P-47 razorback dilemma

Im starting a tamiya p-47 razorback. I’ve heard arguments that the cockpit interior may have actually been yellow zinc, or at least some areas of it, such as the cockpit backwall. Anyone hear of this? or have any more info? I’M GOING CRAZY TRYING TO DO THE DETECTIVE WORK!

I went through the same thing but what I found was that there were some zinc chromate applications intermixed with the interior green. Plus, depending on the plant where the jug was constructed, the cockpit went from interior green to a darker green(i forget the official color name just now). During my research phase, I actually have a publication that shows a museum jug with yellow chromate around the inside of the cockpit.(a bubbletop). I could not find any razorback D models with yellow chromate in the office. So, I just used the interior green.


Hope this helps but, in the long run, the answer is that interior cokpit colors were far from standardized.

Steve

The Jugs from Republic used an interior color called Dull Dark Green, which is a considerably different color than Zinc Chromate or Interior Green. Many color photos are actually restored AC & the interior colors are unreliable. Bert Kinzey’s P-47 in detail & scale book has color pictures of an un-restored Jug & are the best reference I’ve found. It’s a darker/bluer shade of green than Interior Green. The same book also has pics of a restored Jug & the interior color had been re-done in Chromate Green.

Regards, Rick

Don’t go make yourself nuts with this! I doubt that anyone really knows the answer to this one as it seems that it was an almost plane by plane thing with the 47 depending on (like Steve said) what plant, what series, and what paint was readily available. I doubt that the factory guys lost sleep if they threw Chromate Green down instead of DDG on the back plating on Tuesday cause the next drop of DDG wasn’t coming in 'til Friday. Gotta remember, war time. The mentality was just “get 'em over there.” Unfortunately I doubt that even the pilots could tell you what the interior color of their own crafts were. It just wasn’t on their mind. SOrry if this doesn’t help…[:-^]

I’ve seen many a discussion on this subject over at Hyperscale and if I recall correctly Dana Bell (I think it was he) stated that some early P-47s had yellow zinc chromate interiors but they changed to greens because the yellow was having an adverse effect on pilots.

So I’d go with greens myself.

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Also, don’t forget that Curtis painted the interiors one color while Republic painted it another! It might be helpful to do some research (as if you hadn’t already) and see just which plant manufactured the Jug you’re trying to model. Good luck! The color issue is one that I think we all do battle with! LOL!

Eric

If it’s a P-47D razorback I think the interior colour should be dull-dark green. The curtiss built Jugs were designated P-47G, So you probably don’t have to worry about the interior green option. Dull dark green is probably the safest option to go for on a razorback. I found Tamiya XF-58 olive green or XF-13 J.A green to be pretty good matches.

hope this helps.

We go through this at least once a week, and the Hannaman has put the correct answer as firmly and succinctly as I’ve ever seen it done here. Instead of wasting time, paint and stomach acid on getting the exact shade of anti-corrosion paint on the interiors of Jugs, Mustangs and other wartime-built a/c, try this: make sure you don’t paint it a color it couldn’t possibly be. I’m not pushing this on anyone, I’m just asking us all to think about it this way.
BTW, I saw an unrestored Jug with a cockpit that was mostly an interesting color commonly called Bronze Green (though if you were a painter of, say, still lifes, Bronze Green would be a completely different color on your palate, so even paint companies can’t agree on these names). I started with a base of Euro Dark Green, added several drops of French Blue, and then a few drops of bright green zinc chromate, all MM acryls. It was just a lark, but by magic it was a perfect match (with the photo, anyway). But if I’d had to really sweat it, I wouldn’t have even tried. Or, I would have used Humbrol Bronze Green, which it strongly resembles and is a lot easier and cheaper than mixing three or four paints.
And one more observation on this subject: Back when Otaki had that line of 1/48 WW II fighters we are all familiar with, they had great box art profile paintings on the sides of the boxes. (They even gave you a little tube of glue.) On their Razorback Jug, they clearly made the area behind the seats and the rear glass a definite chromate yellow. When this happens, people assume the artist has some special inside information we don’t have access to. It ain’t true, folks. They go through this agonizing over subtle shades of green just as long and silly as we do. And they get it wrong. But once it’s on a box top, or in a Squadron/Signal publication, it becomes engraved in stone and then it’s contagious.
I just finished going through an excellent reference book, the B-25 Walk Around by Squadron/Signal. It was full of errors, some of them especially glaring, like calling a B-25C a B-25J not once but several times, and vice versa. Well, a B-25 person can tell the difference with a casual glance. They have many differences. So you see, even our most basic, trusted references we spend so much on can’t get it right all the time. These books are written by humans. And as a former card-carrying member of the Aviation and Space Writers Association, I can tell you that a lot of those humans know less about this subject than the modelers on this forum.
So, I repeat what I just wasted a lot more words on: don’t kill yourself getting the right cockpit color. Just make sure you don’t put one in there that couldn’t possibly have been there during the time the plane was built. In other words, if it’s WW II, and American, make it a shade of green, not Dark Gull Gray.
Tom

I thank all of you who responded to my P-47 color problem. I think the dark dull green is my safest option. This was my first posting on the FSM sight, I think I’ll be here quite a bit. B-T-W, sharp lookin JUG! (crockett) I’m leary of natural metal finishes when it comes to my work, never quite tackled that one yet, gotta try it…oh, well…back to work!

Tom, actually the area behind the seat under the rear glass on a Razorback was painted neutral grey, but if you’re aren’t concerned about accuracy, who cares.

Regards, Rick