1/48 Tamiya P-47D Thunderbolt Bubbletop

by Ceki Erginbas

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  Turkish Republic Day 2008 

 

  Greetings to all ARC'ers  once again.  Here is my latest build, P-47D Thunderbolt. This is the  perfect Tamiya kit, finished in the markings of the famous  228878 Eileen  of Duxford. This beauty was flown by Lt.Frank E Oiler in 1944.

   I have used Eduard's color photo etch set designed for this kit. I have to say this set adds a lot of detail to an already  detailed cockpit. Highly Recommended. I have used Gunze H-302 for the main cockpit color. Details were brush painted to appropriate colors.

   I have used  Gunze 352 interior green from the Gunze "interior color" set for the landing gear bays.  And weathered them with  "Brown Wash" from Mig Productions.

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   I know that there has been some arguments about the colors of this particular aircraft. Well I used  Gunze RAF dark green (H-73) and  SKY duck egg green (H-74)  as the colors. These colors were recommended by the SuperScale decal instructions, and I thought they were correct. Also I love the RAF colors, and loved the idea of using them on a thunderbolt.

  D-day stripes were masked and painted with Tamiya acrylics.  20" stripes under the wings and 18" under the fuselage.  Also the rudder was painted to black.  According to SuperScale instruction sheet, this aircraft carried full invasion stripes in its earlier life and the rudder was not black at the beginning. So I guess modeller can choose to model the earlier life of this aircraft  easily.

  After the paint job, I have covered the model with Tamiya X-22  clear gloss. Then applied the decals from SuperScale's  No.48-878  decal set. I have to say, these decals are very thin and  behaves well under microsol. I really liked them, and I bought them from Squadron last year for a very low price.

  After the decal application another coat of X-22 was applied. Then I have applied Mig Productions's "Brown Wash" to the panel lines and fine details.  This gave some depth and a nice effect to the model.

   Later I have applied a coat of  MicroScale's  Microflat  to the model.  Then I have prepared a very thin mixture of Tamiya XF-1 flat black and X-18 Smoke and applied post shading to the overall model.  I have airbrushed this mixture in flight direction to the wings and  vertically to the fuselage in the shape of very thin faded lines.  You can alter the heaviness of the lines according to the effect you want to get.

   At last  small pieces, such as  landing gear, pitot tube, propeller, etc. were painted to the appropriate colors and attached to the model.

  I really enjoyed building and weathering this model. I hope you have enjoy the photos as much as I do.

  Happy modelling everyone!

Ceki 

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Photos and text © by Ceki Erginbaş