A further update on Fiery Ginger flown by Neel Kearby. Had some hours of free time this weekend and did some painting of the p-47. The model was first primed with Mr. Surfacer 1000 and lightly sanded. Panel lines were hand brushed with Model Master gray and the first coat applied was a mix of Tamiya acrylics; Olive drab and Khaki drab in about a 2:1 ratio. This was sprayed on all but the under surfaces of the aircraft. Post shading of the panels was then done with the same blend lightened about 1:1 with Tamiya Buff.
I then cut masking tape and applied it along the sides of the fuselage to demarcate the olive from the neutral grey underside; the tail and leading edges of the wings were also masked since they were painted white on Kearby's aircraft. After masking, the underside was sprayed with Tamiya neutral grey lightened just a tad with flat white. Once dry, the wing edges and tail were painted with flat white after masking again to prevent overspray on the already painted surfaces. After all that, she looked like this:
After drying overnight, everything was given a coat of Future and decals were applied. I found a Kearby decal sheet here:
http://www.canmilair.com/proddetail.asp?prod=356
Although the "73" in this sheet was printed in black, I contacted the gentleman and asked if he could also print a blue "73" since some of my refs suggest that blue 73 was Kearby's bird. The decal sheet arrive with both black and blue numbers... bruised 73s!! I think that I then proceeded to screw up because it was suggested to overcoat the decal sheet with a gloss coat before applying. I did so with Testors rattle can gloss, but in hindsight, applied it much too heavy. In the end, the decals were very thick and took multiple applications of SsolvaSet to cure. Even so, I'm not happy with the finish. Live and learn; next time, I'll deal with very thin and fragile decals. That said here she is with markings; those of the Kearby sheet plus a few of the stencils supplied in the kit decals.
This is Fiery Ginger after Kearby's first kills, where he downed two Japanese planes on Sept 4, 1943. A week later he got his third, before transferring to Ginger III to become an ace. So the model depicts Fiery Ginger between Spt 4 and Sept 11, 1943.
Next on the agenda, an overspray with diluted Buff/Olive Drab to blend everything together. then some additional weathering with pigments. Thanks for reading.
Don