Just put the finishing touches on the P-47 I’ve been building for Bish’s excellent 8th AAF group build and figured I’d share with the larger forum.
This project’s had a bit of a rocky history. I started with Monogram’s venerable Jug, and things were going pretty well until the decals went nasty. Cleanup attempts failed, so I started over with the Tamiya kit and some Aeromaster markings. Other AM used includes an Ultracast seat, Eduard placards, and Master brass blast tubes.
This Jug represents Col. David Schilling’s personal ship, “Hairless Joe”, when he was CO of the 56th Fighter Group around August/September 1944.
If you want to check out build details, you can find them over at the 8th AAF GB, or on my blog.
Two reasons. First, I have plenty of pics of Hairless Joe sporting wing pylons, but no ordnance. I know there’s an image or two out there showing the plane carrying rocket tubes and (I think) bombs, but for the most part it’s shown dry.
Second, the kit decal sheet was a wildly mixed bag. Instrument panel decal = great. Invasion stripe decals = garbage. Most of the stencils? Great. Bomb stripes and stencils? Garbage. I really need to just start painting bombs yellow, masking the stripes, and then painting them OD.
Ok, cool…I was just wondering if it was your preference to leave it dry or if there were pictures of it. I like to know the thought process behind modelers. Either way, very good work, its one of my favorite paint schemes for a Jug.
I hate painting bomb stripes. I normally do it by hand, which isn’t likely the best method but I hate setting up my AB just for a few small parts.
Buckeye - I used a white-tac product from Hobby Lobby called Simply Tacky (get it? groan…). I was hesitant…I always seem to have problems with blue-tac/white-tac/play-doh sticking to my models:
But I read about a little trick on another forum:
Stuck it in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes before pulling the masks off, and they came off absolutely without incident!
I don’t like the way silly putty doesn’t stick…I find I have to mush it down to get it to hold, which creates a harder edge than I want. Here’s the Monogram that I painted with silly putty masks:
Another great one Doogs, it blows me away how good those barrels look; much better than the kit supplied ones. I would like to know what you used for the canopy frame and propeller tip. Was it some type of buffing metalizer or what? It looks great as does the whole plane!
Eric, I believe the barrels are about $10 or so. A bit spendier than resin, but IMO they look so fantastic when all is said and done that I’d call them worth it.
mikeymize - thanks! I painted the canopy frame, propeller spinner cap (and drop tank and outer wheel hubs and blast tubes) with Alclad Airframe Aluminum. Absolutely love the results it gave me!
The AM decal set didn’t come with the gear placards. Those were among the ones I jacked from the kit decals (along with the gun numbers). That said, they were also among the kit decals that performed very well.
