One last build for 2022, this being Trumpeter's big P-47D Thunderbolt with the dorsal fin.
A little background here. Several years ago, my wife found a partial set of prints that the US Post Office sold celebrating milestones in US aviation. Of these prints, she got my some civilian airframe that I have no familiarity with, and two WWII warbirds - the P-47D and F6F-3. I have them on a wall where I've also hung several of my builds. A year or so ago, I put up Trumpeter's 1/32 F6F-3 Hellcat to display next to that print, and decided I would add a 32nd scale P-47D next to that print. At the time I had an old Revell P-47D in the stash that I thought would fit the bill. Earlier this year, I attempted to build that one (first time since I was a kid). I did a terrible job. Awful seams that I never could get to disappear despite my best efforts. And then when I put on the insignia decals, I didn't get them down well and they tore in multiple places when I attempted to relocate them. Frustrated, I ordered this Trumpeter kit thinking it would have been of the same quality as the Dauntless and Hellcat that I've previously built.
Wrong.
Oh so wrong.
This kit is a steaming pile. Take a look at the fuselage halves that came in my box (which I ordered new from scale hobbyist, not a resell or anything).
The gaps were more pronounced than shown here. These pictures are after several attempts to unwarp the right half of the fuselage with hot water and a hair dryer. I was able to determine that with the proper amount of patience and effort, I could probably get these things together okay, but I was certain I would face the same seam issues that I had with the Revell. I almost deep-sixed this turkey, but when I found that the Hasegawa 1/32nd kit seems to be out of production and is going for outrageous prices on eBay, I opted to see this Trumpeter through to the end.
Then a bit of fortune struck while I was perusing eBay for anything related to the P-47D in 1/32nd scale. There is a seller in Massachusetts who sells individual sprues to kits. He just happened to have the sprue with the fuselage parts, and for $11 or so, I could not pass up the expected frustration that the original kit parts was going to present me.
The Trumpeter kit includes a heck of a lot of internal detail that will never be seen, such as the supercharger. I did build it, but a lot of dry-fitting with those awful fuselage halves made it quite clear that this thing was going to end up a victim of a Hulk Smash event if I tried to install the turbocharger. The engine mount and exhaust piping is also a pile of refuse. I could not determine how that was actually going to support the weight of the engine and cowling. Did a bit more test fitting and found that much of the unseen detail on the rear side of the engine was going to cause still more frustration - since that was not going to be visible, I yanked all that off and voila! the engine actually fit just fine.
I added ignition wiring to the engine and a wiring to the dials in the IP and coming off the targeting glass.
Decals were a mix of kit-supplied and a KitsWorld sheet that I had bought for this build. I went with "Eight Nifties" piloted by Major Clyde V. Knisley of the 510th F/S, 405th F/G. I was only able to find one war-time photo of his Thunderbolt.
These are difficult to tell exactly what colors are on the airplane, so I went with the callouts included in the KitsWorld decal sheet of French Blue for the cowling and rudder stripe. I found other builds of this online which also include stripes on the stabilizer, but I opted to forgo those despite no clear certainty that the KitsWorld decal sheet instructions were correct or not.
The KitsWorld instruction sheet also points out one other problem that I had with my build: the sheet includes illustrations of an earlier P-47D bubbletop without the dorsal fin. I had not noticed that minor detail while looking for the cheapest P-47D non-Razorback that I could find until the dorsal fin kit was sitting on my work bench. I did look at the eBay listings for the sprue containing the rudder and upper fuselage spine for the bubbletop kit, but alas, all the seller had was the same sprue that I already had.
Construction was an up-and-down thing. The cockpit was fine. I was thankful that the turbocharger was going to be entirely unseen because that thing went together awful. When I determined I would not use the turbocharger, I did cut the very forward section off and mounted to the rear of the engine firewall since there was a nice piece of PE grill that I thought would be visible through that huge intake at the front of the Thunderbolt. I also cut off the rear sections of the turbocharger to give a bit more depth to the vents amidship, but then closed them up with the cover pieces.
The dorsal fin part fit together just fine, but whoever engineered those parts must have been asleep at the wheel given that if those parts are put together properly, there was no way they were going to align flush with the fuselage parts. I ended up inserting two lengths of sprue inside the lower fuselage to bow out those areas sufficiently to match more or less flush with the dorsal fin structure. Probably causes a bit much width through that section of the fuselage, but it's not visible to my eye.
The gun bays are intended to be open, but I opted to close them. The doors were not engineered properly for that pose, and would have sat noticably below the surface of the wings. I cut a rectangle of 10mm sheet styrene to elevate the gun bay doors to flush with the wings.
Finally, the windscreen is (a) incorrectly shaped per reviews I found on the kit, and (b) does not fit worth a warm bucket of moose ... I fought that thing tooth-and-nail, and it actually won. The forward section of the windscreen sits too high vis-a-vis the fuselage. I also ended up getting some tube glue right in the center of the forward "glass". Lots of foul language came forth from my mouth yesterday upon seeing that.
Now I'm genuinely concerned about the two 32nd scale Trumpeter kits I have in my stash (Avenger and Bearcat). I'll be sure to do plenty of online research into how to build those kits before I even consider putting them on the work bench. This Thunderbolt was legitimately among the worst I've ever encountered. It is not unbuildable, but it takes a heck of a lot of patience and effort and will fight you to the end.
Oh, construction was not the end of my problems, but these next problems were of my own making.
Exterior paint is AK Interactive XTreme Metals, Mr. Color (French Blue), and Vallejo (US Army Olive Drab). I put down a coat of gray Stynylrez primer and allowed that to sit for a day or so. Then did the initial Aluminum coat. Once that set for a day, I sprayed the gun bay panels and control surfaces dark aluminum and the exhaust ports pale burned metal. Then I masked for the olive drab with some Tamiya-like low-tack tape. Yep, it pulled up some of the aluminum when I removed it. I then used some standard run-of-the-mill Post-It Notes to mask the olive drab once I had fixed the aluminum. The Post-It Notes didn't pull up the aluminum paint, but did leave tacky residue that I was unable to remove initially. I ended up lightly sanding those areas and then repainting.
I opted to leave this one shiny aluminum rather than putting down a flat clear coat. Weathering was minimal, with exhaust and gun stains. I also used Tamiya weathering compounds to replicate the oil streaking visible in the photo of the actual Eight Nifties.
I also replicated the shot of the actual Eight Nifties as best I could.
And that's it for the year. I won't be back to the bench until some time in January, after I have completed some professional development for my job. When I get back out there, it will be with the oldest kit remaining in my stash, Tamiya's diminuitive Heinkel He162 Salamander.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!