I cant wait to see it when you are under way with the repairs. Still looks good ...just gotta tweek it a little. Will talk to you later bro and hang in there.  That things gonna turn out awesome when its finished.

Ack Joe, she www coming along so well. Well, good luck with her when you do get back to her.

Get to do an update for my Gabby P-47 for this GB finally! Here are a few pics in progress. I didn't take any of the cockpit, it is pretty uneventful. Building this one OOB... no add-ons, no scratch building. So far the build has gone well with some minor issues. Fit has been good overall and the painting went better than I thought. I was a little intimidated by the camo scheme! Hope you like it so far!!

Looks good. That's the same kit I'm just starting on. I see you went with NMF on underside. I was going too go with gray, but hadn't decided for sure.

stoutfella

Looks good. That's the same kit I'm just starting on. I see you went with NMF on underside. I was going too go with gray, but hadn't decided for sure.

Thanks! I actually just changed the bottom to grey. I did leave the lower of the tail NMF though, it seems the general consensus is these were kept NMF do to visible marking from the NMF tail. I decided to change the bottom to grey, as this is how Gabreski himself described it. Grey, green, and light grey on the bottom.

Geof - Absolutely Outstanding!! Just some really nice work there. The camo is is especially well done. Did you free hand that?

                                 Joe

Wow Geof that does look fantastic! I too love how the camo came out.

Round 2! Smoothed out and filled in some of the camo, particularly on the wings. Decided to go with grey for the overall underside, keeping the tail undersides NM as suggested in most research. Also, got the invasion stripes and red painted. Next up, clear coat and decals...

Looks great! Hope mine turns out half as well. I'm just getting started on the cockpit. Already nervous about the camo. Yours looks really good.

Geof

Round 2! Smoothed out and filled in some of the camo, particularly on the wings. Decided to go with grey for the overall underside, keeping the tail undersides NM as suggested in most research. Also, got the invasion stripes and red painted. Next up, clear coat and decals...

Greetings,

I'll be eating Geof's  dust on this one, but I'm doing the same Academy P-47D Gabreski kit. The Jug was my mom's favorite plane, as she worked in the Republic factory in Evansville, Ind., during the war, and Gabreski was her favorite pilot, so I'm building this one in her honor. On to the pics!

Look, it's a box!

And it has pieces of molded plastic inside:

OK, after getting over my excitement at a cardboard box with plastic inside, I've gotten the cockpit in order. Nothing fancy other than a set of Eduard PE seatbelts. No washes applied at this point, though I may do so before closing up the fuselage. The cockpit washes and weathering look good, but once you close it up, the effect is pretty invisible, in my opinion.

That's all for now. I'm just hoping I can get this one done by year-end. I "retired" a couple of months ago, but soon started a "part-time" job that's become full-time, probably through the holidays. Keeping me much busier than I'd like and haven't gotten much modeling done of late.

Geof: Great work! The invasion stripes came out great and did the red trim! Almost there now.

SF: Can't ever have too many Gabreski jugs! Nice work on the cockpit, she's coming along great.

Got my new build last night...

Very early initial thoughts

- The rivet detail on this kit is phenomenal. I know that Trumpeter goes overboard with the rivets on some kits, but on this one they're plentiful, but restrained. 

- Trumpeter clearly studied the Tamiya kit. Many of the things that make the Tamiya kit such a pleasure are ported over. The locking cockpit walls that can basically hold themselves together. The beefy wing spars and the fit of the flaps. The one-piece cowl and separate cowl flaps. The cowl is strangely clear, but at least it's not strangely cut up into four pieces. It's also plainly designed to be slid on and off if you want to show off the engine, which is the most jaw-dropping styrene engine I've ever seen. In my opinion not even Tamiya's Merlin can touch this beauty of an R-2800.

- Cockpit detail absolutely blows the Hasegawa kit out of the water. Looking at the two of them, I'd guess the Hasegawa was made ten years earlier. 

- The whole "build the interior ductwork" thing is hilarious, but since it won't be seen it doesn't need to be pretty. There's also a whole accessory section between the engine and cockpit, also not seen. 

- I don't know if I want to do the gun doors open yet or not, but if I do, I'm liking the vinyl ammo belts. I imagine they'd look pretty awesome in some gold/brass baremetal foil. Still not sure if I want to spring for the Eduard gun bay set to really trick out the area...

- Vinyl tires, ugh. But the width looks good, and amazingly, I'm having trouble seeing a mold seam.

- I was going to buy some MV lenses for the underwing lights, but the clear parts for the lenses actually...look like lenses. Not just clear plastic discs. Might hold off for now.

- HVAR rockets! Which I'm pretty sure were never used on a P-47D-27. So, yoink! I'll snag those for a future HK B-25J gun-nose done up as a PBJ-1J.

Got distracted with the KV-2 last night, but I did start playing with a bit of the Eduard photo etch...really liking the whole replacement floor solution.

DoogsATX

Got my new build last night...

Very early initial thoughts

- The rivet detail on this kit is phenomenal. I know that Trumpeter goes overboard with the rivets on some kits, but on this one they're plentiful, but restrained. 

- Trumpeter clearly studied the Tamiya kit. Many of the things that make the Tamiya kit such a pleasure are ported over. The locking cockpit walls that can basically hold themselves together. The beefy wing spars and the fit of the flaps. The one-piece cowl and separate cowl flaps. The cowl is strangely clear, but at least it's not strangely cut up into four pieces. It's also plainly designed to be slid on and off if you want to show off the engine, which is the most jaw-dropping styrene engine I've ever seen. In my opinion not even Tamiya's Merlin can touch this beauty of an R-2800.

- Cockpit detail absolutely blows the Hasegawa kit out of the water. Looking at the two of them, I'd guess the Hasegawa was made ten years earlier. 

- The whole "build the interior ductwork" thing is hilarious, but since it won't be seen it doesn't need to be pretty. There's also a whole accessory section between the engine and cockpit, also not seen. 

- I don't know if I want to do the gun doors open yet or not, but if I do, I'm liking the vinyl ammo belts. I imagine they'd look pretty awesome in some gold/brass baremetal foil. Still not sure if I want to spring for the Eduard gun bay set to really trick out the area...

- Vinyl tires, ugh. But the width looks good, and amazingly, I'm having trouble seeing a mold seam.

- I was going to buy some MV lenses for the underwing lights, but the clear parts for the lenses actually...look like lenses. Not just clear plastic discs. Might hold off for now.

- HVAR rockets! Which I'm pretty sure were never used on a P-47D-27. So, yoink! I'll snag those for a future HK B-25J gun-nose done up as a PBJ-1J.

Got distracted with the KV-2 last night, but I did start playing with a bit of the Eduard photo etch...really liking the whole replacement floor solution.

SF! Looks good! I kept mine pretty simple. Didn't even add belts, which is unusual for me, but I swore I would build this one OOB period!

A couple of things to watch. The gun fairings and hatch cover have tow different versions for some reason. The big ones are the correct ones. I almost created a major nightmare for myself with this near oversight. Other than that the kit is pretty straight forward. You will be at my stage very quickly. The only other annoying thing were the wing root lines in the wheel bays. There really isn't any way to fix this without ruining the raised detail of the wells. I just filled them with thick CA and smoothed them as best I could. Looking forward to seeing yours in the process!!

Geof - Excellent, excellent paint job. Very fine invasion stripes indeed.

Stoutfella - Really fine work on your cockpit. Nicely done.

Doogs - I am really interested to see how that brut comes together for you. It seems that reviews for Trumpeter kits is a mixed bag. Yet a common thread seems to be overengineered with far too many fiddly parts.

Joe - Trumpeter kits are really hit or miss...some reviews I've read have mused that they must have two different design teams, one that puts out the "good" kits, and the other that puts out the ones with overboard rivets, shape inaccuracies so grave that even I notice them, parts that just don't fit, etc.

Their P-47s are widely regarded as some of their best kits, though, so we'll see!

Doogs: That looks awesome!!! Hope to see more of her, I need to get over to your website.

Well, the P-47N is almost done, I tried to use the Flory wash on the panel lines but it just beads up on the Model Master Metalizer Sealer I used as an overcoat. I think I'll just skip doing the panel lines, they show up fine with the pre-shading. I wired the engine on the P-47D over the weekend. My ISP has been hit or miss as to an internet connection lately so I'll try to get photos up when I can.

Geof

SF! Looks good! I kept mine pretty simple. Didn't even add belts, which is unusual for me, but I swore I would build this one OOB period!

A couple of things to watch. The gun fairings and hatch cover have tow different versions for some reason. The big ones are the correct ones. I almost created a major nightmare for myself with this near oversight. Other than that the kit is pretty straight forward. You will be at my stage very quickly. The only other annoying thing were the wing root lines in the wheel bays. There really isn't any way to fix this without ruining the raised detail of the wells. I just filled them with thick CA and smoothed them as best I could. Looking forward to seeing yours in the process!!

Geof: Are you building yours with the gun bay covers open or closed? I was at first tempted to leave them open just for variety's sake, but there's really not much there and I'm not inclined to add a detail set at this point.

Also curious how you handled the black border on the fuselage invasion stripes?

Here's the weekend's work...

Initial test-fit shows a ton of promise:

All the reviews of this Jug talk about how the internal ducting is necessary to support the cockpit tub. LIES.

I'm using Eduard's interior PE to dress up the interior...last night got most of the "pre-paint" bits laid down.

The PE seat was a bit of a pain, but sooo much better than the kit piece.

Next up is paint, color PE bits (there's a whole fret of those), weathering. I've also got a set of HGW microtextile belts, and have a Master Details resin Mk.VIII gunsight on order.

Stoutfella,

Closed... No detailing added on this one. Just wasn't in the mood after the months of work on my 109 dio project.

The process to paint (mask... the painting is easy!) the borders is a little tedious, but worth it IMO. First lay out the stripe widths across the fuselage. They are about 10mm wide each. Paint them white and leave that mask in place. Then cut your tape in strips, filling in the white to allow about 1-1.5mm around the border and then paint your black. Just be sure your edges are tight and spray relatively dry, straight perpendicular to the tape. This avoids running black under the tape and onto the white.

Looks great Doogs! The pe seat is really a big improvement. Neat feature on the transparent cowling to show off the giant mill, I assume you're going to just paint over it?

Doogs... That thing is huge! I must admit to having an issue building and dealing with interior stuff that would never be seen... But impressive to say the least!

Geof

Doogs... That thing is huge! I must admit to having an issue building and dealing with interior stuff that would never be seen... But impressive to say the least!

The thing is a beast, for sure! And yeah, I've got issues having to build things that can't possibly be seen. That's why, when I discovered that the plumbing wasn't required to hold the cockpit in place, I literally threw my head back and laughed like a supervillain!

Cockpit got its Dull Dark Green tonight in the form of Tamiya XF-26 Deep Green over a base of XF-1 Flat Black.

Ok photos of the wired engine for the Tamiya P-47D, I used Lawdog's article on how to do it:

The Promodeler P-47N is about 97%, going to be pretty busy later this week but will try to get her posted before too much longer though.

That is one SWEET looking engine!

Sorry I haven't been around much, Sandy did a number on our area; we were without power 12 days.  I'm in the home-stretch of finishing up my jug.  It was pretty cold in our house for almost a week and I hope the paint bottles survived.

Gamera: Very, very nice work. I just finished the engine on my Gabreski Jug. It, um, doesn't look like yours

Hey thanks guys, actually I surprised even myself. As I said Lawdog posted a tuturial over on the aircraft section with a complete walkthough. I'd post a link but I'm typing on my phone right now.

G-J : hang n there. Been praying for you guys, hopefully things will straighten out before too much longer.

Excellent work, Gamera! Need to go find Lawdog's tutorial again...planning to use it for the Trumpy.

Slog of a night getting the HGW belts together...but man do they look sweet. Definitely more detail than the RB Productions belts I'm using on my 109...