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SEAC Razorback


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Another GB? Oh, go on then.

Herewith my entry. Academy's 1/72 Razorback to be built with the LPS Hobby 'Thunderbolts in SEAC' decals, which are printed by Microscale. The kit comes with only one each of two types of external fuel tank, for the centreline pylon, so I'll try and find a proper pair for the wing pylons. If not it will have to do without, but apart from that and decals (and shortening the over-long undercarriage) it should be OOB ish. I picked the kit up at the 2013 Scale ModelWorld for £6:50 and the decals about six months ago from evilbay. I actually opened the sealed bag with the sprues in it for the photo. This will not be the first in the gallery, so be patient with me.

23977849310_cf07f75d16_z.jpg

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Hi Dave, welcome aboard.

The SEAC version Thunderbolts are proving to be very popular, I was planning to go that way to as NMF scare me!

Good luck with the build, and I look forward to seeing her in the gallery.

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I did a SEAC Thunderbolt for a GB on UAMF last year. The over long U/C legs have been identified but don't overlook the lousy structure that Academy give for the Oil cooler, intercooler intakes below the engine in the front cowl opening. You'll see from my build thread on UAMF I made an attempt to improve this, what you're aiming for looks like this, if you can see past the attractive young lady. :) The photographers flash has shown the internal detail better than any shot I've found & I've looked fairly long & hard. As I've said before, a resin improvement piece would be very welcome for this. The fact that this is seldom hi-lighted in Academy P-47 builds shows how little can normally be seen in photos of them but to me it sticks out like dogs wotsits on a model.

Steve.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back with a tiddly bit of progress. I set about the cockpit today, but lord knows why as just about none of this will be visible with the closed canopy fitted. Well, I'll know it's there.

Port and Starboard cockpit:

24483047381_7051e2809a_b.jpg

The seatbelts are foil from a bottle of Port with the buckles from 5 amp fusewire:

24457032412_529ef55dba_b.jpg

There is no decal for the instrument panel but it has some lovely detail so I tried my best to make something of it, even if it can't really be seen:

24565355145_dba157e24a_b.jpg

More soon I hope.

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Over in the Maritime section beefy66 notes that we builders here on BM have meant that he just can't build anything out of the box anymore. I am with him on that. I used to put the kit together, do my best to paint it and be chuffed. Now I am trying to add ignition harnesses to engines that are smaller than a five pence piece; good grief:

24273002760_ab9163426c_b.jpg

The main assemblies are together. They fitted really well, I won't need filler here; which is something new after the last few kits I have built and nothing at all like the old Airfix kits I seem to keep coming back to:

24542351726_62f007d2a3_b.jpg

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stevehnz pointed out the error Academy made with their intake in the engine cowling. Academy's offering looks like this:

24223278269_ab96494a8f_b.jpg

The intake slopes down toward the front, and on the real aircraft it is nothing like that, as per the link Steve put in his post. If anything the splitter slopes down towards the rear. As mistakes go it is a little too obvious for me. I am no rivet counter, but I wanted to do something about it; so I sliced up some plasticard, bent it around a drill shaft with some heat from a hair dryer, added a couple of splitter plates and there you go. It is a long way from perfect but it is much closer to being 'right' now:

24564882816_931f8d8e3d_b.jpg

(The blutac in the intake is just to hold it in place for the photo)

More soon.............

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Nice effort. I feel your intake slope came out a bit too wide and the curvature too flat, but still better than what Academy is offering.

stevehnz pointed out the error Academy made with their intake in the engine cowling. Academy's offering looks like this:

24223278269_ab96494a8f_b.jpg

The intake slopes down toward the front, and on the real aircraft it is nothing like that, as per the link Steve put in his post. If anything the splitter slopes down towards the rear. As mistakes go it is a little too obvious for me. I am no rivet counter, but I wanted to do something about it; so I sliced up some plasticard, bent it around a drill shaft with some heat from a hair dryer, added a couple of splitter plates and there you go. It is a long way from perfect but it is much closer to being 'right' now:

24564882816_931f8d8e3d_b.jpg

nasm_p-47d_17.jpg

Cheers, Peter

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Nice effort. I feel your intake slope came out a bit too wide and the curvature too flat, but still better than what Academy is offering.

nasm_p-47d_17.jpg

Cheers, Peter

Tsk tsk, nowhere near as decorative as the link I posted. :D A good one to illustrate the area though.

Natter, while Peter may be strictly correct re the curve in yours, its still a huge improvement & way better than the one I did in my SEAC bubble top. They're not an easy structure to get spot on, being quite a lot more 3d than most people realise. Imho, the Tamiya kit is the only one in 1/72 that really nails it. Keep up the good work.

Steve.

Edited by stevehnz
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Now seeing your cowling, I wish I'd seen that link earlier, just for the reference you understand.

Looking at it again, (and again,..... and again.....), there's no way she's called Scott!!

Sean

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Cut out the solid nav lights and insert a piece of clear sprue:

24399582240_978c5c8a69_b.jpg

Then sand with 600 grade wet and dry and polish away with micromesh until the nav lights blend in to the wing:

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I will colour with clear acrilic paint. I tried drilling a tiny hole in the back of the sprue and filling that with coloured paint, but didn't like the result. Next up is shortening the main landing gear.

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A small update, or an update of small parts. The main landing gear of the Academy P-47s is known to be too long for a loaded Thunderbolt and different sites suggest shortening it between 3mm and 5mm. I have gone somewhere in the middle. I decided to cut approximately 4mm from the centre section, thereby keeping the top section which will make aligning the landing gear legs much easier:

24103062583_9d4eae7579_b.jpgTB013

The two separated legs were then drilled with a 0.5mm drill so that a piece of fine wire could be inserted in to each cut end to support the join. With this done, and the fine wire inserted, the ends were joined and fixed with superglue:

24362238109_77010d4589_b.jpgTB013a

The wheels themselves are not a great representation of the spoked wheel of the original, but all of the photos I have seen of the SEAC Thunderbolts show hub covers in place, so I stamped out two discs of thin plasticard and fixed them over the hubs. This shows the before and after:

24612120402_b87a077ff8_b.jpgTB014

The Academy gunsight is solid, so I did something with that. Unfortunately it wasn't until I had it fixed in place that I found out that, in the Razorback at least, the sight was offset to starboard - so the windscreen frame wasn't in the way. Oh well....

24703701056_ededb5fbc4_b.jpgTB015

Apparently the Academy guns are too thick. They are also slightly misaligned. On the model they are set in line with the wing. On the real aircraft they are parallel to the ground. I can live with this small misalignment, but didn't like the solid Academy guns so I replaced them with 0.8mm Albion Alloys tube:

24362238059_17ecdb9d45_b.jpgTB016

The trailing edge of the cowling gills is fairly fine, but I sanded it a little finer:

24636399341_8e7958b653_b.jpgTB017

Other triv includes drilliing out the gun camera port in the starboard wing and filling the incorrect gun camera access panel in the port wing: there was only one gun camera. I have also separated the landing gear doors as they are fixed to fit the original langth of the legs. By separating them I can realign them when the landing gear is in place.

Canopy on next..........

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Just a small update. I have had such an enjoyable time masking the canopy that I think I will be investing in some pre-cut masks for future builds. The white was sprayed and masked for the ID bands. The airframe was primed and then some preshading was done. This is something I am not sure will work for me, but I'll give it a go and see if it shows at all. Well everything I have scribbled there is said much more eloquently in a couple of pictures; so here they are:

24774487756_8dff8f878e_b.jpgTB018

24505200500_36ef254ea0_b.jpgTB019

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Steve, Dave,

I was so impressed with the first link posted that I am going to ask PJ Products to produce a 1:72 figure to that style! :-)

Neat model, certainly fits together well - in general I am not following builds other than 1:72 Revell P-47's for several reasons: primarily because that is the model I am using and I want to see how others are tackling it, secondly because seeing the neat builds of other models will tempt me to buy the same kit and I really don't need to go down that route, finally because I can generate excuses for not building my aircraft and sitting looking through all these magnificent builds only adds to that.

Nevertheless, good work - I am watching you!!

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