Official FMS 1500mm P-47D Razorback Thread

[davegee]

Looks Beautiful, Dave. Thanks. Almost have the broken Cub painted and back together for NEW YEAR Day fly. A quick repaired job but looks better in Cub Yellow. Then the P-47 gets put on the bench. I did make the retraction struts and if you look closely, you can see it in the photo with both strut covers on. Going to remove the upper strut spring and make an eye-bolt rod. Will look better. I will cut bottom and lower floorboard as you have done.
My stars and numbers seem a little glossy to me. Should I tone them down somehow? Maybe this was how they were then.

Best Regards, Rex

Sounds good, Rex. The Mk II gunsight is coming along well, and I'll include it with the rest of the parts that I'll send.

Regarding the stars and bars and other insignia sheen, they should all be a matte finish, not gloss. These were all painted with stencils with the official matte colors in use at the time, so if they are glossy, if you can put a matte spray on them to tone them down a bit, that would look better and more accurate.

I looked at the pics again and saw your shrinker bars installed. I remember we were talking about these some time ago, and I figured they must already be installed since that conversation back when.

When you start up again on finishing up the P-47 for the contest, let's get a list of what things you want me to print as detail items, and I can send them to you. The pilot figure is finished printing, came out pretty well, and you can paint him to install in the airplane. I'll print out a pilot seat that you can see if that will work for him or not. With the lowered floor, I think he'll fit in there fine and the seat glued to the back wall might help.

Just curious, is there ever an opportunity for the contestants to discuss with the judges the finer points of the models that they built for the show? Or, maybe you just put them on the table where the judges will make their decisions and you go from there? I was thinking you have or will have a number of detail items on your plane that most people would not be aware of, that it would be nice to point out some of your handiwork. Just a wish, I guess, on my part!

Cheers

Dave

[davegee]

Rex: just completed the Mk II reflector gunsight like the one used on Lucky and many other early P-47s. It should be easy to glue the two flanges on the front of it to the control panel of your plane after you have removed the gunsight that came with the model. Not a great pic but I think it will look much better and more accurate for your contest.

Cheers

Davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,
That looks great. All the OEM cockpit parts are just spot glued for the airplane day at our full-size airport. I'll remove everything to cut the floorboard out. Putting Cub back together so the 47 will soon see the worktable. Thank you so much for the scale items.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Happy to help out a bit. You did all the hard work. We can assess anything else that might be good to add. For instance, maybe a good control stick and hand grip if you don’t have one. I know this one will fit in the pilot’s hand. You can let me know what you need or want.

Great to hear about the “resurrection” of the Cub. I bet it might even fly better than before!!

cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Yeah, the control stick would be great. Going to mask around the stars and other vinyl and lightly spray matte clear. Will do one star on the bottom to check first. A Scary moment when I do this. Please remember to keep track of your time and costs while doing this for me. Better yet just take a drive first of April and enter one of your models, then I won't have to do all this work.
If you can arrange it a winning POWERBALL ticket would be great! LOL
Best Regards, Rex

[Grossman56]

Hey Rex, I owe you a few as well, if you want, maybe Dave will print up a pilot and I can paint it for you?

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[jetfool]

Grossman56,
Very generous offer, unexpected! Not necessary, hate to take your free time. You guys are great, wish we all could meet in person.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Hey Dan and Rex: you guys work it out, if you want to accept Dan’s offer to paint your pilot, I have him printed just waiting to be painted. I could send him along with the other stuff I’m sending when I get it all done.Just let me know.

Dan, I’ll print the big head for that pilot tomorrow, along with the red box for the Cheyenne turret.

Cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,
As regards to the judges at toledo. A little different than at a scale comp, they judge the models after hours and you don't have the opportunity to talk to them. Everything about the scale presentation has to be in your documentation information. 3-view, color chips, photos of the actual plane, if possible, etc. Dave Platt told me only use black and white photos or they might go by the color photo and not your color chips.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Davegee,
As regards to the judges at toledo. A little different than at a scale comp, they judge the models after hours and you don't have the opportunity to talk to them. Everything about the scale presentation has to be in your documentation information. 3-view, color chips, photos of the actual plane, if possible, etc. Dave Platt told me only use black and white photos or they might go by the color photo and not your color chips.
Best Regards, Rex

Cool. Thanks for the explanation. I will be dropping off the printed pilot for your airplane to Dan tomorrow. He'll start working on painting it, and maybe do some sort of podcast or masterclass on painting rc figures in a very realsistic manner and look. I'm sure you'll be impressed by his handiwork.

Will be in touch.

Cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

Yeah, Dan has agreed to paint him and I think he'll be the best authentic pilot at the show.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Yeah, Dan has agreed to paint him and I think he'll be the best authentic pilot at the show.
Best Regards, Rex

Agreed! Are you still up for making an openable canopy?

dave

[jetfool]

Yes on opening canopy. Did you use strip magnets or round? I have round but ordering strip. Will add the new gunsight and armor glass plus my FL spitfire mirror.
Rex

[davegee]

Sounds good. I used two round magnets on each side of the sliding canopy, but there are probably several ways to do it. I’ll send some photos of what I did and you can see how you want to do yours. I have about 30 flights with my magnet- held sliding canopy. Never an instance yet of it coming loose or detached from the airplane. I have never flown it with the canopy open, for it probably would blow off in flight, but the canopies were seldom opened, especially in Europe, unless it was an emergency, of course.

I’ll try to post some pics tomorrow.

Regarding cutting the windscreen from the canopy, I found it pretty easy to use a razor saw and steady hand to separate them. I put some masking tape on either side of the proposed cut to give it some protection and a guide for cutting.

I’m here for any questions if you have any, but you’re pretty savvy with things like this so I’m sure it will go great.

BTW, I took my Timber out for a workout on our snow covered runway today under gorgeous brilliant sunshine and blue sky. I hope to take it up again tomorrow. It was a total blast doing about 20 touch and go’s with its big tundra tires.

I look forward to seeing pics of your rebuilt Cub when you take it up again!

Dave

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Sounds like fun. Bet it does well in snow with tundra tires. I'll include a pic of the Cub going back together. I have hurriedly glued back together, poly-acrylic a couple coats and a rush job of painting. I didn't take a lot of time to smooth over things because the guys are betting, I wouldn't have it ready to fly Jan. 1. HA! Believe I will take their money. It's sad but I usually rebuild their wreaked planes because they don't know how and don't want to learn. Sad! I changed the color, painted the pilot and put him in the back seat. Added throttles and bottom of seats. Doesn't look bad for my everyday flyer.
Rex

[davegee]

Davegee,
Sounds like fun. Bet it does well in snow with tundra tires. I'll include a pic of the Cub going back together. I have hurriedly glued back together, poly-acrylic a couple coats and a rush job of painting. I didn't take a lot of time to smooth over things because the guys are betting, I wouldn't have it ready to fly Jan. 1. HA! Believe I will take their money. It's sad but I usually rebuild their wreaked planes because they don't know how and don't want to learn. Sad! I changed the color, painted the pilot and put him in the back seat. Added throttles and bottom of seats. Doesn't look bad for my everyday flyer.
Rex

It just looks "right" in that Cub Yellow paint scheme!

Cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

I have a color picture of my Dad in 1947 standing by the Cub he rented and will add that N number. The N number back then was on the rudder w/wings all yellow Dad said he and his buddy would chase and hunt coyotes in large fields having to rise up to clear the fences. He must have been a daredevil back then.
Rex

[davegee]

I have a color picture of my Dad in 1947 standing by the Cub he rented and will add that N number. The N number back then was on the rudder w/wings all yellow Dad said he and his buddy would chase and hunt coyotes in large fields having to rise up to clear the fences. He must have been a daredevil back then.
Rex

A personal connection to your dad through this Cub with the same markings of the plane he once flew. Very cool!

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

Hi Rex: I just took a couple pics of my P-47D Penrod and Sam cockpit to show you the technique I used to attach the sliding canopy. As said previously, there are any number of ways you can go to attach the sliding canopy on a flyable airplane. I used a total of four (4) round rare earth magnets that I attached where you can see on the photo with the canopy removed and upside down. In the second photo, I showed a strip of magnetic thin steel that I cut and glued in place on the sides of the cockpit rails. The magnets cling to the metal strips and allow the canopy to slide back and forth, and you can open the canopy to any open position you want to. It's simple, but it works, and when the canopy is closed for flying, it has never moved a bit under the air load. That's over 30 flights!

I'll attach a couple of pics. I highly recommend having a removable,slidable canopy, especially for things like this contest. Sure, you can look inside and see some of the details when it is closed, but you miss a lot if you can't open it and show the judges the amount of detailing you have done.

Cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

Dad and I flew our Piper Pacer (I learned to fly and solo), then our piper Cherokee many times to Oshkosh, slept under the wing for the week and loved every minute of it.
I have 1/4 scale plans of the Pacer/tri-pacer I hope to build someday in our paint and N #