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Finished! - A Thunderbolt after 20 years


mnord

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More than 20 years after finishing my last model I felt I wanted to try out some modelling again! Last time I was "active" was in 1999-2000 or so, when I moved out from my parents house. Out of my old builds nothing is left except for some photos, but I recall some fun builds like the revell F101-B Voodoo in 1:72 and the Airfix S A Bulldog in the same scale, and of course also the Airfix Bf109 in 1:24. 

 

So, after many years I want to get off where I left and as a start I will try out with something rather easy where I can focus on trying out some new techniques. This turned out to be the Hasegawa P-47D in 1:48, so here we go! 

 

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I started this build already in january 2020 but it was first now I decided to publish a build log of it - for this reason not all steps have been documented. The pace has not been the most rapid one, but I will drop some posts on the current progress and hopefully things will move faster now when I have the tools etc in place.

 

The first thing I did was to replace the exhausts in the front with new ones that I made from beer can aluminium. The parts provided in the kit (seen on top  of the exhausts in the photo) were not too convincing. The new ones were somewhat better even if the openings in the end felt a little too large.

 

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The rear (intercooler?) openings were good in shape but of course too thick as they are moulded parts. I considered removing them and replace them with brass, aluminium or crash moulded / vac formed plastic sheet, but in the end it turned out I could just carve them out and still get a decent result.

 

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Edited by mnord
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16 hours ago, mnord said:

More than 20 years after finishing my last model I felt I wanted to try out some modelling again! Last time I was "active" was in 1999-2000 or so, when I moved out from my parents house. Out of my old builds nothing is left except for some photos, but I recall some fun builds like the revell F101-B Voodoo in 1:72 and the Airfix S A Bulldog in the same scale, and of course also the Airfix Bf109 in 1:24.

 

Welcome back! I am in a similar boat, I left modelling behind when I left home in the 90s. I dipped my toe in the water a few times but never seriously. Even with having two boys along the way, neither of them took up the modelling bug like I had in the 80s. Now they are both older and I've got a little more time on my hands I've jumped back in the deep end. It's lovely!

Never made the Airfix 109 in 1:24, but did the Matchbox 1:32 version. Likewise nothing left now but I'm tempted to get another!

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Yes, 1:32 is a better compromise since it offer the "volume" of the real thing while at the same time not being impractically large, at least not for smaller props, and it will likely be the scale of my next project. But the Bf109 was nice, despite it's age. Think it was being re-released by Airfix now... 

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Next step after the outlets was to have a look at the interior. The interior is ”ok” out of the box but I anyway thought it was a bit uninspiring. I aimed at improving it and in the end it was only the floor that was left intact.

 

The left cockpit side was ok but the right one had a moulded-on oxygen supply pipe that didn't look too convincing. It was hard to remove and replace and since I was up for some scratch building I rebuilt the two cockpit sides altogether. 

 

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This is the left side, where I used the throttle stack from the kit but built everything else from plasticard and some wire. A handle was added from wire and also the flashlight(??) which is on my reference photos but not in the kit. Wires from the throttle leading beyond the instrument panel are waiting to be added.

 

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The right side of the cockpit had more to gain from being rebuilt since I could replace some moulded on wiring with brass wire. Also the oxygen supply pipe has been replaced by copper wire wired around some rod. Some final touches are still needed but happy with the results so far! Next time I will do some more wet sanding, though - the surfaces are a bit too rough. On both sides of the cockpit I replaced the ribs at the top. They were softly moulded in the kit and lacked definition, but on the photos I have of the original they are quite distinct. Perhaps a matter of taste.

 

 

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@mnord are you building the version in the box? I find it curious Hasegawa calls it a P-47D-25 as it should have a Hamilton Standard propeller (symmetrical blades with the wider hub), yet the box art shows one with a Curtiss Electric propeller (present on D-26, D-28, D-30 and D-40). I checked the serial number, and it's for a P-47D-27RE, so the prop is incorrect. It should be Hamilton Standard as with a D-25.

 

Cheers,

Wlad

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Mm, I also heard about the propeller. Luckily both the Hamilton and the Curtiss propeller are included in the kit - I just need to make sure I choose the right one... Besides, also the color scheme depicted on the box is inaccurate. Both the box and the instructions say that the upper side of the fuselage should be black, while it in fact was olive green on the original, at least at some stage. I've seen a color photo of "Angie" where the olive green is without doubt. An oddity is that also the upper side of the starboard wing should be the same olive green. I haven't been able to verify this by a photo of the original, but it seems to be an accepted fact and I've seen photos of other models painted this way. I will likely go the same route with mine.

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The weakest point in the kit interior is definitely the seat. It has no details whatsoever and should, if to scale, have been made out of 5 cm thick material on the original. I decided to make a new one, and my first attempt was through vac forming. I created a plug and a very rudimentary vac form machine from an old ice cream box and almost got the hang of it, but after a few failed attempts I realized I needed something more stubborn than the ice cream box before wasting more plastic. I seem to have got the technique and temperature right, though, so I will definitely do a more serious attempt of this again.

 

For the seat, however, I reverted to plan B which was to cut and bend sheet brass. Or, actually, this was originally plan A which I discarded after a quick proof of concept where I newer understood how I should cut the brass in a good way. Now when it was my only option I managed to get it right and the result was beyond my expectations.

 

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The seat is cut in one piece, bent and glued with CA. The frame behind the seat comes from the kit. Seat belts are yet to be added, but I decided to put that on hold a little since I need to join the fuselage halves before continuing with the cockpit (now when the cockpit sides are done). That is coming next! 

 

 

 

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The fuselage sides have been joined. The fit was good but still some sanding to do to get it right.

 

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The upper part was easy with open surfaces and only a few panel lines to restore.

 

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Panel scribing is by the way kind of new world to me. I have done it before but searching around on the subject it seems it has evolved into a science of its own... Anyway, the lines that should be restored now were simple so for this purpose I just created a quick tool out of my x-acto and a blade from a snap-off knife, which did the job this time.

 

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Filled some very small gaps with CA and at some place with Mr Surfacer. Wet sanded and polished (the black is from a marker I used for visualizing, instead of priming).

 

The underside is a different deal due to more complicated forms, especially with all the outlets in the aft. A little surprisingly I have had difficulties finding good reference photos of this area, but it could be explained with that the area is hard to access while the aircraft is on the ground. 

 

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Anyway, here are the two turbocharger outlets. I think both are too thick in their castings, and there is also a difficult joint aft of the first one. Main approach is to carve out the big intake to make it thinner, and the ugly joint can simply be covered with some plastic sheet instead of trying to sand it. The aftermost outlet (which is dry-fitted here) will I try to replace with a new one from brass sheet or aluminium.

 

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Also the three "ribs" are kind of a challenge. I played with the thought to open them up by replacing them altogether with metal sheet, but I realized that would be more or less impossible in this scale without turning to photoetch. I will just file them smooth and align them instead. It might be so that a black invasion stripe will cover it anyway...

 

Hence some small work to do during the coming days. After this it's cockpit time again - the area around the wing will need to wait until the wing is being fitted so that it can be adjusted as a whole.

Edited by mnord
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Welcome back to the hobby and what a comeback you're making here!!! Your thoroughness is remarkable, I wish I had your patience and obviously the skill you have in your hands. You've done a brilliant job so far.

P-47 is a favourite machine for me, so I'll be following this build if you don't mind.

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On 01/08/2020 at 22:00, mnord said:

but I recall some fun builds like the revell F101-B Voodoo in 1:72

It's a beauty, isn't it?! 

Good luck with this project. 

I'll drop by from time to time to see how things are going. I've not done the Hasegawa kit but I have managed to get hold of another old Monogram P47D which should be as much fun as the previous. 

👍

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The last days have been spent mostly on the underside with all the outlets. Like I wrote above I haven't found much documentation of it and has reverted to some best guesses based on the images I have found from the original, as well as from other models. 

 

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The large, middle turbine outlet had an awful joint aft of it which was difficult to solve by filling and sanding without too much collateral damage. Since the area was flat I decided to simply put some plasticard there. The thinnest sheet I had was transparent so it's barely visible on the picture, but it's there if you look carefully. Quite an easy fix, let's see if I'm still as happy when it's under a color coat.

The three ribs in front of it called for some creativity as my needle files obviously were not "needle" enough... I instead created a sanding tool out of sandpaper, brass sheet and some double adhesive tape. This way I managed to sand the joint down while at the same time maintain reasonable sharp edges on the bars.

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The aft turbine exhaust(?) outlet was thick in its casting and looked a bit toyish. I went for a new one in brass:

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Started off with measuring it all up with a scriber, bent in a PE tool and quite soon had a new part to try. After a few dry fits it started to look like something.

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On this picture also the main turbine outlet is visible which has been thinned out with a knife and sanding.

 

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Almost there! The outlet should also have a bar in the middle so that has been added. Now it should just be fitted to the fuselage, but it's getting late so that will need to wait until at least tomorrow. After that all the fuselage jobs for now are hopefully done and progress can continue :) 

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A small update. After some work the outlets on the underside has been thinned, replaced or just sanded to be a bit more representative, and also the upper side of the fuselage has been sanded and polished and the panel lines restored.

 

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The upper side. The black for the instrument panel shade and the interior green for the hood "rails" serves double duty as a primer for the other areas.

 

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The underside, with the new aft turbine outlet that was made from brass. Also the underside was "primed" in a not-so-accurate green, but interior green was what was in the airbrush at the moment... The job is a bit sloppy and the color doesn't really cover everything, but I didn't do the dust cleaning very well either so here will be wet sanding eventually, which in turn will be a must anyway as I have planned to use Alclad for the final finish. 

 

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The fiddling with homemade sanding tools paid off for the "grille" outlet, though. I have considered opening them up but decided that the scale was too small and that I better leave it as is. Opening them up would probably required the making of a new part out of a thinner material, which felt as an overkill for this area which will be barely visible anyway.

 

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So now these cockpit parts are next in line, together with some seatbelts for the seat and a scratch built instrument panel. Next upload will probably be more interesting!

 

 

 

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On 8/1/2020 at 4:00 PM, mnord said:

The first thing I did was to replace the exhausts in the front with new ones

Just so you will know, those are hot air outlets  for the oil coolers; the exhaust port behind them has the wastegate for the turbocharger; excess exhaust  that is not needed by the turbocharger exits there, and the flapper valve in the opening opens and closes as needed; with the wastegate closed, engine exhaust exits from the hood over the turbocharger at the rear of the fuselage in front of the tailwheel. The oil cooler outlet in the front was movable and the one behind it was fixed. See the linked diagram for reference. Your build is looking good, and the improvement you are making will really enhance the finished model!

Mike

 

https://thunder-ussr.livejournal.com/4536.html

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On 23/08/2020 at 05:56, 72modeler said:

Just so you will know, those are hot air outlets  for the oil coolers; the exhaust port behind them has the wastegate for the turbocharger; excess exhaust  that is not needed by the turbocharger exits there, and the flapper valve in the opening opens and closes as needed; with the wastegate closed, engine exhaust exits from the hood over the turbocharger at the rear of the fuselage in front of the tailwheel. The oil cooler outlet in the front was movable and the one behind it was fixed. See the linked diagram for reference. Your build is looking good, and the improvement you are making will really enhance the finished model!

Mike

 

https://thunder-ussr.livejournal.com/4536.html

Yes, I realized the after I wrote it :)  The P-47 mechanics with the intercooler and turbocharger is a complicated matter and it's hard to keep track of what is going there. But they are not exhausts (contrary to popular belief), that's right.

 

Back to the build! It's time to complete the interior but there was more to be made than just the cockpit sides. I was not too happy with the kit instrument panel - the layout and detailing are accurate but moulded-on instruments doesn't cut it, especially not since the P-47 instrument panel was a flat board with the instruments more or less flush with the surface. I decided to cut a new one from some kind of sheet, drill the holes for the instruments and then add the kit decals behind it with some clear plastic in between, resembling the glass. 

 

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The painted black panel is the final one, made from brass sheet. It's not perfect but if anyone questions my patience I can inform you that it's the best of about 2034 attempts... Some of the early attempts can be seen in the picture. Plasticard was rejected at an early state since it was both too thick and almost impossible to drill this precisely without splinter. It was easier to cut to shape, but once I learned to do the same with the brass sheet the metal version was the natural option. I also did a number of attempts that, although they were good, turned out to be from a later P-47 version which had a different instrument layout... Always check your sources thrice!

 

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This is an unsharp picture but it gives you the idea. The holes are a bit offset but we're talking about 0,1 mm tolerances here, so I'm still happy with it. I will cut the decal apart to make the instruments align better. On the decal you can also see three additional parts, two on the respective side of the instrument panel and one below. The two on the sides are "boxes" with some kind of controls. I will take them from the kit instrument panel and fixate them to the new one. The bottom panel with two gauges (I think they were for the oxygen supply) will also be made from brass and added to the main panel.

 

Part of the IP area is also the gunsight. This part is a bit complicated as it was so to say floating over the instrument panel in an arm hanging from the area closest to the front window. After looking at many photos (I have got the feeling that this construct varied a little between all the versions and subversions of this aircraft, but I may be wrong) I think I have an idea of what it should look like, and the arm on the kit part is definitely too small and thin. I will be back with a new one that feels more accurate!

50265056731_4bc00e4f35_b.jpg

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

After an extensive search for pictures and information I now probably know more than anyone needs to know about gunsights in WWII aircrafts, but at least I come to the conclusion that either my references are wrong or the kit part is wrong (it could be so that the kit part is right in itself, but resembles the gunsight installation of an earlier P-47 version, possibly a Razorback). After finding an actual blueprint for the "Mark VIII" gunsight which was likely used in the "Angie" I could finally create the part.

 

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The blueprint I found of the installation. The source is aircraft-gunsights.com (apparently) which has collected a lot of useful information about... gunsights. Great source however!

 

The gunsight in itself seem to be accurate in the kit so that will be spared, and I also used it as a reference for interpolating the other measures in the blueprint. 

I started off with drilling a pair of holes in plasticard, which shoult be the "vertical" part in the installation above. While at it I did three pairs at once in case I should need a spare, which also turned out to be the case in the end.

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The outer shape was bent from brass, and the plasticard was slowly cut to shape.

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The final part. In order to fit the part I had to make a daredevil cut in my drilled instrument panel. This cut-out is there also on the real thing, but I was hoping to be able to avoid it since it was a one-go-no-return operation on the IP. Luckily it went well.

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The new arm was mounted on the "dashboard". The actual gunsight will of course be mounted to the end of it later.

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However, I wasn't too happy with the result since the part ended up to far back. As can be seen in the photo below, which is of the actual "Angie", it's clear that the whole installation with gunsight and all should fit inside the front canopy.

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The actual Angie - picture from http://www.512thfightersquadron.com/l3-o.htm.

 

Since the gunsight will be an eye-catching feature of the final model I decided to redo it. I was hoping to simply cut the piece off but the CA glue was too strong, so the whole operation ended with the plasticard cracking. Good that I did some "spare holes" earlier so I at least could skip that part when creating a new piece... And also lucky that I could reuse the brass part - that was after all a trick part to do with all its bends.

However, even the new part ended up too far back, despite being seemingly to scale. Since fitting the installation into the front canopy was priority for the final appearance I decided to simply move the "dashboard" back by 1,5 mm or so.

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Carving, filing and sanding. After a while I had the result.

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Surgery completed. 

 

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The final version with the reduced "dashbord" and a slightly shorter gunsight mount than in the first version. Now the whole package, including the gunsight, will more or less fit into the limits. The actual gunsight will be fitted later, this was enough work for tonight!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

A busy week this week, but unfortunately not with the model. Anyway, I spent some time with it now and the work with the instrument panel area is finally approaching the end.

 

The gunsight was added to the mount and everything was sprayed black. Luckily it turned out much better after being painted than it first appeared in the brass/plasticard scheme...! The gunsight "glass" has been removed and will be replaced with a thinner piece of plastic sheet.

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Then it was the instrument panel... The plan is still to use the kit decal behind a clear plastic sheet resembling the glassing, but since the home drilled instrument panel had some slight offsets I had to cut the decal and mount it in pieces to make it look right behind the IP. Not directly difficult, but to be honest I have done funnier things...

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The final instruments after having received the "glassing" which was joined pressing the pieces together with CA in between. Looks messy on this picture, but only a fraction of it will actually be visible.

 

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Quickly dry fitted the instrument panel on top of it to get a first look of how it will look like. I'm not overly convinced - maybe I could get better results from just scribing a black painted clear sheet and fill in with white color, resembling the dials? The patterns are easy and the kit decal appears a bit over scale anyway. However, the instrument panel is slightly bent due to all the work it has gone through and the small misalignment could actually go away, more or less, once the parts are glued together. Let's wait until the IP is fixated befor deciding!

 

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Finalized the instrument panel. Below is the whole package with rudder pedals (that of course snapped off later when I fitted everything into the fuselage, but that was more or less expected) together with a few other small parts. The pedals are from the kit but they have been thinned out, got a hole drilled in each and have been given some added detail. I once considered remaking them but decided at some point that it was not worth the effort.

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This is how it all looks once in place, with a dry-fitted floor to give a better impression. The mounting of the IP was a little trickier than first assumed but in the end I managed to fixate it. I will take some extra precautions to secure the piece in place - the last thing I want is the instrument panel coming loose at a late stage in the build, where it may be beyond repair...

50357487862_58cd49b163_b.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

Progress has been slow lately - my house needed some urgent repairs, and not only did the repairs consume my time but also the workshop became unavailable for a while. However, last night I managed to create some room and continue with the seatbelts.

 

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The seatbelts themselves was cut from two layers of tape around a core of aluminium foil. The result is slightly too thick for this scale but no one will notice and the thickness makes the belts a bit easier to work with.

 

Buckles was made of 0.2 mm brass wire turned around thin plastic sheet with about the same width as the seat belts. 

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Got a few in return (this is the "do not sneeze" part of the procedure...)

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The "buckles" were simply glued to the belts. The belts are a bit imaginative but will work this time. Next to go is the lower belts (these on the pictures are for the back of the seat), off with some painting and then mount it to the seat. Will hopefully find time to do that soon!

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, mnord said:

Progress has been slow lately - my house needed some urgent repairs, and not only did the repairs consume my time but also the workshop became unavailable for a while.

No worries plastic doesn't expire and we’re going nowhere. 

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The seat is ready, complete with belts.

50492093937_f086213a11_b.jpg

 

After this it was time to assembly the last parts of the interior. The kit lacks a front bulkhead and I've made a simple one out of plasticard. This was done a couple of months ago and later research has revealed that the bars (resembling corrugated plate) may have been horizontal, not vertical, and that the shape may have a been a little more complicated than just a flat wall. I decided to ignore that as it will be almost hidden anyway, and the important thing is to have something more than just empty space there.

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As I was working with the front bulkhead I also considered the rear bulkhead / armour a little too thick. A new one was cut from plasticard which was heated in hot water and bent. The headrest is from the kit.

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After some glueing and with the seat in place the interior is ready! It's the first time I've actually scratch built an interior, let alone for the floor and the pedals. That "last finish" can still improve but overall I'm pleased with the result and it has been a great learning!

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Edited by mnord
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