Shiny shiny jug - 1/72 P-47

[Kitchen Modeller]

Hi folks - hope you’re all enjoying the weekend - I’ve just started work on this little thing:

 

 

She’s been in the stash for ages - I bought this just after completing the razorback version so it was only right and proper that this would sneak into the build queue. I loved the Razorback - both the build and the finished model - but the nmf that I intend on doing kinda scared me off.

 

Since then I’ve dabbled with metallics on different projects - trying to work out what paints work best and how to apply them - I’ve discovered the wonders of Alclad which I’ll be using on this wee girl - but this will be the first time attempting a proper full metal finish - I have a heap of kits that are crying out for the shiny treatment- so hopefully this will be the first of many - time to pop the cherry 🍒 

 

I got some after market:

 

 

Some masks for the canopy- a compulsory item for me these days because life is too short. Some photo etch goodness for the cockpit and some replacement gun barrels- as the kit ones don’t really cut the mustard- I used brass barrels on the razorback but these required some surgery  to the wing to make them fit - I’m hoping these will be easier to install. 

 

The scheme... well I bought this decal sheet a while back:

 

 

I thought this bird looked pretty good. Love the pin up and that blue... However when I broke them out when starting this build I realized something. They’re for a P-47 N... not a D like I have. I thought about using artistic license and using them anyways... but just couldn’t get my head around it. One of the things I love about the hobby is depicting real aircraft- however badly, and learning about them - it adds to the richness of the finished piece. Knowing that this scheme was on the wrong type wasn’t going to work for me...  So a quick look around on the inter web resulted in me ordering some new decals - they’re 2 weeks away but I can still keep working until they arrive... the 2 schemes in the kit are fine but I wanted something blue - you’ll have to wait abit longer to see the what i ordered... 

 

Started on the pit - broke some bits off a sprue:

 

 

and sprayed them with tamiya xf 5 flat green followed by some highlights in  a lighter shade:

 

 

Then painted In the details- with some dry brushed silver and tamiya panel line washes...

 

 

I put the eduard instrument panel together- sanded down the kit version and glued it in place...

 

 

Looks okay I think - I used some other pe around the cockpit sides but discarded most of it - the kit has a decent amount of detail already. 

 

The seat got some seatbelts:

 

 

Again these are quite nice. After supergluing them-in place, they got some panel line wash to dirty them up a little. 

 

 

 

The completed office. No trouble from the kit as you’d expect from tamiya. The razorback was a nice easy build so I’m sure this will be no different. 

 

Thats it for now... thanks for checking in 😀

 

Cheers

 

John

[Johnny Tip]

Nice cockpit and great IP. 

 

Bob Brulle's P-47D "Virginia" had a very similar noseart to Red-E-Ruth, but then again, you've ordered already, and three sets of decals for one bird... Maybe not😂

[SaminCam]

Looking forward to this!

[Kitchen Modeller]

6 hours ago, Johnny Tip said:

Nice cockpit and great IP. 

 

Bob Brulle's P-47D "Virginia" had a very similar noseart to Red-E-Ruth, but then again, you've ordered already, and three sets of decals for one bird... Maybe not😂

I see that Johnny - thanks for the tip But yep, I'm going to resist the temptation of getting a third set  This is what I ordered: 

 

 

Good old Hannents to the rescue - I ordered these last night and got an email this morning saying that they were in the post. Hopefully they'll arrive in New Zealand just in time for decal night 

 

I'm going "Rain Dear" - not too dissimilar to my original scheme - A nice blue on the cowl and canopy which I think will look great on the metal finish - plus a lovely pin up - ticks all the boxes And with the added bonus of being historically correct It will be a tricky paint job I think - but I really want to cut my metal finish teeth on this - so will be using a bunch of techniques that I've never attempted before - I anticipate some pain ahead! 

 

3 hours ago, SaminCam said:

Looking forward to this!

Thanks Sam - you're more than welcome along for the ride

 

 

 

[Andre B]

I never built the Tamiya P-47 kits and following your build with great interest.

Like your choise of decals. Good looking bolts indeed!

 

Cheers / André

[clive_t]

Great start, looking forward to seeing how this develops!

[Kitchen Modeller]

Thanks @Andre B and @clive_t - great to have you along 😀

 

After the last progress update, and looking at the pics on a desktop, (hazards of doing everything on a smartphone), I noticed a few little touch up were needed on the pit before I glued it and locked it in.

 

 

I just filled in a few spots where colour was missing or spots that didn’t get full coverage... problem with 1/72 is that it’s so easy to miss the tiny details - taking photos is a handy way to review your work but even seeing these on a phone, I often miss things - then you see it on a bigger screen and forehead slap. After a few fixes, I was happy enough to start gluing plastic. The cockpit was locked in. 

 

 

And the fuselage halves were closed:

 

 

I then put the fin section together and after some dry fitting, glued it in place.

 

 

I just held the parts together while they dried. Tamiya extra thin dries super quickly so I don’t feel the need to clamp.  The result looks okay thus far - seams are nice and tight at this stage. It’s a nice kit. 

 

Next up was the cylindrical engine block - the kit parts for this are not highly detailed but do the job for a closed up cowl. Some of it is visible from the front obviously so I wanted it to be semi presentable. Last time I did this, I just painted it black and dry brushed it with aluminum. It looked okay but I thought another method was worth a punt. 

 

 

The 2 half’s of the engine cylinders - to be sprayed with that stuff. I used an acrylic so I could put enamel washes directly on top of it - I’m way to lazy to clear coat it. 

 

 

 

Vallejo metal colour can be tricky when spraying directly onto plastic - so light light coats win the day. You can’t really see the carburetor above (crap photo) but this was sprayed with uncut tamiya medium blue followed with a lighter tone for a highlight. 

 

I then added some details to the carburetor - picked out some details with aluminum and dry brushed on some more.

 

 

Then gave it a wash - with tamiya panel line wash black.

 

 

Nothing too fancy but this will do. It’s a little dark maybe but this will be a well weathered machine so it’s on topic😀. 

 

The engine cylinders then got their wash with the same stuff...

 

 

And then it was all glued together...

 

 

I think I need to paint the back plate black

just to hide it from view but otherwise it’s done. This is a nicer result than my previous effort and it wasn’t that much extra work. I just need to not look at these pics on a big screen and I’ll be fine 😂

 

Hope you enjoy the remainder of your Sunday 😀

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

[Kitchen Modeller]

Hey all - a quick mid week update follows!

 

Having finished the engine block, I needed to paint the inside of the cowlings... so sprayed the inside with flat aluminum- the lacquer version. Then masked off the lower section and sprayed on some tamiya cockpit green... 

 

 

Then to dirty things up, I threw around some mig engine grease which is an enamel based wash.

 

 

I could then see how the engine would end up looking... 

 

 

 

Next up, the wings. These went together easily enough and needed minimal clean up. However there were a few issues when I went to attach them to the fuselage. 

 

 

Not a perfect fit. This was unexpected as they fitted pretty much perfectly when I did the razorback. I realized that I mistakenly glued the supporting strut that feeds into the wing root - you’re not supposed to do that. So some very slight fit issues. I remedied this with some perfect plastic putty. I also fixed the gap seen in the photo above on the gun mountings.

 

 

 

 

I sanded off the upper half of the tail and re scribed to replace the lost panel lines. Other than a few fixes in a few spots, it was all pretty straightforward. I’ll have another look around and then hopefully clean her up, do some masking and then primer... 

 

Thanks for checking in!

 

John

 

 

 

[Kitchen Modeller]

Happy Friday all - (or whatever day it is where you are) I've been progressing the Jug along a little. 

 

There was quite a big seam on the lover fuselage outlets - one of which is in a few awkward place - so instead of trying to fill it I used some plasticard, sanded down as thin as I could get it, to cover it up. I put some tamiya putty on the other seam: 

 

 

That was sanded back

 

 

After some more sanding elsewhere and touch ups, I cleaned her off and whacked on some primer - Mr Surfacer 1500 black thinned 50/50 with Mr Leveling Thinner. 

 

 

 

That went down as well as it usually does - dries off nice and quick too. I had a look around the model and invariably found some problems...

 

 

My old friend Mr Ghost Seam made an appearance on the fuselage - the area is quite curvy so I didn't bother trying to fill it and instead just attacked it with sanding sticks. 

 

 

 

 

The air outlets came out okay... 

 

There were a few other spots that needed attention but nothing some light sanding wouldn't take care of. I re-sprayed. 

 

 

Much better. 

 

After about 15 minutes drying time, I used some high grit sanding sponges (8000 - 12000 grit) to polish off the whole model in prep for the first coat. 

 

 

 

The following day, I put on the undercoat for the Alclad metals - Using Alclads gloss black base - I've only used this stuff once before and it was ages ago - but the instructions state that 2 light coats with ample drying time between each was all that was needed. It went on okay and I put on the 2 light coats - however the finish was a little disjointed - it had a low sheen in some places and a high sheen in others - after letting it cure for about 20 hours I decided to try and get a better uniform finish and hit it with a 3rd coat - but I went a little more heavy this time...

 

 

Mmmm - this wasn't long after painting - it was tacky but seemed to drying okay - but the surface didn't look great - you can see the effect that was worrying me on the wings in the photo above. I started googling "how to remove gloss black base"  But on reflection I figured I should let it cure and then re-assess - I could always sand it back if it was a total disaster. 

 

The next morning I had this: 

 

 

It seemed to have leveled out nicely - and it's nice and shiny pretty much all over - so that was a relief. I'll give it some more time to cure and then go over it with polishing sponges just to make sure the surface is as smooth as I can get it. This should work for a shiny alclad finish - my plan is to get it as shiny as I can initially - and then pare it back with weathering, post shading and clear coats - leaving a fairly grimey but still reflective and shiny surface.  Hopefully I'm on track to make that happen. 

 

Next up, Alclad coats go on! 

 

Thanks for checking in... 

 

John

 

[Kitchen Modeller]

Hey all - so I've continued on with this and must say have been finding the going, let say... challenging... 

 

As you saw in my last post, I got the gloss black base down - however after 3 days drying time, it was still quite tacky - I suspect that when I laid down the last coat, I went a little too heavy so the paint was layered too high - the surface was not flat shall we say. I then tried to sand it down a little using high grit sanding sponges - however, this just made things worse, with the paint coming off in clumps in places. Things were going downhill fast so I bit the bullet and decided to strip it down to the primer. I used oderless thinners for this which took off the black base very efficiently. I cleaned up the model, sanded off some stubborn bits and re-primed. Of course I didn't take any pics during this fiasco - too busy elsewhere - but long story short, I applied the black base again - this time in much thinner coats: 

 

I was happier with this - it's not a crazy shiny as before but the surface was much smoother.  This episode also gave me the opportunity to fix a couple of seams that I had previously missed so at least I got something out of the mess. After this has dried for 24 hours, it was bone dry - so I was happy to start on the NMF... 

 

I'm using Alclad Airframe aluminium for the base coat - this went on nicely - took about 3 coats to completely cover the model. And it was very shiny so I put some Alclad Steel in the airbrush and started carefully post shading along the panel lines: 

 

 

I then did the same thing with other shades - Alclad Magnesium, Steel and Dull Aluminium - using masking tape to mask off panels - I didn't fill in the panel lines, instead I tried shading along the hard edge which I hoped would highlight certain areas and draw the eye - basically creating variations around the different parts of the plane. 

 

 

 

 

If I thought I went too heavy in places, I'd go back over the area with the base colour which blended things in. 

 

I have to say, I found this whole process quite difficult - just trying to see what you're doing is quite tricky as the colours change so much depending on the light hitting it. Things were not helped by the fact that some of the colours - Steel and Magnesium in particular tended to create tip dry on the needle of the airbrush - they really don't like being sprayed at low pressure so I had a few muck ups with the airbrush suddenly throwing a load of paint on the model which required clean up.

 

That said, after a couple of hours I did end up with something close to what I was after.

 

 

 

So it's still pretty shiny but looks suitably weathered too - I'll be using washes and oils on it later so hopefully this will more fully complete the look. For my first attempt at using Alclad, I'm reasonably happy and I certainly learned alot of lessons. Just getting a handle on how these paints work is quite invaluable. 

 

Next up will be painting on the olive drab and other bits - I'm looking forward to working with regular old tamiya after this

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

 

[mike romeo]

Looking really good!  Looking forward to seeing what you do with the weathering.

 

Regards

 

Martin

[clive_t]

Lovely metal finish there!

[Bugle07]

Lots of trials and tribulations there mate but the result is looking good so far.

 

How'd you compare the Vallejo to the Alclads in terms of results?

 

I've got a Frightening in the stash I'd like to start soon, NMF with blue fin(deja vous?) Was thinking of going down the Vallejo route as I've a few of them already, but I'm un decided.

 

Geoff 

 

 

[Howlindawg]

looks fab so far!

[Kitchen Modeller]

Thanks @mike romeo, @clive_t, @Howlindawg 

 

8 hours ago, Bugle07 said:

Lots of trials and tribulations there mate but the result is looking good so far.

 

How'd you compare the Vallejo to the Alclads in terms of results?

 

I've got a Frightening in the stash I'd like to start soon, NMF with blue fin(deja vous?) Was thinking of going down the Vallejo route as I've a few of them already, but I'm un decided.

 

Geoff 

 

 

Hey Geoff - Alclad is easily the winner in terms of finish - I'm not sure you can do any better other than going down the foil route - however they are expensive and can be tricky to use - they're lacquer based - Metal color can give a pretty decent result, is very forgiving in terms of what you can put on top, and is much cheaper (compared to Alclad) - and is acrylic based so no worries with fumes. If you really want that mirror shiny finish and nothing else will do, get some Alclad... if this isn't a huge priority, you will be fine using Metal Color... 

 

I've read that AK Interactive Metal colors are pretty good also and easier to use than alclad - but not available in NZ. 

 

Hope this helps

 

Looking forward to seeing your Lightening WIP! 

 

Cheers - John

[Kitchen Modeller]

Morning! (or whatever time it is locally) So my decals arrived: 

 

 

They arrived super quick - a record for Hannants I think - well in advance for decal night. This got me thinking: there's a little event taking place in my town this weekend - the New Zealand IPMS Nationals. I had discounted the chance of this being finished in time - but now I'm beginning to wonder... Part of me thinks it might be possible to finish in time - the other (more sensible) part says I don't have a hope... Modelling is about taking your time - and I don't really want to rush anything - as I always tend to muck things up when I'm rushing:) So I've decided to take a what ever will be, will be approach... I'll continue at my own pace and see what happens... if it's nearly done by the time the weekend approaches, I might see if I can push to finish... Otherwise, no big deal - there's always next year. 

 

So progress: I was happy enough with the NMF so moved on to putting down some of the scheme colours... I started with the olive green anti glare stripe that runs the length of the fuselage... The kit calls out out a mix of XF-4 mixed with XF-5 - Yellow green with flat green - This seemed like an odd choice given the references that I've seen - I always thought this was more of olive green colour... Out of curiosity I mixed up those colours... 

 

 

The one of the left is the tamiya call out - although it was a nice colour, I thought this was far too light - the other pot is Tamiya Olive green mixed with a little green yellow - I thought I'd use the Olive green for the base, then use the other for some marbling high lights - then blend back in with the base... 

 

I masked up the beast: 

 

 

I wasn't taking any chances with my NMF... after putting down the coats as planned, I removed the mask... 

 

 

I was pretty happy with that - I like how the tone contrasts nicely with the NMF... 

 

The canopies were masked up and painted with the interior green colour: 

 

 

Then tackled the nose colors - I mixed up some blue - using tamiya flat and medium blue - pretty much exactly the same colour as I used on the A-wing I just really dig this colour

 

 

In fairness, it's a pretty good match to the scheme - it's a solid blue but the tone is fitting with the olive green and has a bit of depth - I've seen other interpretations of this colour on models out in the internet and some are far too light to my eye. I'll adjust this colour with some oil weathering later in the build - lighten it up a little. 

 

I painted up the tail section - put down the black stripes on the fin and stabilisers - as well as the checquered pattern on the exhaust covers... 

 

 

So getting there - I have a few other places to put down colours - then gloss coat, then decals - I'm taking my time - I promise

 

Thanks for checking in... 

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

 

[SaminCam]

This is looking fab John, waiting with baited breath to see what you do with the weathering! I agree with you about alclad, practice and patience needed but finish is worth it - I nearly got there with my b29 and hoping the next nmf (maybe a jug?) will crack it like you have here!

[Kitchen Modeller]

5 hours ago, SaminCam said:

This is looking fab John, waiting with baited breath to see what you do with the weathering! I agree with you about alclad, practice and patience needed but finish is worth it - I nearly got there with my b29 and hoping the next nmf (maybe a jug?) will crack it like you have here!

Thanks Sam - I really liked your B29 (if it’s the one I’m thinking of) if you’re thinking of doing a jug (and of course you should) I would highly recommend this kit by tamiya... it’s lurvely - and I believe the 1/48 version is even nicer... which is also on my hit list 👍

[Kitchen Modeller]

Hi all - so the decals arrived in time for decal night so if it was time to slap them on. Before getting choppy choppy with the decal sheet however, I put on a coat of aqua gloss from Alclad. I used this on my last build and found it to be pretty good stuff. After a misty layer I put on 2 light coats, waiting a little between each one. It takes 6 hours to cure which is all time it got since this has turned into a speed build🤨. This turned out to be fine and I didn’t have any trouble during the decal process.

 

I usually spend a few nights putting on decals but as time was against me, I attempted to do it all in one night. 5 hours later most of them were on the model - though a lot of tiny stencils didn’t make the cut (no pun intended) 

 

These were after market from life like decals - I’d never used these before but found them to be quite nice. Very thin and good registration. They were printed on thick paper however and sometimes took a bit of time to come loose - I ended up putting them into the water for twice as long as I usually would - about 30 seconds - which seemed to help. They did take some persuading to get them into the panel lines so some help from the hobby knife was required. I did get a couple of tears but was able to rectify them easily enough. All that said, still much better than tamiya decals😃...

 

 

 

I’ve made some great progress this week - advanced the build much quicker then I normally would - however I’m doubtful I’ll finish in time. There’s still so much to do - especially in terms of weathering- if this does get entered into the competition, it will be incomplete- but maybe that’s better than trying to rush the final work... 

 

I’ll let you know what happens!!!

 

Cheers

 

John

[clive_t]

Looks excellent!

[Tzulscha]

Nice, definitely looks the business.

[Kitchen Modeller]

Hi all - finally getting round to doing an update - we had the New Zealand National IPMS competition and expo here in Christchurch last weekend so was pretty busy with that - it was a massive success with hundreds of people coming through. It was no Telford but there was an amazing display of models and exhibitors,  showing that in this part of the world at least, the hobby has a strong following. It was my first modelling event since coming back so I really enjoyed meeting modellers from around the country and overseas. I entered 4 models into the competition - My Il-2, FW190 D9 and P-47 Razorback all scoring Highly commended ribbons - My A-wing took out the best in class for Sci-fi which was amazing.

 

I've posted a topic with photos from the event here... You can check out the best in class winners here: https://www.ipmschch.co.nz/the-2019-new-zealand-ipms-national-competition-winners/

 

On with this build...!

 

After the decals went on, I put another clear coat of aqua gloss down - I then sanded the areas around the decals to remove any traces of carrier film - this was done with very high grain sanding sponges. I then masked off the anti glare olive green and gave this a coat of tamiya matt clear - this went on okay but I probably over did it a little as it really toned down the colours. Once this had dried I could get on with some weathering. 

 

Here are some images of Rain Dear: 

 

 

 

As you can see, the paint work on the anti glare olive green is pretty faded and scratched - I want to recreate this as much as I can - but there are limits how faithful you can be at 1/72...

 

First off I did a pin wash on all the panel lines using Mig Panel Line wash grey - Once this was dry, I removed the excess with a dry paper towel. Then I got into some oil paint weathering. I use pure oil paint for this and don't thin it down. I  put some paint on the brush and then remove most of it on a paper towel - then apply it to the areas I wanted to weather. 

 

   

You can see the effect of the matt on the tail section here - I wanted to re-invigorate those colours - so applied some oilive green oil paint lightly over these areas. 

 

 

I used Burnt Sienna in different areas around the fuselage and wings, adding traces of dirt to areas I wanted to be grimy - I used some light grey in the same way.  Once the paint is down, I used a dry soft bristle brush or a cotton bud to blend it in.  

 

 

 

I wanted to bring out the panel lines more on the nose so put some midnight blue into those areas. I repeated this process over 3 nights - work on it for a couple of hours and letting it dry for 24 hours - then going in again, building up the paint...  Hopefully you can see some kind of progression here... 

 

 

 

 

I used some light grey on the roundels....

 

 

I used these colours to create a faded yellow green so simulate the Zinc Chromate showing through. 

 

 

 

Here's what it looks like after another 24 hours drying time: 

 

 

I think she's almost there - honestly, it's difficult to create the weathered effects I was after at this scale but this is reasonably close - when this is completely dry, which will take another few days, I'll attempt some light chipping with some dark green shades and zinc chromate - and some silver paint for scratches. A few other touch ups will be done too...   In the meantime, I need to get going on the other bits - undercarriage, prop etc... 

 

Feel free to comment and make suggestions - as always, I'm all ears

 

Thanks for checking in 

 

John 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Kitchen Modeller
added link

[SaminCam]

Looks great John, you're nailing the weathering with oils, especially on this and the recent prize winning(!) A-wing. Pretty hard to know how you would improve on these,  any thoughts on other techniques you'd like to have a go at?

[Kitchen Modeller]

2 hours ago, SaminCam said:

Looks great John, you're nailing the weathering with oils, especially on this and the recent prize winning(!) A-wing. Pretty hard to know how you would improve on these,  any thoughts on other techniques you'd like to have a go at?

Thanks Sam - In terms of weathering, the one I really want to nail is the hairspray technique - I've tried it a few times with very mixed results - mostly unsatisfactory - but not sure it was a viable method here - I've got a hellcat in the stash that will bear the brunt of this technique I think:) 

[clive_t]

I would be delighted to produce a result this good! And amazed, to be fair