This will be my 3rd 1/48 Tamiya Thunderbolt, 1 bubbletop and this is my 2nd razorback. I got eduard’s color zoom photoetch and eaglestrike decals to make a NMF razorback named Georgia Peach. This will be my 2nd time working with photoetch so I’ve been struggling with some of the ultra tiny parts.
So far, the seatbelt harness is the only thing that really jumps out at me as worth it from the photetch. The ip looks good, but using the kit decal also produced very good results on my previous two p-47 builds. I think I would just buy some color photo etch seatbelts next time and skip the whole zoom package.
Cockpit is done (minus the gunsight), so now on to the fuselage [8-]
Nice work there Ted. Really coming togteher. Good job with the PE set… tedious but well worth it. (Can you guess which side I was on in the recent “Do you hate PE” thread[;)])
I’m on the fence with photoetch. It almost seems like a waste on a kit that already has great detail like this one. On a kit with poor detail I could see how it would be worth the effort of dealing with the miniscule parts though.
I do really like the way that seatbelt looks though.
Thanks all for the compliments [:I], this is one easy and fun kit to build.
I’m at about the same spot on mine. Are you guys having any trouble with fiting the wings to the assembled fuselage? I’ve heard nothing but good things about this kit, so I figure I’m probably doing something wrong. It seems like they don’t want to fit all the way down on the spars (?) that are sticking our of the wing roots on the fuselage.
So, is it just me having fit problems or are you encountering them also?
This is my 2nd razorback and I haven’t had that problem either.
I’ll get some pics soon as paint time is nearing. I just need to cover/mask the open cockpit area. I’m afraid of damaging the photoetch inside the cockpit so I may try and use the masked canopy to cover it up instead of jamming plastic-wrap in there like I usually do. I want to display the canopy open so I can’t glue it in place…I’m not so sure how I’m going to pull this off, some tricky combination of masking tape and the canopy I guess.
Well, I went backa nd looked at them, and decided to try something I’ve read about on these forums - gluing the top half of the wings to the fuselage for a gap-free fit, then attaching the bottoms later. By doing it this way I could see where the spars were supposed to fit, and it all went together smoothly. When I attached the bottoms, I only needed a very small amount of filler along the wing roots on the bottom - everything else went together fine.
Thanks for convincing me it was my problem and not the kit. It seems like one of the spars was catching on the edge of the space they are supposed to go into. All is well now and the work continues . . .
My first loss against the carpet monster! In the process of transporting gear doors to the basement to get airbrushed, one of them has gone MIA. I thought they were all there at the beginning of the trip, but they were not all there at the end.
Tamiya looks to have a monday thru friday 800 number to order missing pieces, so hopefully the gear door will arrive within a week or two. I’ll probably be on my hands and knees all weekend searching until I can call on monday.
At least the alclad went on nicely and looks good. I’ll get some pics soon.
After losing a gear door to the carpet monster, I called Tamiya’s 1-800 number, gave them my info and was told they’d ship out a replacement gear door today : ) That made my day.
Alclad II is on and ready to be masked for the black cowl and OD anti glare strip.
