|
|
Republic P-47D Thunderbolt "Razorback"
I have to admit it. The P-47 is one of my favorite
aircraft from World War II, except maybe the B-25H Mitchell. All though
the Mitchell is my favorite (I love the B-25H, with the 75 MM cannon, as
well as the 4 .50 caliber machine guns in the nose), the P-47 is a very
close second. Having said that, this Thunderbolt has given me the most
trouble so far in assembly, not so much in the actual assembly, but in
terms if painting and finishing.
 Opening up the box, I discovered that there is really not to many pieces
to assemble on this kit, especially on a kit this size. This molding is
an original one from 1978, and it has the raised panel lines that is
classic Monogram. This kit parts are all molded in Olive Drab. In
addition to the usual fuselage, and wings parts, you also get 2 500lbs
bombs, as well as a 200 gallon "paper" belly tank, and the "Bazooka"
type rocket launchers. After all the parts were looked over and washed
with soapy water, I began to build.
The actual assembly of this model was pretty easy, in that there is not
to many actual parts to the kit. The major problem was I started this
model at the begriming of summer 2003, and as we all know, summer is the
time of year to be outdoors playing in the sun, and not down in the
cellar, working on models (at least where I live anyway).
The construction began as usual with the cockpit and internal areas. The
cockpit for this kit has some pretty good out of the box detail, which
includes the cockpit tub itself, a stick, seat, and if you wish, a
pilot. The details on these pieces are molded as part of the piece that
they are on, but the detail is very good. I began by painting the tub,
seat, and interior fuselage parts that would be visible, Polly scale US
Interior Green. After scrapping a little bit of the paint off where the
parts of the cockpit would be glued together, I painted the pilots
headrest on the seat brown, the stick interior green on the bottom and
black on the top. The oxygen mask tubing was painted black, and I
painted various handles either red or green, as I saw fit. After all
this was dry, I gave the whole cockpit tub a black wash to pop out some
detail.
While the cockpit tub was drying, I cut the fuselage haves, wing haves,
and stabilizers form their trees. The wing haves went together well, and
the stabilizers had no mold marks at all on them, in
fact the whole
model had almost not mold or sink marks at all. The fuselage haves were
scrapped and sanded on the mating edges, and wings halves were glued
together. At this time, I also removed and painted the "engine block",
which is only the front face showing the cylinder heads, cooling vanes,
and magnetos, but looks ok. I painted the engine block in the following
colors:
Back "Plate" Flat Grey
Magnetos: Dark Grey
Cooling vanes: Flat Black
Shaft Transmission Piece: Flat grey
After this was done, I glued both the fuselage and wing halves together,
and then the puttying began. Even though I had scrapped and test fitted
the mating surfaces, there was a fair amount of putting to do,
especially on the wing roots. I then attached the stabilizers to the
tail, and installed the piece under the fuselage where the tail wheel
attaches to the airframe. The areas that needed a fair amount of putty
were the lower fuselage and the upper wing root, where it meets the
fuselage. he stabilizers need a little bit, but not much. For putty, I
used Automotive body filler, and utilized the Nail Polish remover method
to "sand" down the putty (Please see the Me-109 review here on this
website for more on this method). Everything went pretty good for the
putting stage, so I went to stage two.
 After washing the model to get rid of all the residue from the seam
work, I let the model dry, then the painting began. Now, as those of you
who have read my any of my other reviews, I use the Qtip method I
devised in the summer of 2002 to paint my models. I first painted the
lower areas of the aircraft Neutral Grey, (Pollyscale Neutral Grey, ANA
603, not the FS 88345 Neutral Grey. As I found out, there is a
difference). The wheel wells, as well as the tail wheel section were
painted with the Tamiya Zinc Chromate ( I usually do not, like to use
Tamiya paint, because I have found that it does not lay down all that
well if you brush paint like I do, but I use what I have to use to get
the right color). After letting these colors dry for a day or so, I then
painted the upper surfaces Olive Drab, ANA 403 (Again, this paint was
Polyscale OD ANA 403, not the FS 2222 OD, which like the Neutral Grey
described above, was a different color). I then proceeded to make a soft
edge wave line between the two colors. This was the first time I had
made a soft edge wavy line, and it came out not looking to bad. It was
at this time on the model's construction that summer hit, and the paint
had a good long time to dry.
Fast forward to October, 2003, and I finally have a little time to work
on this poor model that I had started back in May of 2003. I cleaned off
any dust that had accumulated on the model in the intervening months
(very little, as I had the kit covered the whole time). I then sponge
brushed on future floor wax on all surfaces that where going to have
decals on them. I also found some after market decals for this kit,
since the original ones where no longer usable. I used the Eagle Strike
American Jabos, sheet #48035. I used the first decal set, the aircraft
of Lt. John Drummod, of the 405th FG, circa 1944.
I had very little problem with the decals, except for the name of the
aircraft on the nose area, which is actually two different decals, on
the main art work and the other the shadow for the words in the art
work. There were quite a few data block type decals, as well as warning
decals for areas on the aircraft such as wing flaps and battery
compartment warnings. All the other decals went down real well. Unlike
the problems I had with the Hurricane MK II build, the code letters for
this aircraft went down perfectly. All decals then got the Microscale
Micro set treatment for that painted on look. I had no trouble with
solvent on these decals. After letting the decals solvent do its work
for a few days, I sealed the decals again with future, sponge brushed
on.
As with my earlier review of the Monogram Hurricane MKII that I finished
in May of 2003, I discovered in my references that the OD that was used
on USAAF aircraft based in England had a strong tendency to weather, so
I lightened the upper surfaces of this kit. Like the Hurricane, used
very thinned Polyscale RLM 22 White to faded the upper surfaces of the
wings and fuselage. I then added paint chipping and peeling to wing,
tail, and propeller leading edges, as well as cockpit entry areas and
ordnance loading areas for the wing guns. After this part was done, I
did a very thinned wash of Pollyscale grimy Black over the whole model.
After this stage was dry, I added fuel stains on fuel filler caps and
drop tanks, and I added exhaust stains to the underside where just
behind the engine exhaust outlets. A light dry brush of Pollyscale Mud
was added to tires and the underside of the aircraft near the tailwheel.
Now, the problem with the month of October in the United States is that
it has Halloween at the end of the month, which is also near my
daughters birthday. For my family, this is the beginning of the Holiday
season, and of course, my model building got slowed down again. Right
after Halloween is Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. So again, the P-47
was put on hold.
Fast forward one more time to January, 2004, and I finally have some
time to work on the P-47 (but to be fair, I am also working on a
Monogram B-25H Mitchell at the local model club meetings, as well as the
Monogram A6M5 Zero). At this point I am painting the canopy lines, one
of the parts I dislike the most about making model aircraft. I paint the
lines Pollyscale US Interior Green first, then the decal instructions
called for a dark to medium blue color for the outside canopy framing. I
elected to use the Pollyscale Blue for the outside color.
After the US interior green was dry, I painted the blue color over
the interior green. Even though it covers the green on the outside, it
looks like the green was painted on the interior part of the framing.
I am now at the point in this build when I am doing small paint touch
ups, as well as putting on the small parts, such as pitot tubes, belly
drop tank, landing gear doors, etc. It was at this point that I had my
only real problem with this model. I lost a gear door that was not
attached to the bottom wing. The carpet monster gobbled it up (In my
case, the cellar monster ), and I never did find it. Luckily, I have at
least 4 other P-47 models, so I took the missing gear door from the
 recent RM reissue of this same aircraft.
After the gear door was painted, and attached with white glue, I did
some small paint touch ups that I thought needed to be done, then I did
a last pass with Dullcote from the spray can. After letting the Dullcote
dry for a few days, I attached the canopy with Microscale clear glue,
and I painted the landing gear oleos bright silver. After that, I put on
the antenna wire, painted it black, and put the finished product on the
shelf.
For a kit with so little actual parts to it, the finished product looks
impressive, as well as making into a pretty big model. The overall fit
was not bad, considering that the molds are well over 20 years old. This
kit also has a lot of the same components that the earlier Bubbletop
issue P-47 that Monogram did in the 1960's, which means you get a lot of
extra parts for the parts box in the form of Bazooka tubes and bombs.
The only problems I ran into with this kit was seam filling. There was
little else wrong, and it went together very nicely. I actually enjoyed
this kit build quite a bit.
Until next time...
|
