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I reviewed this kit here and the Upgrade set here at the beginning of September, and thought that as this is my first P-47 kit of any manufacturer, I'd crack on with it. Life's been doing its best to stop me, but I've managed to get the cockpit and wheel bays almost ready, so thought I'd better start a thread. The kit has a Brassin resin cockpit. which is rather nice, and augmented by pre-painted and raw PE for the instrument panel and levers. It is pretty straight forward to paint and put together, but make sure you get the fore and aft bulkheads square to the floor, as it will make the side walls easier to get in once you're done painting. Pre-painted PE belts are included, and a little bit of the paint came off on some of the sharp folds, but that's a first for me, so perhaps there wasn't such good adhesion with my set. I've been experimenting with Gunze Sangyo Mr Color paints for this build, as I felt like a change, and had heard good things about them. Sure enough, they're very nice to spray, but I suffer from a lack of breadth of colours, which I'll have to rectify soon. The extra upgrade set includes a bunch of parts for the gear bays, which replace a lot of the moulded in detail, and those are quite easy to fit whilst the wings are separate from the fuselage, although you'll have to make sure you don't bend the skins when adding them to the fuselage later. So far I've managed to avoid it, but you never know with my clumsy mitts. I've just finished constructing the PE deck behind the pilot, which requires a little sanding of the fuselage top (indicated in red) before it will sit flat on the fuselage. The extra effort is worth it though, as the detail is much crisper once done. I also removed the moulded in exhaust flaps on the underside of the nose, which were replaced by a new set from the Upgrade set, and here I was cautious cutting away, as you can quite easily go to large and end up with a bit of repair to do. They do look much better hollow with scale thickness to the walls, so again very much worth the effort. The wings were a piece of cake to put together, needing very little in the way of anything before they were glued together. The forward cannon inserts were pretty poor though, so I aligned the top as well as I could, then glued thin strip into the gaps, using CA as filler and some coarse sanding sticks before I polished it to a nice shine. I chose to remove the short cannon stub moulded into the inserts, and decided to pick up some of the excellent Master barrels that are available for this (or any other) P-47 kit. I've drilled out all the holes for a snug fit, and will insert them once I'm ready. The detail and curved muzzles are worth the effort if you're going to the trouble of adding all that PE. Other than those I'm sticking to OOB... Promise! A bit more detail painting, then a coat of flat varnish, and I think I'll be in a position to close up the fuselage.

Hiya Folks, Although I`m more of a bodger compared to other more skillful modellers,....in case anybody is interested here is the progress on my Revell Hurricane so far; First off, here is the Grey Matter Figures resin conversion set,.....it was to have been a Mk.IId but I decided to build it as a Mk.IIb instead and save the cannons for another day; I set to whittling away one night while watching a film and before I knew it I had sanded all of the rivets away, re scribed the parts, cut the Revell fuselage down fixed it together, attached the upper wing parts and fitted the replacement resin nose section! Pity the break line isn`t along a panel line but with careful cutting, filling and sanding it can be disguised,....hopefully!; The Grey Matter Figures cockpit is excellent and much better than the kit parts, so this was obtained as well. It could be fitted from below, which is why the lower wings were not fitted yet and here is the cockpit before; and after,...ready for fitting, although I still have to do some detail painting, especially the brass firing button on the control column; Here is the cockpit with the main kit parts; Once the cockpit was in place the lower wings were fitted, along with the Vokes filter and the radiator. A section of armour plating was fitted behind the pilots head rest, made from plastic card; I couldn`t afford the Grey Matter Figures wheel well set this time (although it is excellent and I`ve used one before on a previous Hurri!) but the lower wing section still had to be cut to accept the resin nose. Unfortunately I made the cut bigger than it should so the gap was packed with scrap plastic and filler!; Almost time to start painting,...more to follow! Cheers Tony