Official FMS 1500mm P-47D Razorback Thread

[jetfool]

I finished the brake lines and assembled the landing gear covers. Looking better all the time.

Rex

[jetfool]

Thanks, Dangerous. I worked on my hydraulic brake lines on the P-47 (non-functional) today. It's starting to come back together and look like a plane again.
I will look at your info tonight. I need to get the correct paint for the crankcase on the engine. I should visit the LHS, 30 mi. away, they carry all kinds of paint for the plastic modelers. Need paint for my 1/16 Rc Tiger1 tank too.
Your picture is just what I need to make the spinner, and the cuffs should help the HS kids see what Dave and I are hoping for.

Best Regards, Rex

[Grossman56]

While starting on the engine detailing I noyiced I sprayed the chin scoop white. In looking at pictures they don't show this being painted. I haven't been able to find a straight on picture showing what color. If not painted, was it just aluminum color?
I am using engine grey for the engine crankcase, but it looks darker than my pictures. It is a blue-ish color but dark. Any ideas?
Rex

I just looked through my book, "The Mighty Eighth", and there isn't really a good head on pic there. On the cover on my copy of "Thunderbolt, It looks as if its black, but that's an artist's depiction.

Here's a page worth checking out!

https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+museum+of+flight+P+47&sca_esv=e5a9fbe4d01470dc&rlz=1C1PRFI_enUS779US779&udm=2&biw=1360&bih=607&sxsrf=AHTn8zpgcpbB-wTDeGXstrKhdJD5unmacw%3A1738102874316&ei=WliZZ7eCE6TN0PEPha_VgQU&ved=0ahUKEwi3l6DjuZmLAxWkJjQIHYVXNVAQ4dUDCBI&uact=5&oq=boeing+museum+of+flight+P+47&gs_lp=EgNpbWciHGJvZWluZyBtdXNldW0gb2YgZmxpZ2h0I***NDdI7MgBUPULWPS-AXAEeACQAQCYAY0BoAGkMKoBBDAuNTS4AQPIAQD4AQGYAh6gAqIZqAIKwgIKEAAYgAQYQxiKBcICCxAAGIAEGLEDGIMBwgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAgcQIxgnGOoCwgIEECMYJ8ICEBAAGIAEGLEDGEMYgwEYigXCAg0QABiABBixAxhDGIoFwgIFEAAYgATCAgQQABgDmAMJiAYBkgcEMy4yN6AHrekB&sclient=img#vhid=nlo9_n4PyG8UxM&vssid=mosaic

Has pics like this:



Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[jetfool]

Well, the last few days I have started doing some Honey-Do's again, Never Ending! Today after getting supplies to make a Curtiss Electric spinner and taking some 3d STL's to the local High School 3d class I decided to make the retraction strut on the landing gear. Some 3/32 alum. tubing, a broken control link, 1/16" music wire, 20 ga stranded wire and a hole drilled in the landing gear mount I came up with a reasonable retracting strut. As the gear retract the music wire slides in the alum. tube. The stranded wire is glued in the bottom of the alum tube and allows the retracting strut to fold with the gear. The landing gear cover closes as per the original. A few hours of work but a lot of thinking in my sleep to do this.





Next up, landing light bulb, lens and get ready to apply Callie's Graphics which arrive Friday and on to detailing.

Best Regards, Rex

[jetfool]

While starting on the engine detailing I noyiced I sprayed the chin scoop white. In looking at pictures they don't show this being painted. I haven't been able to find a straight on picture showing what color. If not painted, was it just aluminum color?
I am using engine grey for the engine crankcase, but it looks darker than my pictures. It is a blue-ish color but dark. Any ideas?
Rex

[Grossman56]

It works well Rex, I took this picture:

And used, I think, the 8x12 setting on the printer and it came out great. Cut what looked like a donut of cylinders and canted the picture slightly so the cylinders would show between the open areas and viola!:

Thanks Dave!

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[davegee]

Sounds good, Rex. I have that book, I think. I recommend using taking photos of a cylinder on your plastic nose cowl, shrink it down on a printer, cut them out and glue them in between the other "real" cylinders. If done right, it looks pretty realistic and you can even run spark plug wires to those paper cylinders too, for added realsim. The crankcase on the plastic cowl should be that darker blue-grey gloss as you see in the pics. Follow them, and you'll have a very realistic, engaging "false" R2800 engine in front of your electric motor. I have done this for 15-20 years and never had any cooling issues where the paper goes in between some of those gaps. There is still room for the ram air to get into the engine bay and the rest of the fuse with available hole/openings in the false motor holes.

Have fun!

Davegee

[jetfool]

Well i think all the spray painting is finished. While waiting for Callie Graphics to arrive I keep pushing forward with other parts that need finishing. I have some pretty good pictures of the engine so tomorrow I will start detailing.
Rex

[davegee]

Davegee,
Your pictures are just what the DR. ordered. These will add realism to the plane. I need to add the gun cartridge exit holes to underside of the wing. Did you deepen them?

Best Regards, Rex

Hi Rex: no, for these foamies I just cut scale black rectangles and glued them in place.

Davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Your pictures are just what the DR. ordered. These will add realism to the plane. I need to add the gun cartridge exit holes to underside of the wing. Did you deepen them?

Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Great! standby for a few photos and text on the shrinker bars for the P-47 model.

davegee

Hi Rex: I just took three photos of the main landing gear for my Penrod and Sam P-47D razorback.

I used some very small 1/16" tubing for some brake lines that start near the base of the landing gear strut, and then wind around and connect up with some small black tubing to go towards the wheel hub to simulate brake lines to the wheels. Just decorative with no real function, except for appearance.

The shrinker bars were a total experiment just to see if I could come up with something that would sorta look like them and not get in the way of the gear functioning while retracting or taxiing on the ground.

I used an aluminum tube larger than 1/16, maybe 3/32, I don't know. Just some scrap tubing that "looked" about right for the shrinker tubes. I both glued and tied down with thin aluminum wire to secure them to the main gear strut so they would stay in place.

In one of the photos, there is a small steel wire that comes out of the shrinker bar tubing, and connects to the plastic fairing below the oleo strut. I drilled a hole in that fairing for the lower gear door, made a 90 degree bend in the steel wire and what it does is simulate the "shrinking" capabilities of the shriker bar. In reality, it allows the oleo strut to compress as need be during takeoffs and landings, and that steel wire slides up and down in the fixed aluminum tube on the upper part of the main gear strut barrel so it doesn't break off.

I don't know if that makes sense just seeing some photos, but hopefully you get an idea what I'm talking about. It is important for that steel wire to ride up and down inside the tube to keep it from doing damage to the aluminum tube strapped and glued to the gear strut barrel.

Of course, this is strictly for show. It might add a bit of "bling" or realism to what the real airplanes had. It was a very ingenious design for the P-47 and I wanted to highlight at least the look of it to explain how this system worked and was an important part of the P-47's success. Incidentally, years ago, there was a company who made gear with working shrinker bars, very expensive. But I would have bought it if it was available for the 1/5 scale planes I was making at the time. I think it was for a 1/4 or bigger model. I never went bigger than the 1/5 scale.

Let me know if you have any questions. It is important to be sure that the shrinker bar won't interfere with the actual operation of the gear. With the abuse that the gear takes during takeoffs and landings, it should be inspected regularly to be sure it is staying in place. I"m also including another pic of the tail wheel spring that I use to get the gear doors to open and close properly.



Good luck! Let me know how it goes.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

Elbee,
Thanks. After more detailing I think it will look good.
Will paint the white stripes today. Callie Graphics ordered and arrive in a week or so.
Instead of using chalk I think a dirty wash will outline the panel lines and tone down the paint a little. These aircraft were kept fairly clean by the maint. crews. What do you guys think?

Davegee,
The package arrived today safe and sound.

Best Regards, Rex

Great! standby for a few photos and text on the shrinker bars for the P-47 model.

davegee

[jetfool]

Elbee,
Thanks. After more detailing I think it will look good.
Will paint the white stripes today. Callie Graphics ordered and arrive in a week or so.
Instead of using chalk I think a dirty wash will outline the panel lines and tone down the paint a little. These aircraft were kept fairly clean by the maint. crews. What do you guys think?

Davegee,
The package arrived today safe and sound.

Best Regards, Rex

[Elbee]

jetfool

Cockpit parts are lookin' sweet, Bro.

Best, LB

[davegee]

Put my last spray coat of OD on today and mixed some darker int green paint. Painted the cockpit aera and inst. panels. Hope this looks more like the Republic green used at their factory.

Hi Rex: I think those colors are fine, especially for earlier D model P-47s. They produced over 15,000 P-47s from three factories over the course of WWII, and there were no doubt some minor variations in the colors of the interiors. I think the later bubbletop jugs were a dull dark green, which has a blue tint mixed in there. Yours will look great the way you have it set up.

Cheers

Davegee

[jetfool]

Put my last spray coat of OD on today and mixed some darker int green paint. Painted the cockpit aera and inst. panels. Hope this looks more like the Republic green used at their factory.

[jetfool]

F4Uausie,
It's getting there. Decided to give it one more OD spray coat today. Well, I thinned my paint too much and just as I was finished, I hit a spot, yeah, a run ran down. Thankfully I am using Latex paint and a quick wipe and light spray saved the day. Not spraying anymore OD on this baby. The white comes next then finish the cockpit and start on weathering details. Never Ending!
Hope your having good weather and able to do some flying.

Best Regards, Rex

[f4u ausie]

I have finally sprayed the OD and now I'll check tomorrow to see if any touchup is needed. Less than a month to get to this point, seems longer. May need to spray some grey to blend in the wavey camouflage on Lucky from my pictures. After a day or two I will spray the white stripes on nose and tail.
Hope some of you are enjoying seeing this. Rex

It looks awsome rex,, great job.. its all in the prep work.. vwalla ,,look at the results,, getin close

[jetfool]

Davegee,

The picture will work great. Gives me the dimensions I need. I'll order the 1/8 scale from Callie today, going to order the nomenclature sheet also.
Thanks again, Rex

[davegee]

Davegee,

How wide did you make your stripes on the tail and wings. Also,
how far in from the wing tips and tail tips did you start the white paint. I know they used 24" wide on the nose.
Going to order Callies decals- what scale did you order from her if you remember? !/8, 1/9. 1/10 ?
Would you post a picture of your strut retraction on your landing gear. I have it in my mind, but a picture would re-assure this old brain.
I said in the beginning I'd have a million questions

Best Regards, Rex

Hi Rex: I think I'll retract the idea of "waxing" the Lucky aircraft to make it shinier. I had read somewhere where Johnson talked about his crew chief waxing his aircraft for less drag, but in the pictures I've seen of Lucky while he was still flying it, it looks pretty much like most of the others. Compare that to some photos I've seen and am looking at of Bud Mahurin's and a few others' planes that did get the wax job, they look pretty darned shiny, especially when seen looking down the fuselage.

Regarding the scale of the aircraft, the real P-47Ds had a wingspan of approximately 40' 9" or about 489 inches. The scale of this airplane model, when you take the wingspan of 59 inches and divide that into 489 inches of the real thing, gives you a scale for the model of 1:8.28, or rounded off to 1:8.3. That should be pretty close, knowing that the designers of the model planes have to make some compromises from the real things to make a model airplane fly properly.

We are in the middle of a prolonged windstorm the past couple of days, so I don't have access to my plane "Ole Cock" tp measure the white stripes. I can do that once the storm abates enough to safely take it down in the garage.

I'll attach a copy of a page out of a book by Roger Freeman that I would take to the bank. He shows the white vertical tail stripe to be 12 inches wide, and varied between 30 inches to 36 inches below the top of the vertical stabilizer to the bottom of the white stripe. You's have to have a picture of Lucky showing that to guess how they did it. I think you posted a pic of Lucky earlier up the conversations on HS, so I'll look at that, too.

The horizontal tail stripes were 15 inches wide, and 24 inches from the outer tip of the horizontal tail to the outer edge of the white stripe on the tail.

See what you think from the attached page out of Freeman's book and let me know if you have any questions.