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The
kit that I will go on to describe to you is the Hasegawa P-47D Thunderbolt,
in 1/48 scale. The quality of the various parts is phenomenal, in fact during the
assembly of the kit I have
never used fuller, and the joints are highly precise.
I have preferred to reproduce the P-47D piloted by the Captain Mahurin.
Capt. Walker "Bud" Mahurin of the 63rd FS, 56th FG, was
credited with 19.75 kills, and all but three were scored using this War Bond
P-47D-5-RE.
Mahurin was shot down by a Do-217 gunner on 27
March
1944, but later commanded the 4th FIG in Korea, scoring 3.5 kills. The
standard internal armament of the P-47 was eight 0.5-in (12,7 mm) machine
guns, a fit considered to be more than adequate throughout the conflict.
Besides these machine guns, I added the rocket
launchers, and an external fuel tank.
The standard weapon was the M8
4.5-in (11,43 CM) rocket, carried in M10 triple launcher tubes just
inboard of the wing pylon.
Click on
images below to see larger images
Before
painting the
camouflage, I painted the whole kit in aluminium metalizer
(MODEL-MASTER), and only after having polished it, I have applied in the
upper surfaces of the airplane in olive drab with the undersides being
finished in
neutral grey. The inside of the
undercarriage wheel well, has been painted in chromate
Europe, while the inside of the cockpit waqs done in green zinc chromate.
After the drying of the various colors, with the help of a knife and toothpicks I
carefully removed the top level of paint to expose the aluminium metalizer
underneath to give my P-47 a realistic look as would have been seen in the
difficult environment in which they operated.
After doing this, I applied a gloss clear coat to prepare the way
for decaling, which, once dry, I applied a coat of clear gloss.
After
having verified that the film of the decals has disappeared, and this thanks to
the gloss clear cost, I applied a uniform opaque-clear gloss coat, so that to get a glazed finish.
I finally added the various anti-collisions lights and the radio
antenna using some very thin fishing thread.
I warmly recommend this kit to modellers that enjoy building WW2
aircraft.
Busolini
Click on
images below to see larger images
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