Tamiya 1/48 P-47D Razorback "Ruthless Ruthie"

[Mr.Happy]

Drew T,

 

Incredible work.

 

Your build has raised the bar several times up.

 

I’m glad that you have posted some of your steps in your build. It’s inspiring.

 

Looking forward to your next post,

 

Mr. Happy

 

[Drew T.]

Thanks guys!  

[72scaler]

That is absolutely stunning work! Makes me want to build a P-47 on my own!

[Drew T.]

Thanks 72scaler!  Thought I would post a quick update.  I applied all the decals, which amounts to a couple of decals from the Print Scale sheet as well as the stencil data decals from the Eduard set.  I have never used Print Scale decals before, and from what I have heard, they are difficult to use and want to fold over on themselves.  Fortunately, I only needed to use a couple of them since I painted on most of the markings.  I was careful with them and didn't have any problems, although they were hard to get them to settle down.  

 

For the Eduard decals, I have heard that the film can be removed.  The easiest way I found to do it was by applying paint thinner to the film.  After a minute or two, the film can be removed with light rubbing with a cotton swab.  On a few decals, it also removed the ink, so be careful if you try this yourself.  Since this was just stencil data markings, I wasn't too concerned with it since most aircraft didn't receive a full set of stencil data markings.  

 

The paint chipping was accomplished with Tamiya enamel X-11 silver.  This is their oil based enamel, so it can be easily removed with Naptha or paint thinner.  I have tried chipping with the paint chipping fluid that's similar to hair spray, but I could never achieve good results.  Plus, it makes masking over the paint risky and if you aren't happy with the chipping, the only way to fix it is by stripping and repainting the area.  With enamel paint, I can easily remove it with Naptha without affecting the underlying lacquer base.  

 

Studying photos of wartime P-47's it appears that the paint on the wings near the cockpit was abraded away from foot traffic.  The yellow primer would show around the edge of the wear with bare metal showing near the center of the wear pattern.  I accomplished this by first hand painting the edges of the worn area with Tamiya XF-4 yellow green thinned with their alcohol based thinner.  I then lightly sanded the paint with 2000 grit sandpaper to make it look abraded.  I then applied Tamiya X-11 silver enamel for areas worn to the bare metal.  The result looks fairly convincing to me, but I'm not sure I'm 100% satisfied.  I may go back and tweak it before I go too much farther.  For now, I'm working on an enamel wash in the panel lines.  I'll then seal everything with a lacquer clear and start on oil paint for weathering. 

 

This particular P-47 showed heavy chipping of the OD paint on the canopy, exposing much of the yellow primer, but not the bare metal.  I tried to replicate this with Tamiya XF-4 yellow green.  I went back and scraped the edges of the paint with an X-acto blade to make the paint markings look more jagged to simulate the look of paint chips.  The result may not be as good as what some others achieve with chipping fluid, but its much easier, especially around canopy framing.  

Edited yesterday at 05:22 PM by Drew T.

[Drew T.]

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking! 

[RichB63]

Wow! You managed to achieve such a realistic finish on this one. Great work Drew!