Trumpeter 1/48 C-47 "42-24046"

[A-10 LOADER]

Simply fantastic work Drew !!

As each update is added, I'm blown away at your abilities to recreate even the smallest details with extreme precision. This will be quite the "masterpiece" when she is completed.

Steve

[RichB63]

Amazing surface textures! Looking great!

 

Rich

[Drew T.]

20 hours ago, Viper316 said:

This is FANTASTIC! Thanks sharing this. The bad part is that you are motivating me to build this kit, which I really don't want to :).

 

Rod

 

Thanks Rod!  Maybe if we wait long enough, someone like Tamiya will come out with a well fitting, accurate, and detailed C-47, but I'm not holding my breath!

 

19 hours ago, A-10 LOADER said:

Simply fantastic work Drew !!

As each update is added, I'm blown away at your abilities to recreate even the smallest details with extreme precision. This will be quite the "masterpiece" when she is completed.

Steve

 

Thanks Steve!  The problem is that all these details take an eternity for me to add (sometimes after multiple attempts), but the result does help motivate me to stay enthusiastic and want to see this thing to completion. 

13 hours ago, RichB63 said:

Amazing surface textures! Looking great!

 

Rich

 

Thanks Rich!

[lgl007]

There's only one word for this build ... WOW!  Just WOW.  Very impressive.  Looking forward to seeing how it all develops.

 

Best,

 

-Greg

[jgrease]

Just found this build and it looks awesome! Looking forward to more.

 

John

[Drew T.]

Thanks Greg and John!

 

Here's my latest progress over the past few weeks.  I had the Quickboost exhausts, but they really aren’t any improvement over the kit exhausts.  Also, the kit exhausts don’t seem to be based on the exhaust design seen I see on C-47’s during WWII.  The WWII era exhausts have a larger diameter, but a shorter exit flare.  To get the kit exhausts to look more like the wartime design, I increased their diameter by shaving their diameter down so I could slide some 0.20” OD styrene tubing over the part to increase the overall diameter.  Then, I wrapped the part with thin sheet styrene to replicate the thin jacket that goes over the mid-section of the exhaust.  Finally, I trimmed down the exit flare and built it up with Apoxie sculpt to blend it in with the larger diameter tubing.   For comparison, the image below shows my exhaust in comparison to the Quickboost exhaust, which appears to be a duplicate of the kit exhaust.

 

 

And then I primed them with white Mr. Surfacer.

 

 

The larger diameter exhaust meant I had to go back and increase the width of the cutout on the side of the engine nacelle.  I also had to make a new exhaust shroud since the kit version would no longer fit over the exhaust I made.  I made them by carving out 0.25” OD solid styrene rod.

 

 

 

The kit versions of the small tubes coming off the exhaust (I think these are intakes to heat cabin air) are not correct for wartime C-47’s.  I trimmed them down and added styrene for detail as well as drilled out the ends.

 

 

My next area of focus was the elevators and ailerons.  The kit elevators are not the correct shape on the inside where they face the sides of the fuselage.  If you go back to my post on September 25, you can see how I correct the fuselage area. To fix the elevators, I had to grind away material.  The image below shows the before and after result. 

 

 

I had to force the top and bottom halves together when gluing.  I was also left with an uneven surface, so I used some Apoxie sculpt sanded down to smooth it out.   This removed the kit ribbing, but it’s way too pronounced anyway.

 

 

 

 

The kit ailerons also required some rework.  The top of the ailerons in the kit have a step that allow them to sit flush with the top surface of the wings when they are positioned in the level position.  Instead, the front top surface of the ailerons should curve down into the pocket where they sit at the back of the wings.  I corrected this by simply sanding down the step.  This also had the added benefit of removing the inaccurate surface detail.  The trim tab on the right aileron was incorrectly shaped, so it was rescribed in the correct shape.

 

 

 

The bottom front face of the ailerons also have a wide gap between it and the rear of the wings.  I added styrene to the front of the ailerons to reduce this gap.  The cutouts for the tabs that hinge the ailerons to the wings were also reshaped and repositioned to the correct locations. 

 

 

 

The kit tabs that hinge the ailerons to the wings are very basic and needed some detail added.  Some of them were also not in the correct location.  They were repositioned, and I added a small, bullet shaped fairing to all of them except the most inboard one.  I also used stretched sprue to replicate the pins at the end of these tabs.

 

 

 

I needed to re-establish the ribbing to the faces of the ailerons and elevators since they were erased with all the modifications I made.  Also, the kit has the aileron ribbings spaced evenly along the length, which is incorrect.  I made new ribbings by masking off thin rectangular strips and spraying a very thick coat of Mr. Surfacer 500.  Once dry and the masking was removed, I carefully leveled out the paint with a sanding stick until it was just barely visible.  Most reference photos barely show the ribbing.  Here’s the result before and after an overcoat of white Mr. Surfacer 1000 to see how it looks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the ailerons and elevators complete, I knocked out the flaps.  Since most photos show the flaps positioned closed when the plane is parked on the ground, that’s the way I am depicting them.  Plus, it reduces the amount of detailing I need to do on this already long project.  The kit flaps have a rounded off front edge, which is unrealistic, but I assume was done to make them easier to position in the down position.  I fixed this by sanding off the front 2-3mm and building back up the edge with sheet styrene. 

 

 

 

I then added some panel lines and riveting in place of the kit riveting.  I then sprayed a coat of white Mr. Surfacer to make sure everything looked good.

 

 

 

With this complete, I’m finally ready to get the wings joined to the fuselage.  Thanks for looking and stay tuned!

 

[Cubs2jets]

Incredible work, Drew!

 

C2j

[Drew T.]

On 12/15/2023 at 6:03 AM, Cubs2jets said:

Incredible work, Drew!

 

C2j

 

Thanks John!

 

Merry Christmas everyone!  I've got some pictures to share of the progress I've been able to make while I burn some vacation time.  I've mostly been working on the landing gear.  After comparing photos of the real C-47 landing gear to Trumpeter's interpretation, I've noticed some significant issues.  The primary one is that the main landing gear is about 5 mm too short overall!  I've heard of this mentioned in kit reviews, but never noticed it until comparing the kit to photos of the real thing.  The bottom section of the landing gear length is ok, but I had t add the 5 mm of length to the upper portion.  The bottom section of the landing gear is also a problem because it shows the oleo completely retracted.  All the reference photos I could find show about 2mm (at 1/48) scale of oleo showing.  To correct this, I had to cut the landing gear apart and add a section of tubing to represent the section of oleo that should show.  To keep the overall length of the bottom of the landing gear correct, I had to cut 2mm of the strut above the oleo.  Below is the result compared to the unmodified kit landing gear.  I'm showing the metal version below since I already modified both kit plastic landing gears.

 

 

I also replaced the middle upper X brace with sheet styrene.  This brace has holes in it to save weight.  To replicate it, I drew a pattern on my Silhouette cutter software and used the cutter to cut the pattern on 0.13 mm thick sheet styrene.  I then glued the pieces together onto the kit landing gear.  I also opened up the webbing right above the wheels since it looks overly clunky in the kit part.  Below is the completed main landing gear assembly.  The forks that connect to the main struts were lengthened by about 2mm to match the longer main struts.  I also thinned down these two parts to make them look more realistic.  The kit parts that represent the main gear hydraulic pistons were replaced with styrene and SS tubing.

 

The linkages that connect the forks to the main landing gear struts were modified by cutting the knuckle from the connecting rod and the knuncke as trimmed down to a more scale size.  I'll glue them back together when I assemble the landing gear on the model.

 

The tail wheel is also inaccurate.  It shows an exposed spring, while reference photos show a cylinder here.

This was easily fixed by cutting out the spring and gluing a section of styrene rod in its place.  Most photos of wartime C-47's show a skirt over the tail wheel assembly.  Of course, Trumpeter does not provide this in the kit.  I made by own using 0.13mm thick sheet styrene.  I also noticed that the tail wheel sits too deeply in the model.  This was easily corrected by sliding a 2mm high coller over the tail wheel stem to keep the assembly from sitting as deep in the hole in the fuselage.  Below is the completed result.

 

 

The other big milestone I was able to hit is getting the wing and fuselage joint completed.  The fit was pretty decent except for a gap where the front under section of the wing joins to the fuselage.  However, I was able to use Apoxie Sculpt to fill the gap and rescribe the lost panel lines and riveting.  After a couple of checks with white primer, it looked good.

 

I also went ahead and glued on the outer wing assemblies.  Trumpeter molded in a flange at this joint, but all wartime photos I could find show this flange covered with a fairing.  To replicate this, I first trimmed down the molded in flange.

Also, see that I trimmed down end of the flaps where the innner and outer sections meet.  Trumpeter has these butt against each other, but they should be separated by about 2mm.  I filled in the gap with styrene.  

 

I replicated the fairing with 1.5 mm x 2 mm rectagular styrene strips carved and sanded down to shape.  I could not get them to bend around the front of the wing, so I had to cut them here and use putty to blend it all in.  This took alot of work, but the end result looks exactly like the real thing.  By the way, the Revell/Monogram kit has these already molded in.  Yet another strike against Trumpeter in the accuracy department.  

 

One other detail I added is the jacking point between the outer wing joint and engine nacelle.  This is where the plane is supported when it can't be supported by the landing gear.  I just used a square piece of styrene with a sort section of styrene rod sanded into a spherical shape.  

That's all for now.  Next, I want to get the wheel wells painted before I move on to my favorite part, painting the camo!  

Thanks for looking and Happy New Year!

[Cubs2jets]

Drew

 

Incredible work mating the wing midsection with the fuselage.  That's a tough joint and I can't even see it in your picture!  Your work on the landing gear is crazy good too!

 

Those two inlets on the forward fuselage just forward of the wing...??

 

C2j

[A-10 LOADER]

Holy cow Drew, outstanding craftsmanship !! "Simple fixes", ... maybe for you. I do appreciate your attention to the details however, keep it going. Oh and as you already know, Trumpeter and accuracy don't go together.

Steve

[Drew T.]

9 hours ago, Cubs2jets said:

Drew

 

Incredible work mating the wing midsection with the fuselage.  That's a tough joint and I can't even see it in your picture!  Your work on the landing gear is crazy good too!

 

Those two inlets on the forward fuselage just forward of the wing...??

 

C2j

 

Thanks John!  The joint between the wing midsection and fuselage took several bouts of sanding and priming until it was invisible.  I'm not sure what the two pods are under the fuselage just ahead of the leading edge of the wings.  Trumpeter does provide those in their kit, but I opened up the ends to match what they look like in reference photos.  Most C-47's have them based on my research, so I'm assuming the plane I'm building also had them.

 

5 hours ago, A-10 LOADER said:

Holy cow Drew, outstanding craftsmanship !! "Simple fixes", ... maybe for you. I do appreciate your attention to the details however, keep it going. Oh and as you already know, Trumpeter and accuracy don't go together.

Steve

 

Thanks Steve!  I can't believe how many inaccuracies this kit has.  It's a shame that the only options for a 1/48 C-47/DC-3 is the accurate, but outdated Monogram kit or the modern, but inaccurate Trumpter kit.  I'm guessing someone like HK Models will announce a new 1/48 C-47 about the same time I finish this one!

Edited December 28, 2023 by Drew T.

[Youngtiger1]

Beautiful work. Nice to see you are giving this a white glove attention. Your landing gear fix looks super. I have this kit so I’ll keep an eye on this thread. 🍿

Mike

[Drew T.]

On 1/4/2024 at 4:33 AM, Youngtiger1 said:

Beautiful work. Nice to see you are giving this a white glove attention. Your landing gear fix looks super. I have this kit so I’ll keep an eye on this thread. 🍿

Mike

 

Thanks Mike!

 

Hi everyone! I’m finished with the painting, so it’s time for an update.  Before I could start with the painting, I created masks for the windows with my Silhouette Cutter and Oracal 810.  One other thing I wanted to do after masking the windows, but before painting is to add the wiring around the cockpit windows.  I see this on all photos of C-47’s, but I’m not sure what it’s used for. I used 0.2mm diameter lead wire to replicate it using tiny amounts of CA to secure it in place.  Having the masks in place protected the windows while I secured the lead wire. 

 

 

I wanted to start with a black base to build up the colors off of.  Before doing this, I went over the white primer with 2000 grit sandpaper to knock down the roughness of the finish.  Before painting the black, I painted the national insignias and squadron markings since they were white and  yellow.  It would be easier to paint these over the white primer instead of the black base.  I first painted the general area of the markings in the necessary color, and then masked them with masks I created from my cutter and Oracal 810.  I then went over the entire model with Mr. Color semigloss black.   In the photos below, I already have the deicer boots masked off so they can stay black.

 

 

 

 

 

I painted the underside in Mr. Color C13 neutral gray, slowly building up the tone over the black base to create an uneven finish.  I then hit some random areas with lighter and darker gray shades, making sure to also use a lighter gray on the fabric control surfaces, since the paint on the control surfaces would usually fade more.

 

 

 

The descriptions of this particular airframe I’m modeling stated that it appeared weathered and brown instead of olive drab.  Based on the fact that it started its career in North Africa, then moved to England, and then France, I think it probably started out in the standard C-47 camoflauge pattern, but eventually faded to a brown.  However, this is just a guess since I could only find one black and white photo of this plane stationed in France in late 1944.  I came across the below image of a heavily weathered C-47 and decided to use it as a guide for painting.

 

 

The brown on the fuselage is a custom mix of several shades of brown.  For the green on the wings, I used several different olive drab and green shades that I had on my shelf, but I mixed in various amounts of gray to give them a more faded and subdued look.  I also added various patches of dark olive drab to represent touch-ups based on reference photos.  With only one photo of the actual plane I’m depicting, most of the camouflage pattern is guesswork. 

 

In between the layering, I sprayed at patchy pattern of black and light tan to provide total variations in the green and brown.  A thinned down mix of the base color was sprayed over the black and tan patches to blend everything in.  Finally, I sprayed a tight pattern of highly thinned down black paint along the panel lines for some initial weathering.   With all the camouflage painting complete, I could remove the masks on the insignias and deicer boots.  The insignias look really stark now, but I’ll tone them down and make them look faded with oil paint weathering later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Drew T.]

Also, I painted the wheel wells.  I applied an initial wash of Ammo black night panel line wash.  I’ll make them dirtier later on when I weather the rest of the model.

 

 

 

On another note, I decided to throw out the kit propellers even though I had already painted them and tried to reshape them to match the shape of the Hamilton Standard props that most C-47’s had.  Since the B-17 propellers seem to be the same type as used on the C-47, I bought a set of Quickboost B-17 propellers to use instead.  Below is how the compare to the kit props after I tried to modify them.  They still look too slim to me around the base of the blades near the hub, so I’m glad I switched to the Quickboost ones.

 

 

I was also unhappy with the Aires wheels, as they appear to be shaped like the kit wheels.  Reference photos show the wheels have a flatter tread profile, while the Aires and kit wheels have a more curved tread profile.  I decided to pick up a set of Reskit wheels, which look more correct.  For the tail wheel, it’s the opposite.  The Aires and kit tailwheel has a flat tread proflile, while the Reskit tailwheel has a more accurate curved tread profile.

 

 

 

The checkerboard pattern on the cowlings were painted by first painting the entire cowling in yellow.  I then divided the cowl into three circumferential rings and masked off the middle one.  I divided the rings into evenly spaced blocks, using the tape to mask over the yellow blocks.  Then I painted the black blocks.  I removed all the tape and then masked off the inner and outer rings.  Again, I divided this ring into evenly spaced blocks and repeated the same process for the middle ring.  Below is the result.

 

 

I think the cowl flaps on this particular bird were unpainted.  Since I scratchbuilt the partially opened flaps from an aluminum can, these didn’t need to be painted.  I just masked them off while I painted the cowls.  I still need to spray the inside of the cowls.

 

That’s all for now.  I still need to paint some of the small parts, like the landing gear, wheels, props, and engines.  Thanks for looking!

 

Drew

[A-10 LOADER]

"She's a real beaut Clark !" Very nice work so far, those cowls look awesome and, all those small details you added along the way really become more noticeable once the primer and paint were applied.

Steve

[Geoff M]

Great work!

[Cubs2jets]

Drew,

 

The "wires" in front of the direct vision portion of the windshield are actually tubing to spray alcohol on the panes as anti-icing.  A small tank above and behind the pilot's head held the alcohol and a hand pump was used to squirt it onto the smaller (direct view) panel.  This was for anti-ice (prevention), not de-ice (removal) so you had to be proactive with its' use.

 

Again, as usual, GREAT work!

 

C2j

Edited January 24 by Cubs2jets

[Drew T.]

10 hours ago, A-10 LOADER said:

"She's a real beaut Clark !" Very nice work so far, those cowls look awesome and, all those small details you added along the way really become more noticeable once the primer and paint were applied.

Steve

 

Thanks Steve!

8 hours ago, Geoff M said:

Great work!

 

Thanks Geoff!

1 hour ago, Cubs2jets said:

Drew,

 

The "wires" in front of the direct vision portion of the windshield are actually tubing to spray alcohol on the panes as anti-icing.  A small tank above and behind the pilot's head held the alcohol and a hand pump was used to squirt it onto the smaller (direct view) panel.  This was for anti-ice (prevention), not de-ice (removal) so you had to be proactive with its' use.

 

Again, as usual, GREAT work!

 

C2j

 

Thanks John!  Thanks especially for the description of the tubing around the windows.  I still need to add a bit more of the tubing around the center of the cockpit windows, but it's more exposed, so I'm waiting until final assembly to add it so it won't be damaged.

Edited January 24 by Drew T.

[Drew T.]

Hi everyone, one more update before I call this one finished.  Weathering is now complete.  I started by creating some chipping using Tamiya enamel silver X-11 applied with a sponge as well as a small brush.  I then followed up with an AMMO panel line wash, then sealed it with a coat of Mr Color GX113 clear flat.  With the previous steps sealed, I applied oil paints for general weathering.  Since I’m depicting a war-weary plane, I wasn’t afraid to go heavy with the weathering, following reference photos for guidance.  Many photos of planes with the larger carborator intakes show fluid leads around the shroud, so I replicated this with Abteilung 502 Starship Filth oil paint.  I also applied heavy weathering around the top of the wings around the fuel ports where the ground crew would regularly walk.  On the outer green sections of the wings, I applied some oil dot filters using olive green, yellow ochre, brown umber, and starship filth.  I faded the national insignias on the upper wing and fuselage sides with a light tan oil paint.

 

To replicate the round gun fixtures in the side windows, I used the Foxbot C-47 stencil decal set.  These are the only decals I used from this set, as my reference photos show few if any visible stencils on wartime planes.

 

As you can see, this model is too big for my photobooth!

[Drew T.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The exhaust staining on the underside of the wings was achieved with the starship filth oil paint.   The exhaust stacks still looked too clean compared to the rest of the plane, so I lightly airbrushed some Tamiya black panel line wash over them after I took these photos.

To represent dirt and mud being kicked up by the wheels, I loaded a paintbrush with a brown enamel wash and used a toothpick to flick the wash around the back of the wheel wells.

 

 

 

 

The landing gear was heavily weathered with a brown enamel wash.  A clear flat coat was first applied to help the wash stick to the surface and make them look dirtier.  The exposed shiny oleo section is represented using Anyz chrome decal strips. 

 

 

I also applied some light chipping on the front of the cowlings.

 

 

All I need to do now is assemble everything and add some final tiny details and fiddly bits.  If all goes well, my next post will be the final one showing the completed model.  Thanks for looking!

 

Drew

[A-10 LOADER]

Beautiful work, love the attention to all the details. Another masterpiece Drew, congrats !

Steve

[RichB63]

Spectacular! Paintwork is among the best I’ve seen!

Rich

[Geoff M]

That looks amazing!

[Drew T.]

Thanks guys for the kind words!  This one is in the can.  Here's the final result: