Official FMS 1500mm P-47D Razorback Thread

[jetfool]

Eagle15,
Your progress is looking great. Hope you add a full cockpit, sliding canopy and one of Dave and Dans 3d painted pilots. Adds tremendous realism.
Best Regards, Rex

[Eagle15]

I don’t know why these didn’t send, here’s another angle

[Eagle15]

Hi all,

first to Dave, that project is coming along amazingly! I’m looking forward to see the result. My project is moving along a lot slower … finished the of tops of each wing, starting the fuselage now. I’ll make another update when I get around half the fuselage done, but right now she looks a lot better than I had hoped.

[davegee]

[QUOTE=jetfool;n445750]Davegee,
Really looking good. Lots of work but going to be worth it.
Best Regards, Rex [/QUOTE

Thanks, Rex. Passed the first test this morning, put the airplane on internal power and everything works! You're right, a LOT of work to go, but so far, so good.

As an update in the evening of March 14, 2026, I have installed the tailwheel and tested the retract and steering. All works well. Theoretically I could do a test flight on it next week, but I won't do that. I might continue some outdoor tests and get them out of the way.

For now, I am waiting on the E Flite bomb release to come in the mail, possibly next week. Whenever it comes, I will install it in the spot where the OEM mount is on the aircraft belly. I'll have to figure out how to make this all work somehow. Once it is tested, I'll configure one of the foam drop tanks to use on tests this Spring. I have hopes of making a 3D printed "steel" tank of the type that was used commonly at this part of the war that Hairless Joe was flying. That would look very cool to have a larger rectangular tank punch off of the airplane as it flies by! The photo shows that drop tank before a mission in 1944.

The last big part will be the canopy that is still in production by James. He'll have it sent to me when it is ready. I have ordered a linear servo that I hope to use to operate the canopy mainly during ground tests. That would definitely look very cool!

Danger Dan is working on the pilot figure, so we'll add that later as I get the cockpit completed.

Cheers

dave

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Really looking good. Lots of work but going to be worth it.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

I'm about done for the day, been a long one. I finished up transferring most of the connectors, "brains" etc., of the old stock P-47 fuse (Bonnie) to the new one (Hairless Joe).. And to finish up, I fitted the wings to the new fuse for the first time! All the connectors work, although I had to flip one of the male/female wing connector units around as the Chinese worker who installed it must have been tryin' to mess with me! But I did get it done, even with the impossibly small screw heads and cheap steel that make them want to strip off putting them in!

Here's a couple of pics:the top photo shows the wings fitted to the fuselage for the first time. Tomorrow, I'll add the power to it and test all functions of flight controls, gear, etc.,

The second photo shows the set up for removal from the stock airplane (in foreground) to the new Hairless Joe fuselage, (in background.) Most all of this was done before I just quit for the day, but will see how everything works tomorrow with the power on it.

Cheers

davegee

[davegee]

Working on the fuse, sanding, priming, more sanding, painting with Minwax Polycrylic, more sanding...

I'm going to start transferring everything that was installed in the fuselage of the kit into the new modified bubbletop. I might even get it to the point where I can test the actual working of all the control surfaces in place before taking it apart again to continue working on the fuse. Lots of work to do there.

Cheers

Davegee

[jetfool]

Very Nice

[davegee]

I'm including a few pics of some somewhat unplanned developments in scaling out this model a bit. On previous FMS P-47s I have had, I have modified the exhaust stacks in the cowl to make it look somewhat more accurate for WWII airplanes. But I would fix the position of the wastegates in the exhaust tube and go with that. Yesterday and today, I decided to play with this a bit more.

What I ended up doing, with only a plan popping up in my head, was to drill holes in the brass exhaust tubing that I added, ran a pin through those holes on the inside so it could turn, and then glued the round wastegate onto each pin. The wastegate is moveable from close to open, and I think I might just leave it like that so ram air coming through the engine opening might push the wastegates open and provide a bit more cooling air to the airplane. Probably won't do much, but I'm happy to see if they work as desired. Nonetheless, I'm satisfied how it looks right now, in primer and unpainted stage to be finished and installed at a later time.

[davegee]

Let the fun begin!

Feeling a bit under the weather and work is just taking it out of me. Hopefully, Schilling should be finished by next week.
Now, how about a bubble top Corsair?? (I shouldn't suggest that!)

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

Hope you feel better soon, Dan. I have a stand-in test figure until we get Schilling in the seat! But for now, the stand-in is helpful to figure out the cockpit and other parts.

Cheers

davegee

[Grossman56]

Let the fun begin!

Feeling a bit under the weather and work is just taking it out of me. Hopefully, Schilling should be finished by next week.
Now, how about a bubble top Corsair?? (I shouldn't suggest that!)

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[davegee]

Thanks, LB. I ordered a linear servo from Amazon yesterday but it won’t be here for almost 2 weeks to test it. In the meantime, I have been printing and modifying cockpit parts and just this afternoon started modifying the oil cooler flaps and the waste gates on either side of the lower cowl area.

First of all, for a foamie P-47 flyable model, this one from FMS is tops, IMHO. I always wanted a bubbletop, too, but until James made us aware of his abilities to modify it to a bubbletop, I was resigned that the bubble top would never materialize. But it will now!

Today I modified some plastic pieces for a more scale look of the waste gates. The stock model has these pieces molded with long exhaust tubes which the real ones did not have. Plus, when you slice off these tubes with a razor knife, they are oval shape which is inaccurate. I cut some rings of brass and glued them in to these areas to give a nice round exhaust. I’ll make up some scale wastegates partially open for a more scale appearance.

Below is a pic showing three of these stock oil coolers/wastegates. The one on the left is how they come out of the box. The other two I cut off the extended exhaust stack that isn't scale to WWII P-47s (some restored P-47 DO have these stacks when they have removed the turbo superchargers and wastegates) but this will give a more accurate round exhaust port where I'll add a a scale wastegate on each side.


cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

IT'S IN THE HOUSE! Yippee! The first P-47 Bubble Top FMS 1500 in the country. Popcorn is Poppin. We need another rebuild on this forum, can't wait.

Yes, I see the BIG grin on your face, Rex

[Elbee]

davegee

I look forward to seeing your progress on both of these mods, Sir.

Best, LB

[davegee]

The next major step for the Hairless Joe build just unfolded today when the modified fuselage arrived from James in California via UPS. Came in great shape, no damage.

I do have a couple of things I would like to add to this airplane, besides making an accurate looking represntation of Hairless Joe in WWII: first, a powered openable canopy using a small linear motion servo to allow for it to open and close in a satisfactory manner. The second thing I'd like to do is have a droppable tank from the centerline of the fuselage using a servo release unit from EFlite. If that doesn't work, I'll buy one for the new droppable servos with the 1600mm P-51 Flightline model. (I'll probably eventually buy the P-51 model once I finish with Hairless Joe. Getting some experience with these droppable servos can help if and when I buy the P-51 down the road.)

Attached is a pic of James' excellent job of modifying this razorback to a bubbletop jug.

[Elbee]

Rex,

I use a fine grade metal polish called Simichrome and occasionally Mequier's Auto Glaze for tougher release agents.

A little goes a long way as you see by the date on the box.

After I polish the clear plastic with a Dremel buffing wheel, I use an ammonia glass cleaner to remove any residue paying particular attention to the inside.

Work lightly as there are different clear plastics and those all seem to react differently to pressure and the heat generated by buffing wheel.

The canopy is then clean enough to mask & paint.

The beauty of this method (IMHO) is the clear plastic is easier to keep clean from that point forward.

The clear materials being used by FlightLine one the Corsair and the Mitchell are very soft and wavy.

These are not very clear after their vacuum processing.

I have not found a good method to get very many flaws out of their canopies.

Hope this helps.

Best, LB

[jetfool]

Guys outside of water and a clean cloth do you put anything on the canopy to keep the clear windows crystal clear? With an open canopy I'm wanting to keep it clear for display.
Best Regards, Rex

[Elbee]

Trying to upload a pic. and it says php size to much to download. What am I doing wrong, never happened before.

Rex,

If the you took the picture your camera or phone might be set to a high resolution that results in a large mb file.

You can open the picture file in MS Paint, change the physical size by either pixal count or percentage and hit save.

Using percentage is easiest, I will use 25% for example.

If you downloaded the picture, you can still do the same thing, but make certain the file is a JPEG or JPG.

If it is multiple pictures that are adding up, you'll want to do this to each file in the group.

PITA actually, but we live with worldly constraints.

Best, LB

[jetfool]

Trying to upload a pic. and it says php size to much to download. What am I doing wrong, never happened before.

[davegee]

Christmas is coming early at Dave's place, or late depending on how you look at it. Pilot is coming along. Still getting the hand of the new camera. this is before the white straps...



And after, beside my "Big Boy'...



You can see the head on the spike in the background. It's interesting what a difference it makes when you add the white straps. Up until now the colors a pretty dark as I paint from the deepest crevices outward. He looks pretty good so far even though it was a rough session. I roughed up the boots by applying a watered down mahogany brown and then wiping it off, shows some of the dirt and mud that would accumulate on them. Still a ways to go , but looking good.

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

Looking great, Dan! Schilling and a lot of other pilots were known to wear RAF boots (preferred) or something like it, for warmth (although the toasty cockpit of the P-47 didn't really need it) but mainly if they had to hit the silk, as they say, so that they would still have something on their feet for escape and evasion. Regular shoes would often fly off with the force of the parachute opening, and there you are trying to evade the Jerries in your stocking feet!