I’m starting tobuild my P-47 Thunderbolt and I wanted to make it customized, so, heres were I am at this point! My first idea, is to build scratch made ammo belts for the machine guns. One problem, first off,I don’t know what to do about opening up the panels, or which panels to open!!! Secondly, I don’t know what to do about the guns themselves! So, building an ammo bow and then posing it all together. Here was my idea for ammo belts. The actual belt is made from painted masking tape and the ammo is fine cut sections of brass painted stretched sprue. The whole plan was working untill I realized I didn’t know what to do about the opening of the panels! So please help! If you have any other ideas, I can’t use resin or PE, I also intend to super detail the cockpit from scrattchbuilt details! so, any ideas are great thanks!!![:-^]
Stephen,
What scale are we talking about? I would get hold of the Detail and Scale book on the P-47 as a reference. I have made a “gig” for depth and cut straight pins for my .50 cal rounds in 1/48th scale.
Oh, sorry about that! I’m in 1/72 scale!
I second the Detail and Scale book. I have it and it’s great!! It should help you out bunches.
Good luck
Stephen,
You might want to get some photo etched ammo belts for something that small. But I admire you for attempting to detail something that small. Good luck!
Well thanks for your admiration, but Photo Etched is not an option I have the capabilty to use! Plus, if you ask me, I would prefer to know that I built the detail, that way I know my plane is one of a kind no matter what! And as for books, you guys must understand, I live in a family that dosen’t have ANY extra $ to throw around for me! I get what ever I can from discount or whole sale locations so I wish I could afford the book, but then I wouldn’t have anything to model because I couldn’t afford to buy the kits! But thanks for the ideas!
Stephen,
If you want I could make some copies of the wing gun bays and snail mail them to you. My scanner is broke so E-mailing isn’t an option. E-mail me if you want the pictures.
Stephen,
I got in from offshore today, only a day late. Fog kept them from “turning a blade’” yesterday. I’ll be putting your pictures in the mail tomorrow. Hope they help you out! Good luck on your P-47. My namesake had a P-47D Razorback named after him. “Molly” for Melvin Mollberg. He was KIA in WW II in the crash of a C-47 in New Guinea.
Thanks again for the pics and your help!!!