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P-47M Flap "Interior"/Wing Interior Color?


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Hi All,

 

I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere before, but I was unable to find an answer, so forgive me if this is a repeat.

 

I'm at the point of painting my 1/48 Tamiya P-47M.  I am going to do the Major George Bostwick, light and dark blue paint scheme, with the flaps extended.  I am assuming that the interior of the wing, which is out of sight when the flap is retracted but exposed when the flap is extended, and the part of the flap that is covered when retracted, but exposed when extended, should be painted the Zinc Chromate yellow that other interior parts of the aircraft are painted (i.e., the main landing gear wells and gear door insides).  Can anyone tell me differently, with respect to a P-47M, or for P-47s in general?  Or, were P-47s more thoroughly painted, such that even the wing and flap 'interiors' were painted the exterior color?

 

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

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P-47Ms were delivered unpainted, and the area under the wing where the flap retracts into, and the surface of the flap that retracts into that space, would be unpainted aluminum. Those areas were normally the same color as the surrounding exterior surfaces, and since P-47s normally parked with the flaps up, any field applied camo painted on NMF airplanes would only cover the part of the flap that was exposed.

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Yeah that's a tough one because you rarely see a P-47 with the flaps down, as Joe says natural metal since the first M came off the assembly line Oct. 8 1944 According to Warren Bodie's book. It will look cool I did Dottie Dee II about 12 years ago still looks cool.

 

Cheers Ken

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Thanks, gents.  I've seen one or two 1/48 models where the modeler chose to do what I was proposing, which is to paint the inside wing area and the 'hidden' part of the flaps in Zinc Chromate Yellow.  The paint schemes used where I saw this were olive drab camo, and frankly, the yellow was pretty jarring to the eye.  In my case, the dark blue wing would result in an even more jarring contrast, but I really wanted to paint this plane the way it really was, my aesthetic sense be damned.  However, I've also seen a 1/48 P-47 done by Floyd Werner, which had the 'hidden' areas in NMF, or at least the camo color, not Zinc Chromate.  I've already gotten ahead of myself, and laid down some Gunze Lacquer Zinc Chromate Yellow in those areas, but I am going to be painting the underside of the plane with Gunze GX2 Gloss Black tomorrow, in prep for an AK Xtreme Metal Polished Aluminum finish on the underside of my plane, and I can just overspray those areas with the black in prep for doing NMF in those spots.  I've seen some other models with the dark blue wings on the upper surface and the NMF flap internals, and it really DOES look nice.  With your info, I think that's the route I'm going go.  It only causes me a bit of heartache to done the yellow in those locations needlessly.  

 

Also, since Joe mentioned that the flaps were 'normally' retracted when parked, I hope it won't look too stupid to have my plane's flaps extended (it's too late to change now, anyway, as I've already glued the three extension stanchions in place on the flaps, and I'm not really a good enough modeler to remove/revise glued on parts). 

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7 hours ago, Curt B said:

 

 

Also, since Joe mentioned that the flaps were 'normally' retracted when parked, I hope it won't look too stupid to have my plane's flaps extended (it's too late to change now, anyway, as I've already glued the three extension stanchions in place on the flaps, and I'm not really a good enough modeler to remove/revise glued on parts). 

 I wouldn't worry about it too much, as photos of parked airplanes with the flaps at least partially extended are out there.  But the vast majority have the flaps up.

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8 minutes ago, Joe Hegedus said:

 I wouldn't worry about it too much, as photos of parked airplanes with the flaps at least partially extended are out there.  But the vast majority have the flaps up.

 

Thanks,  Joe.

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