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This page will showcase the latest progress of the current kit or kits in production. I'll try and update it as fast as I can, but you know how life goes...
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Tamiya P-47D 'Bubbletop' and 'Razorback'
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As part of my 'return' to the hobby, one of the decisions I had to make was what shall I build? Luckily I have a loft full of unmade kits that have been collected (hoarded?) over the years. I needed something relatively simple, but rewarding enough to be able feel a sense of achievement.
I decided to opt out of the decision process and have someone make up my mind for me! Over on the forums at www.britmodeller.com I posed the question and the Tamiya P-47 was suggested. I knew I had one in the loft and after an hour of searching, came down with four! Yes, for some unknown reason I had managed to acquire to 'Bubbletop' and two 'Razorback' versions.
So with the choice of aircraft settled, which version do I build? Well, I made that choice myself and decided to build two in parallel. But veering away from the simplicity of doing these kits out of the box, I decided to take a fellow Britmodeller's suggestion and complete the two kits as RAF Thunderbolts, after all, I am English!
And that's as far as I've got! But building starts today, in fact as soon as I've written this, put the kettle on, made a coffee, put the iPod in the dock and settled down to an evening of music and modelling! More soon....
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17th January 2008, 2330hrs...
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For a change it's all going to plan! The two (well more about that later) cockpit tubs for the Razorback and Bubbletop versions are now almost complete after just two evenings at the workbench.
There is some discussion, well, maybe that is an understatement, let's say debate regarding the interior colours of the P-47 family and after much scouring through the seemingly limitless database that is the World Wide Web, I came across the following page, http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2004/02/stuff_eng_interior_colours_us_part2.htm
This is page two of a very well researched look at the interior colours of US aircraft and with no other reason to doubt the authenticity of their claims, I went in search of US Bronze Green, FS34151, in my tray of Xtracolor enamels. As luck would have it I found two tins, it turned out to be X117 and they were unopened and probably brought over five years ago! The shelf life of this stuff is amazing!
So without further ado, here's the results of the last two day's work:
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The cockpits that are supplied straight from the box of this kit are as good as many resin replacements, the detail is really superb. Once the parts had been sprayed Bronze Green, the detail painting was completed by brush and then a simple wash of Windsor and Newton Burnt Umber oil paint, heavily dilluted in white spirit was applied. This gave some depth, but then a simple dry brush of a lighter shade of Bronze Green (achieved by mixing in approximately 25% white) followed by a dry brush of Aluminium to show some heavy wear and tear.
The only addition to the kit parts was the drilling out of the rear intsrument cases behind the instrument panel and super glueing some fine solder to represent the wiring. This was only done because the back of the panel is visible when viewed through the kit windscreen. OK, I guess that's a poor excuse and so I therefore readily admit to succumbing to Advanced Modellers Syndrome (AMS) already!
If you remember back when I was sourcing the kits from the pile in the loft, I came across four of these Tamiya kits and as I was building two, well, why not do four side by side! And so the project has evolved from one simple build, to a squadron!
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That's it for today; next on the agenda are the wheel wells and then the engines. Whose idea was it to build four of these?
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20th January 2008, 2255hrs...
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Another weekend in the workshop bore fruit and I'm rather pleased with the results! Although this kit was supposed to be built straight out of the box (OOB) I must admit to having suffered a bout of advanced modellers syndrome (AMS) and gone a little overboard with the details!
Aftter the cockpits were finished, my attention was diverted straight to the engines and the Wright R2800 that that is included in the Tamiya kit is nothing short of a little gem! But on researching this particular engine, the ignition harness was far too prominent to ignore. So armed with some fine tubing and copper fuse wire, the engine really came to life.
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Obviously as I've decided to do four of these particular models there's a llt more work to be done! After all, it only took me the best part of one day to do one engine, so the next week's pretty booked up in completing the other four now!
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So, another modelling day over and there's some direction at least. The Zinc Chromate areas were also sprayed today and the cockpits given a test fit; the detail included in these Tamiya kits is superb! I can't remember ever having to discount the need for resin or etched parts in a a mainstream kit before.
Until the next update, which at this rate will not be long...
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22nd January 2008, 0105hrs...
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They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and that was certainly the case this afternoon as I scoured the Internet looking for photographs and details of the full-size Wright R2800 engine. I came across some great images but after studying them I realised that my efforts to scale the engine details down to 1/48th somehow did not look right; the ignition wires on my engine seemed far too fine compared to the photographs.
So armed with the slightly thicker wire and as much patience as I could muster, I set about taking the weekend's work apart and replacing the ignition harness with the new wire.
I'm glad that I did as the result is, I think, a much more realistic look not to mention a tidier finish too!
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And so with one engine now fully completed, it just leaves me the other three to complete in the same fashion. But I think I'll leave that for another day!
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3rd February 2008, 1920hrs...
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It's certainly been a long few evenings here as the wiring of the remaining three engines continued to take up the best part of every evening for the last week or so! It has certainly been tedious work but it's been worth it, in my opinion at least, but I'll just let you judge for yourselves from the photographs.
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Now that the engines are all complete I should really share a few techniques that were utilised in the construction and painting of them.
The engines themselves were just sprayed Aluminium from the Alclad II range of paints, then when dry the reduction gear housing at the front was painted US Engine Grey from the Xtracolor range of enamels. The detail of the engine was picked out with black and then the whole assembly given a wash with Windsor and Newton Burnt Umber oil paint, heavily thinned with white spirit. Oce dry, the whole thing was lightly dry-brushed with silver to pick out the small details such as bolt heads etc.
The wiring was achieved by using standard UK telephone wire, stripped from its insulation, then given a good sanding with a fine grade of wet 'n' dry to get rid of the nickel plate and show the copper itself. The wire was fitted into very small pieces of brass tubing to act as collars which were then super glued to the ignition harness ring, surrounding the gear reduction housing. the wires themselves being pre-cut and bent to shape to fit prior to super-gluing them in place. Further detail painting was completed after the ignition wires were set in place.
Now that the engines and cockpit assemblies are complete, the next phase of building will see the main airfarme components come together quite quickly.
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