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RFI: Amazing Zotz Nose Art: Academy 1/48 P-47N '2 Big and Too Heavy'!


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Greetings Model Friends-  Well I am still keeping up the progress and finished my 3rd Model in last Month!  This one is a 1/48 Academy P-47N with some nice Nose Art!  '2 Big and Too Heavy!'  This flew out of Iwo Jima and is the 'Big' version of P47 with the larger wing and looks really 'different' compared to a standard wing P47.

 

This one had a resin cockpit which was a bit of a challenge to get to fit in the fuselage!  I also added the resin propeller so it would be the right type.  NMF really scares me and I don't yet know how to weather it well, so leave it in nice shape.  This bird was repainted with the tail stripes originally, so I pictured it just after that and is really clean.  The original plane photos don't show much weathering, no gun soot, only some exhaust stain, so that's what I did.  This time I tried the Gunsie Mr. Color super metallic paints and love them!  The Main areas are painted in SM201 super fine silver, and as you can see is like a mirror.  Then I did the flaps and ailerons in a SM204 stainless and the section of wing over the MLG also in the stainless which is a little more flat and darker as this was in photos.  Then the Gun doors I painted in SM203 Super Iron to get them darker like in photos.  I really liked the finish and it looks more interesting having different sections of fuselage and wings in different silver colors.  The fuselage side panels and cowl flaps were also painted the darker stainless silver.

 

Decals were a huge issue.  The stencils came from the kit, and a zotz P47N sheet.  The Main decals for insignias came from an Aeromaster P47N sheet.  Then the Nose art came from the excellent Zotz decal sheet for this P47N.  Unfortunately the zotz sheet had the cowl decals too large!  I had to use Aeromaster which were correct size.  All in all I needed 4 different sheets of decals to get the decals for the complete airplane all selected for different parts so they would look right.

 

Some things I goofed were the tail stripes.  I used the aeromaster sheet and they fit the Academy kit well, however the carrier film connected two stripes (narrower) and the third is separate.  So the stripes are not quite right.  Next time cut stripes apart and put them on individually.  The other hard part was the underwing rocket mounts are molded into the lower wing!  These needed to be removed for this airplane.  Photos show them not installed.  So that was really hard cutting them and sanding and filling the lower wing that had the remnants of the rocket mounts to remove.  This was really hard to do.  So don't look at underside of model!  It was a fun build and I enjoyed it and it looks smashing on the Pacific TO shelf in the model case !

 

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Edited by Tokyo Raider
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  • Tokyo Raider changed the title to RFI: Amazing Zotz Nose Art: Academy 1/48 P-47N '2 Big and Too Heavy'!

I saw the first picture and the first thought that came to my mind was WOW! The remaining pictures very strongly reinforced that first impression. That is one truly gorgeous P-47N. Amazing work!

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Nice jugs! (The model ain't half bad, either!) Great bare metal finish, too- I have heard the new Mr. Color metallics work really well- are the ones you used on this model the new paints or the old Mr. Color paints? Bonus points for getting the stainless steel lower heat shield fuselage panels that ran the waste gate to the supercharger correct, as well as a lack of a shroud over the back of the instrument panel ! Your model even depicts the rare variant that had ten fifties! (I know- back to the Naughty Corner!)

Mike

 

Sure wish either Academy or Tamiya had done a state of the art N in 1/72 scale, as the Sword, Italeri, and Heller kits were  really disappointing.

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Hi Mike...  yes shroudless and the resin instrument panel has silver instrument bezels on the back side so a peek in there looks good.

 

I used to be a 1/72 guy...  i have that sword N.  I recently gave up 172 because of my eyes and age.

 

These are the new mr color silvers.  Thanks for noticing the high temp panel too!

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An overall terrific finish and most attractive paint scheme. Whatever those decals cost has certainly lifted this kit to lofty heights. You should be proud of your excellent work.

Cheers and well modelled.. Dave

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