Tuskegee P-47D Project

Well, it seems being a novice at blogging - - that I haven't been doing this correctly. Instead of adding entries to this one post each week I am supposed to do a new posting. I find that out by looking at other blogs. Live and learn. So this is a continuation of my thoughts from the first three entries (that are rolled in to -- technically -- one post).

The P-47D for the Tuskegee Airmen display is coming along in my typical snail's pace. The wing halves are cemented together and the floor and seat are attached to one of the fuselage halves.

That brings me to an interesting topic: detailing cockpits. In 1/72 scale, how much detailing should be done? One school of thought is that in this scale with the canopy closed one cannot see into the cockpit good enough to warrant detailing. On the other hand some modelers insist on detailing out the cockpit whether or not it can be seen. Of course generally these modelers have made the effort to have an open canopy. But still some of their detail work goes unappreciated without the use of a fiber optic probe.

Of course as we all know the cockpit area varies in detail to begin with from manufacturer to manufacturer. While Hasegawa has a "bare bones" cockpit on this kit, Tamiya on their more recently released P-47D kit has a very nicely detailed cockpit. Since I opted to build the Hasegawa Thunderbolt we have a no-frills cockpit. There are only three pieces to put in the cockpit: floor and seat, a plain instrument panel, and a headrest. There is no ribbing or "boxes" molded into the fuselage sides. Just a typical plain Jane Hasegawa cockpit. Which is just as well since this is destined for a display behind glass and the interior definitely won't be seen. Besides Mike Q., a wise member of NCT, says about modeling, "Life is short so keep it simple."

And speaking of simple and Hasegawa, no wonder Eduard make a living doing photoetch detail parts. The instrument panel is a the usual simple piece of plastic. A decal is provided of the instruments put it is black outlines which will not show on a black-painted "instrument panel". But, as stated above this is going to be a bare bones cockpit. By-the way the fuselage halves are now together and the wings and tail wings are cemented in place.

This is the week of Christmas and so no further work will be accomplished until after the holidays. I'll need to work by a schedule come the new year. I have three commitments (plus other model projects I need to finish) for the first half of 2005. The Tuskegee Airmen project needs to be completed in March but first I have a car to do for the "Crappy" Award for a February contest in San Antonio. The third is the 357th Fighter Group P-51 which began this journal. That is needed by the end of June.

IPMS NCT Group Entry Project Build

November 23, 2004

IPMS North Central Texas has selected for our group entry in the 2005 IPMS National Convention to do the 357th Fighter Group P-51s in 1/72 scale. This should be a fun and rewarding experience [NCT has won first place in this category for the last 4 consecutive years] for all the participants. I have the Tamiya P-51D kit and am doing Lt. Julian Bertram's "Butch Baby" [G4-V]. Although Lt. Bertram had no confirmed kills to his record, his bird was selected by me because it was camouflaged in RAF Dark Green and Neutral Grey. That beats having to do a natural metal finish for some ace’s plane. After all I do mostly 1/72 scale armor and you don’t find bare metal finishes on those.

I could identify a P-51A from a B from a D but now I am learning such things as, on the P-51D some early block did not have a filet. Well luckily for me G4V had filet. That saves me from having to cut the filet off the fuselage and worrying that to death with sandpaper. But then our illustrious "project" manager on this endeavor has identified various items that differ depending on where the aircraft was built and field modifications. This specific aircraft that I am making has open (versus shrouded) exhaust, fuselage formation lights (apparently some didn’t), a blown Dallas canopy (which apparently is different than those canopies put on aircraft made in Inglewood, California), and AN/APS-13 rear warning radar aerials on the vertical fin (again, apparently some didn’t).

Now, I know you Mustang experts are out there chuckling at me for my musing at these little nit-noy items but remember I like tanks. Before this a P-51D was a P-51D to me. I'll never be the same now.

November 30, 2004

Last evening I took my trusty Iwata in hand and sprayed zinc chromate green on the fuselage cockpit sidewalls and the wheel wells. I finally mixed the paint and the dilution fluid (in this case Model Master acrylic and alcohol) just right and didn’t over-paint (meaning too heavy of a coat) as I usually do. This is my masterpiece! I should stop right here and bask in my greatness rather than chance goofing up this kit. Hmm, I can picture it now at the 2005 IPMS National Convention: a category for best zinc chromate green on a wheel well, 1/49-scale and smaller, Allied single engine aircraft prior to 1946, stock-out-of-the-box!

Now general I never get past the beginning of the painting stage of a kit. I love building them. Filing and sanding is almost therapeutic for me. It’s not that I dislike painting my models. In fact doing small details with a brush (and an Optivisor) are almost as enjoyable as the build portion. It’s that I hate cleaning up the airbrush. It seems to take 10-times longer to clean up then it did to paint. All it took was 10 drops of paint and 10 drops of alcohol in the paint cup to cover what I did yesterday but it took 3 hours and 100 gallons of water to clean up the airbrush and the cup -- well I exaggerate a bit… I did manage to get a watery mixture of very diluted (zinc chromate) green all over my workspace and me when I did a blowback on the brush. But none-the-less, someone should make disposable airbrushes!

The subject of what color is the well wheels was quite invigorating. Not only did I check via email with my conspirators on this project; I scanned various model Web Sites and the old reliable newsgroup rec.model.scale. Choices are zinc chromate green, zinc chromate yellow, interior green, and natural metal. (Guess which one I went with.) I even found one modeler that did a 1/48-scale P-51D (Tamiya of course). His solution to this dilemma was to paint the walls of the wells zinc chromate yellow, the middle beam zinc chromate green, and the rest aluminum. Cockpit colors got even more opinionated.

December 8, 2004
No progress has been made on the P-51D because now I am working on a 1/72 Hasegawa P-47D “Razorback”. This is not a case of short attention span as you might suspect. IPMS NCT has been requested to provide a display of aircraft flown by the 332nd Fighter Group (a.k.a. Tuskegee Airmen) for an event celebrating the black pilots at Carswell’s air show in April 2005. Our display would then be on permanent display at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field, Dallas. Since I don’t need to have the 357th FG P-51D completed until June, I am working on the Thunderbolt.

Yeah, I know you’re saying, “The Tuskegee Airmen flew (red-tailed) Mustangs!” Yep, that’s true but before then they flew P-39Qs, P-40Ls, and P-47Ds. I immediately signed up for a P-47 since I much prefer Jugs to Mustangs. [Take that statement in any context you wish.]

So at this point my P-47 has the cockpit and wheel wells airbrushed zinc chromate green. Hmm, same state as the P-51. And did my technique improve due to my previous experience? Nah. For some reason I didn’t mix the minuscule amount of paint needed in the cup with the dilution well enough. After a while it seemed the paint was getting thinner and thinner until it was just alcohol being sprayed on. So that had to be cleaned up and I re started. Serves me right for thinking I was doing well last week.

On the second attempt I did find out that using my Badger paint cup with my Iwata is not the best thing in the world to do. The stem on this cup apparently fits too far up causing the paint to not want to go into the brush. I found this out at the end when I took the cup off and painting was going great with the little amount of paint that was in the brush itself. Oh well!