Thunderbolt GB 2016

That came out really beautiful Mark!

Thanks Andy.  I was so nervous about spraying it, with all sorts of nightmarish outcomes filling my brain.  I'm glad it came out as good as it did.  Slept well last night.

My Latest WIP pictures of my Thunderbolt, the Tamiya 1/48 Bubbletop.

Made a lot of progress yesterday.  First I masked and painted the tail section white, and of course I couldn't resist sticking the (almost) finished rudder into position to see how the whole tail is looking.

Then came some work on the cowl.  Wow, masking these star points was tedious.

But the result was worth the work.

This was where I made a mistake, because the olive drab anti-glare paint on the top of the cowl should be underneath the red star point.  D'oh!  So now I'll have to cut some reversed masks for that area and fiddle with getting it set up correctely.

But I went ahead and shot the olive drab on the fuselage, and was quite happy with how it turned out.

Finally here's a pic of the many bits and pieces, in various stages of paint/finish, yet to be stuck on the aircraft. 

Tonight I hope to get the cowl masked to correct my mistake and get the OD down on it.  And try to get the canopy masked.  Rats! I still haven't done the engine detailing yet either!   

Cheers, Mark

Well your paint work looks great, Mark. Did you have any issues with the paint lifting on the NMF from masking? Often Alclad will lift when masked so I'm curious if the AK holds better.

BK

Thanks Brandon.  No, all the tape came off clean.  Not even any silvering on the tape.  I was pretty concerned about it, so I took some of the tackiness off before applying.  Also I was super gentle peeling it off.  Thankfully, no issues.

Cheers, Mark

Mark, all the masking and paint work came out awesome! Glad to hear you didn't have any masking issues.

Thanks Andy.  Feels like the finish line is finally starting to become visible in the distance.

Cheers, Mark 

Quick Update:  I was able to correct my blunder of putting down paint in the wrong order on the cowling.  I made a mask of the star point on the top of the cowling, and then masked off everthing but the area on top for the olive drab.  I think it came out good.  Now I only have one more color to shoot onto the cowling, for the orange/yellow panel that acts as a background for the Passionate Patsy artwork.

Cheers, Mark

Looking really nice mark and great recovery on the cowl, thats impresive how you managed to mask off the red.

Bish

Looking really nice mark and great recovery on the cowl, thats impresive how you managed to mask off the red.

 

I agree the paint work looks great.

Bish

Looking really nice mark and great recovery on the cowl, thats impresive how you managed to mask off the red.

 

Thanks Johnny and Brandon.  Hopefully get some time in this evening to finish off the final paint for the cowling.

Cheers, Mark

Latest WIP pictures of Passionate Patsy

Not a lot of  progress the last few days.  Been too exhausted after work to focus on modeling.  But managed to get a few small things done last night.

Started weathering on the engine.  Still need to wire it up and finish the weathering.  And finished painting the prop, the wheels and the main gear.

Forgot to post these pics from Monday night... finished the orange/yellow panel on the cowl where the nose art will be.  Now you can see five of the six colors sprayed on this cowling.  (the sixth being the AK Black Base coat)

The other side:

Hopefully get some serious bench time this weekend, and make a big leap in the build. 

Cheers, Mark

You're doing a great job with this Mark! That sure is one colorful cowling!

Well folks, I've done quite a bit of work on my Thunderbolt so far, I just haven't had a chance to share my work yet! Until now, that is. So far, so good. The fit of this kit could be better, but it's nothing a bit of sanding won't fix. There are also a few gaps in the fuselage, so I'll have to fill those. Tonight I cemented the engine mount onto the fuselage, and I'll be putting together the engine some point this week.

Mark, thats going to be one colourful cowling. Going to look very decorative with the nose art on.

Nice job on the pit rocker, good to see itcoming together.

Nice start rocker!

Hi All,

Working on the Testors Jug. It's a really bad kit. It's not at all like the P-51 I finished earlier, which just fit together perfectly. I had a bad experience with the resin cocpit. I've not worked with resin and it's really brittle stuff! There were no instructions and I couldn't figure most of it out. Turns out you can't see it once you put the part on for the bubble top, and so I didn't go all out on it. I glued the fuselage together in stages to get it to line up. That worked out well.

rocker286

Well folks, I've done quite a bit of work on my Thunderbolt so far, I just haven't had a chance to share my work yet! Until now, that is. So far, so good. The fit of this kit could be better, but it's nothing a bit of sanding won't fix. There are also a few gaps in the fuselage, so I'll have to fill those. Tonight I cemented the engine mount onto the fuselage, and I'll be putting together the engine some point this week.

 

Lookin' good Rocker.  Can't wait to see more. 

Cheers, Mark

My Latest WIP pictures of my Thunderbolt, the Tamiya 1/48 Bubbletop.

Arghhhh...  a few real-life issues kind of ruined my bench time over the weekend, but I still managed to make a bit of progress on the old Jug.

Shot some AK Xtreme (Dark Aluminum) onto the gun-bay panels and to some other panels on the underside, to break up the look a bit.

Finally got the engine wired up (still have to do some final painting and weathering), and put the final paint to the cowling... the little bare metal ring on the inner lip at the front.

Tonight I got the wingtip stripes masked and painted.  Tomorrow I'll do the same with the two black fuselage stripes.  These stripe markings were included in the decals, but I decided it would be better to paint them instead.  Happy I've gone this route.

That's it for now.  More to come soon... ish.

Cheers, Mark

Painting the strips is definitely the way to go, great job. This is going to be one colorful bird! lol

That she will be. 

I'm looking forward to doing the weathering on this, to make it look a bit less like a flying paint store.  lol 

Cheers, Mark

Quick WIP update: Got the fuselage stripes painted, attached the intercooler exit doors and the tail wheel assembly.

Cheers, Mark

Latest WIP pictures of Tamiya's 1/48 P-47 Bubbletop - Passionate Patsy.

A few pics from Friday.  I got a lot done yesterday, so I'll post those pics sometime this evening.  Have to do chores today.

Applied decals to prop and main gear struts.

Applied nose-art decals to cowling.  This was a tough one.  It was three different decals, so it took me a while to get the alignment "right."  Fairly happy with it, but there is a small tear in her leg.  Later, after using Solveset, another small tear appeared in her hair.

I used small amounts of Blu-Tack to temporarily attach the struts to the wings and the wheels to the struts.  Then applied small strips of tape on the wheels to mark the alignment of the flat part of the wheel. 

This worked really well when it came time to glue the wheels to the struts.

That's it for now.  Cheers, Mark

Loking great there Mark. Really nice job on the nose art, can't make out the tears. And a great idea for the tires.

Thanks Bish.  Yeah, I'm not gonna sweat the small flaws in the nose art.  I think it's one of those things that nobody but me would ever notice. 

Cheers, Mark

Latest WIP pictures of Tamiya's 1/48 P-47 Bubbletop - Passionate Patsy.

A lot of things came together this weekend, so the plane is finally starting to look like... a plane.

Engine, ducting and cowling got assembled...

...and finally mated to the fuselage! 

Got most of the major decals down.  Still have to do the bulk of the small stuff, but it sure is nice to see markings on her now.

Started initial weathering, starting with the wheel wells.  I'll be using a combination of washes and oils for the weathering.

Have a few things to fix.  Have to add the yellow tips to the prop blades.  (Thanks to Lawdog for spoting that).  I forgot to paint the aft half of the tail-wheel doors white, to match the tail paint.  That should be an interesting masking experiment at this stage.  And I'm still working on the bombs.  Have tried the kit-supplied decals for the yellow stripes, but not happy with them.  Super tough to mask and paint though, due to the compount curves.  Still pondering a solution.

That's it for now.  The finish line is in sight. 

Cheers, Mark

This is really coming together nicely Mark! That cowling looks awesome!