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Eduard 1/48 scale P-47D Bubble top Jug Limited Edition


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After finishing up my 1/48 scale GWH F-15C, I had to make a decision on what my next build would be. I’ve had in my small stash for a a while, Eduard’s 1/48 scale Jugs Over Italy Limited Edition kit. So I thought as my usual practice of one jet/one prop/etc., it would be the perfect build to follow, as I’m a huge P-47 Jug fan, since it was built right here on Long Island by Republic Aviation of Farmingdale. Grumman’s has always been #1, and Republic has held the #2 spot on my list of favorite aircraft manufactures.

The Eduard limited edition kit is in reality the Academy 1/48 scale injected molded kit, with all sorts of upgrades. Two PE-photo-etched sheets with one being colored for the Instrument panel, place cards, electrons, levers and knobs. A sheet of masks, for the windscreen and canopy which is always a nice touch, and a host of Eduard Brassin Resin parts: Wheels & tires, wheel hubs, the correct prop hub, two different sets of prop blades, a very nicely detailed gun sight, and a outstanding cockpit. Rather then the usual one piece cockpit, Eduard has designed it as a multi piece sub assembly as you would expect of an ejected molded cockpit. Decals are designed and printed by Cartograf for 6 different aircraft. I haven’t exactly decided on which one to do as yet, but one of the main goals of this build is to kick up my MNF standards a few notches, so the build will be a NMF Bubble top. Eduard has supplied the builder with a 16 page instruction booklet printed on glossy stock, with the last several pages dedicated to each of the 6 individual aircraft.

I’ve gathered a fair amount of research material, so I felt I could check the kit for accuracy, make corrections as needed, and add small details.

Construction starts with the usual cockpit. The hardest part is cutting all the various walls and pieces off their molding blocks. The floor has nearly a full block, so I opted to use my Dremel and a disc cutter. Wearing a mask and cutting in the garage with the doors open, made short work of this. Final sanding was done as usual on wet emery cloth to cut down on the dust issues.

Work started on the two side walls. Comparing them to the maintenance manual, I noticed that the cockpit light should be on the left side wall, but it’s molded on the right side. Yet, I’ve seen numerous restoration photos with it on the right, and one or two that just omitted it. So I cut it off and moved it to the other left wall, then added an electrical wire from lead wire stock. A few cables were added, and the upper sidewall plate was rebuilt on the right wall. Each wall on the upper rear side has some tube with two mounting brackets, so I made them out of lead wire, and the brackets out of masking tape.

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Once the floor was detailed with the supplied parts, I primed all the various cockpit parts with Tamiya Flat Black FX-1. This was done for two reasons, I wanted to further darken the cockpit color, and add some much needed shadow modulation when I air brushed on the color coat.

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As soon as I finished cleaning my air brush, I applied the color coat. There’s been a lot written about what was the actual color of the P-47D cockpits. Without going into the long and short of it, I decided that Dark Dull Green would be the way I would go. Using Tamiya paints, I mixed 2 parts XF-5 Green to 1 part XF-4 Yellow Green and two drops of XF-1 Black. I cut this mix 1:1 with Tamiya X-20A Thinner.

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The resulting color looks a little too bright due to the lights I used to take the pictures. Next I painted the appropriate electrical boxes, panels, etc. XF-69 Nato Black as it has a more scale look to it then just flat Black. I sealed everything by hand brushing on Pledge, then a wash of enamel Burnt Umber, and when dry a coat of Testors Dullcoat.

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I added the colored PE shoulder harnesses and seatbelts to the seat, then started to glue up the cockpit.

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Next up was the IP. A backer plate with the backs of the instrument gauges that I drilled out so I could wire them, the instrument faces, and finally the cover plate with the bezels. I have to say that this is so far superior to anything that I could have fabricated or painted.

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Using Extra thin Zap A Gap and accelerator I glued up the rest of the cockpit.

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With the cockpit now complete, I dry fitted it, and as expected it needs a little tweaking to fit correctly.

Joel

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Hooray, another build by Joel to enjoy! That cockpit looks amazing. I really liked the way the panels looked with a coat of black applied before the main color. I'll be borrowing that technique for sure.

Falcon20driver,

Sure glad you're coming along for the ride. The black undercoat really adds that shadow detail the easy way. One thing I've already found is that the Academy kit has some really basic issues. For starters the two vents on both sides of the lower engine cowl and the exhaust header pipe are really quite soft in detail. The vents actually don't have any. So I've removed both vents on each side, and am fabricating new ones out of sheet. Not sure yet how I'll handle the exhaust pipes, but brass tubing is a good starting point.

Joel

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Great start Joel!! as usual I'll be following your build from mi silent corner to learn as much as possible! but fully enjoying it nonetheless!!

Kiki,

Glad you're coming along for the ride. Please, any time you want to voice your opinions, ask a question, or offer a solution, please do so.

Joel

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Wow- glad to see you at it again, even with these insane temps! I just haven't been able to warm up the workshop enough to get anything done. Hopefully tomorrow. Keep up the great work!

John,

With the insane cold weather temps, I've really slacked off doing anything around the house, but I'm running out of excuses, so I'm going to have to trade some modeling time for Home Improvement time.

Lovely job

Thank you, and welcome to the show. Should prove to be an interesting build.

Wow Joel! Bangin' them out! Really nice start. That extra plumbing makes a difference.

Nicholas,

Yeah, the little bit of extra plumbing really paid off.

Ain't that the truth. As I told John, I'm actually going to have to start working around the house one day per week. So my pace will slow down some, but hopefully my enthusiasm will increase.

Joel

Edited by Joel_W
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Nice to see the progress Joel. As the others have stated, you really got that cockpit done quick and it looks really good. Hope the "instant bulbous handles" are coming along and you found a substitute toothbrush for your wife! Haha.

Are you going to do a painted jug or bare metal? Oh.... I forgot that you hadn't decided yet. Really looking forward to learning more skills from you with this build.

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Great start Joel,

I would like to invite you (and any other interested parties) to a P-47 Group Build being run by an associate of mine from IPMS (NSW) on their Facebook page. Simply search for IPMS NSW and it will take you to the group page. Not many rules and an opportunity to share your work. I am sure your early start will be okay under the usual 25% rule!

Regardless, I will be checking back in. Good luck and thanks for sharing.

Regards,

Kent

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Nice to see the progress Joel. As the others have stated, you really got that cockpit done quick and it looks really good. Hope the "instant bulbous handles" are coming along and you found a substitute toothbrush for your wife! Haha.

Are you going to do a painted jug or bare metal? Oh.... I forgot that you hadn't decided yet. Really looking forward to learning more skills from you with this build.

Taggor,

Thanks for stopping by and liking the work on the pit. I decided to "donate" one of the new, unused toothbrushes that I found in one of the bathroom cabinet drawers. While I haven't finalized the exact aircraft from the extensive Cartograf sheet, it's going to be a NMF, as I need to up my game with it comes to that type finish. The P-38L was decent, but certainly nothing to write home about.

Right now I'm working on the turbo exhaust vents and gate valves that are located just behind both lower sides of the engine cowling. The kit molding are absolutely terrible, so I'm scratching out the entire section for both sides. Will be posting an update when I finally finish one side, could be as early as late today.

Joel

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Joel,

this is a great start!

The pit look very nice and with a balanced weathering.

Cheers,

Gianni

Gianni,

Thanks for your most kind words. Glad you like the pit's weathering. Just enough to show some wear and tear, but not beat half to death.

Joel

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Great start Joel,

I would like to invite you (and any other interested parties) to a P-47 Group Build being run by an associate of mine from IPMS (NSW) on their Facebook page. Simply search for IPMS NSW and it will take you to the group page. Not many rules and an opportunity to share your work. I am sure your early start will be okay under the usual 25% rule!

Regardless, I will be checking back in. Good luck and thanks for sharing.

Regards,

Kent

Kent,

Will be checking it out, and hopefully I can join in the fun. Does it matter if I'm no longer a member of IPMS. Been more then 30 years since I last was an active member.

Joel

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With the cockpit done, it's time to move on to the fuselage halves, and take a really close look at how Academy has molded the exterior details. I started and stopped at the lower front of each fuselage where the engine cowl would attach. The Republic engineers had designed two waste vents, and a waste gate valve to help vent away excess hot exhaust gases from the Supercharger. Right under the 1st vent should also be a bleeder tube. Well, Academy's vents are extremely poorly molded, and look more like a blobs then vents, and there is no bleeder valve.

Here's what one is greeted with on each fuselage half:

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I thought about just drilling, filing, sanding, and polishing out the vents, then drill out the waste gate. Finish up by drilling a hole for the bleeder tubes that I would install at the end of the build. But the longer I thought about it, the more I was convinced that I couldn't do an acceptable job of it, as it would be easier just to start from scratch

1st step was to cut out the vents, but not damage the waste gate area:

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I needed some kind of backing plate so that the viewer couldn't see right through to the other side, but I didn't want it flush to the fuselage skin. So I used a piece of sheet plastic larger then the cut out, and then filled in the side with small pieces of sheet.

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I had decided that it would be easier to make one large opening rather then two smaller ones so that the vents were correctly lined up. That required the added on sheet metal brace that every restoration has as a riveted piece:

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Next I started to fabricate vents, then sanding and polishing them to a finer trailing edge. You can see in the picture that the front vent's trailing edge still needs to be filed. Also that the waste gate valve has been drilled out, and a punched out gate made from sheet has been glued into place.

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At this point, everything is just test fitted, and looks a little rough even though the pictures are larger then life size. The bleeder lines will have their holes drilled, but the lines will be added at the end of the build. Installing them now is a certainty, that I'll break them off as quickly as I install them.

Joel

Edited by Joel_W
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Kent,

Will be checking it out, and hopefully I can join in the fun. Does it matter if I'm no longer a member of IPMS. Been more then 30 years since I last was an active member.

Joel

I don't think it will matter Joel. The coordinator has thrown open the invitation to raise awareness of IPMS and get modellers together to have a bit of fun. I am not an IPMS member. It runs until 31 December 2015 , so even if you finish this one, there would be ample time (for most) to build another.

Regards

Kent

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Fantastic cockpit -- how do you do that so quickly? And those vents look amazing!!!

Crackerjazz,

Thanks.

The cockpit resin once removed and sanded is just like building the Academy cockpit. Adding a few pieces of lead wire doesn't take long. Besides, Eduard engineered all the various pieces to fit like a glove. As for the vents and the gate valve, one side took me 8 hours over two days. Final clean up and polishing still needs to be done.

I'm semi retired and work different shifts, so I'm home a lot. And with the freezing weather, I haven't been doing much of anything around or in the house, so I've had the time. But my wife is already formulating her new "Honey to Do List". Need I say any more.

Joel

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Well, it's time for another small update.

Since I elected to open the exhaust vents and waste gates, I needed to do the same for the intercooler exhaust vents on the rear of the fuselage sides. A test fit showed that the vents have a proper fit, but are on the thick side.

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So a little bit of filing, sanding, and polishing took care of that issue.

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The same was done for the other vent located on the other side of the fuselage.

Most parked photos of P-47s have both their flaps and elevators lowered. While I'm not sure I will be tackling that major modification since the flaps are A-symmetrical, I decided to drop the elevators some. Here I just separated them from the horizontal tail surfaces.

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Then I glued a strip of .010 sheet plastic to the front so I could create that beveled surface.

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I sanded the sheet plastic on a sanding block so that the sides, bevel, and shape was consistent.

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And here's the test fit. The final positioning will be done once the horizontal tail surfaces are glued to the fuselage.

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Joel

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