlier, the barrels included in the Tamiya kit are hollowed out on the ends. But upon closer inspection, the hollow ends are a bit shallow...

So I drilled them a little further with a micro-drill.

The barrels were primed in gloss black and then coated with an Alclad metal shade.

The flaps and landing gear doors have some PE parts added. I also added a brake line on the landing gear strut using lead wire. The oleo struts are PE replacements for the stock parts.

After painting and weathering, the landing gear looks like this...

I cut off the fins of the kit bombs since the PE kit had thinner metal ones.

Using a short, stiff paintbrush, I stippled Mr. Surfacer 1000 over the bombs to mimic the cast iron irregularities. Mr. Surfacer 1200 likes to settle into a smooth finish straight out of the bottle so I had to let it start hardening before applying.

A coat of olive drab shows the effect a little better...

The fins are added to the bombs using CA glue. Also shown is the drop tank but details and weathering still need to be added to both the bombs and tank.

That's it for now!

 

[fubar57]

Nice stuff John. I like the bombs effects.

Geo