crazypoet

So I’ve loved the SBD Dauntless in all its iterations since I first read about the Battle of Midway... Long-term, I want to build a 1/32 set of the various aircraft involved in the battle. For now, though, I have the 1/48 Eduard SBD-5 Special Edition, which is kinda fun. It’s a later version than the SBD-3s from Midway but it at least gives me a fix and a break from daily Corona-news-itis I haven’t decided which specific aircraft to build, but it will be one of the versions in the box. There’s enough PE and resin in the kit already, so I decided to go strictly out-of-box I have most of the interior done, over the span of a few odd hours here and there over the last two weeks. Assembling the interior panels will be kinda tricky, so I’ll use mostly canopy cement to get things located then lock it down with CA where needed.

This is breathtaking! Those elegant old birds taking off took me into a whole other world for a while Thank you for posting this. now - how the f**k did they get them in board in the first place? I’m guessing cranes? Those old birds are too valuable to have risked an actual landing...?

It’s an ironic and sad thing both I’ve wanted a couple of specific WNW kits, but was putting them off because I don’t have a ton of room for a stash. Now this happens. I’d have assumed that SPJ would not let his “baby” die like this. It seems now that the business side of things was far more complex and that WNW was simply “caught in the storm” of issues affecting all of those inter-related businesses Its a true shame and I feel for those exquisite craftspeople now having to look elsewhere. I hope that they land gently and with organizations that respect and make use of their skills. And it seems that I am going to have to bite the bullet and pay extra to grab the kits while still available. Bloody virus

This is utterly gorgeous! its a joy to watch it come together

So while I’m working on the flaps... A question for those who may have trod this path before... On all the color pics I’ve seen, the Outer/exposed part of the mechanical links are painted (or not) to match the surrounding wing. Awesome and makes perfect sense. The inner mechanical bits (that’s a valid technical term according to all of my ex-spouses...) are a bit less obvious. Refurbished aircraft show them in both primer and bare metal. I’ve not (yet) found a good color photo of the naked nethers of a P-47 during WWII. any hints?

I got that same advice, and of course being a loyal Fed will be self-administering both IV and atomized Clorox while parked unprotected under a set of high-intensity UV lights for 24 hours

Greetings all - been a somewhat crazy time this year, to say the least. I work at CDC, and we’ve been a wee bit busy of late. Even with all the madness, quarantine has finally proven to be useful. I’ve been puttering around here and there with the P-47 - wonderful stress relief! Sooooo... What’s been done? I have the fuse joined up and some fiddly work done in getting some of the Eduard PE to fit properly. Doesn’t look like much, but it involves a fair number of curses and I’m still not 100% happy, but it’s good enough to move forward. I’m working the wings now. I have the Eduard Gun Bay set, so these will be open. I like their approach, and so far all the bits are fitting with no more than the usual amount of cursing and throwing things. Getting the assembly and painting into the proper sequence was more of a challenge than I thought it would be, but it’s clicking along nicely. Ailerons and flaps both have PE pieces on the exposed ends, which took some judicious filing and sanding to fit. Plus, they had to be finished and mostly painted before I could join the wing halves and finish the interior of the gun bays. That’s where I am now. I have a nice set of turned brass barrels for the guns, which all also need some mods and PE additions. I’ll finish these after I get the interior of the bays mostly done. After painting the upper sides of the flaps and ailerons, I realized that the Tamiya Olive Green is a bit dark. I’ll tone it down a bit with some light overcoats and washes - the color was a bit faded after these sat out in the sun, not to mention the occasional patch and such. That’s where I plan to have a lot of fun. Ditto the neutral gray for the underside; Tamiya Neutral Gray is a bit dark, so I’m starting with Royal Light Gray, and will fiddle around with it as I go as well. All in all, once working through the utter insanity of the interior, this is coming along happily. I will face something of a conundrum with the Ammo belts though. The kit has some not-terrible flexible plastic belts, but they aren’t as long as they should be *and* may also not fit well inside the PE feed chutes. The Eduard PE belts are just... nasty. They are two layers of PE, which look nothing so much as, well, two layers of PE... No link details, nothing rounded... I’m going to likely end up using a bit of both. PE to add some length and depth under the kit belts and also to fit inside the feed chutes if the kit belts don’t work. It’s not going to be at all boring any time soon!

I bit the bullet and ordered a PE set for the Revell HE-111 P1 - cockpit/seatbelts, exterior, undercarriage and paint masks This build is on the far back burner, but wanted to get these while they were still available

With the engine finally done, I dusted off the cockpit and crammed all the plumbing (well, actually *some* of the plumbing - only that which was visible, necessary for fit or both) into the left side of the fuse, took a deep breath and closed the door its pretty much a one-shot thing, since the wing spars are a very snug fit and don’t like to pull back out. (sounds like me as a teenager, come to think on it) so everything fit, with the exception of one slightly stubborn gap in the belly, which will resolve with some judicious pressure and virulent chemicals. i haven’t glued the sides yet, But this thing is finally starting to look like an airplane

I would love to see some of the larger aircraft in larger scales one of the things I’d love to build is a set of the white-painted Bettys who carried the Japanese surrender delegates, along with their B-25 Strafer escorts

Ha! It worked out for them this time, didn’t it?

What tricked me was the everything fit perfectly when assembled incorrectly until I went to connect the firewall and nothing lined up even when I did v2, it took me finally having to shave off the alignment tabs and use a bit of force to make it fit correctly just bad engineering from Trumpeter but it got me a second kit to play with, so it was kinda worth it

I went in through the out door on the first engine - I plugged the intakes into the exhaust ports. if I’d paid closer attention I’d have realized that - despite everything still sort of fitting, the whole back of the engine was twisted slightly to the left. The exhaust and collector ring still - oddly fits, even in the wrong ports, but it screws up all the connections to the firewall doh!

For the tail wheel you may be right. The main gear seems pretty substantive. When I get to that point I’ll clean up the metal gear - the castings are pretty rough - and see which works best thanks for the feedback on the tail!

Harv - I used the P-47D interior and exterior sets from Eduard, plus I’ll be using their gun bay set. Beyond that, I’m using barracudacast wheels and Aber turned-brass gun barrels i bought a set of cast metal landing gear from scale aircraft conversions, but the kit plastic actually looks better and weight shouldn’t be an issue

Greetings all - it’s been a minute since I posted, for reasons that will soon become obvious! Ernie - the engine is the R2800-21, with the smooth crankcase casting. I’m building this aircraft as a D-5 RE variant, and that’s the correct motor. The two-piece crown-style crank goes with the later C-series motor, on later editions of the P-47. that said... I cheated a bit on the valve covers. The correct covers for this have, for lack of a better term, “fit issues”. So after much frustration, I switched to the flat valve covers which happen to fit and align perfectly. As it happens, they are also all but invisible after assembly, so I took a deep breath and made the switch. This build will be cowl-on, with the only view of the valve covers being a wee sliver from behind via open cowl flaps. It’s an incorrect pairing, but one that I’m happy with. All that said...when we last met, I’d just about finished the engine and was starting to cast a stink-eye on the internal plumbing of this beast. then... it happened. Engine v1.0 just would not sit right. After much head-scratching, it hit me. It seems that I’d managed to route the air intake lines into the wrong connections on the back side of the cylinders very early in the process, shifting everything about five degrees off. in hindsight, I realized that I’d sided with part fit over drawing accuracy. As-cast, the intake lines simply do not fit where they are intended - the keys that align the intake manifold with the rear bank of cylinders only fit one way. As it happens, it fits the *wrong* way. It requires cutting off the alignment keys to make it fit properly. Who knew? so a conundrum! I could take the approach that another builder did (cut off the back of the engine entirely, go with closed cowl flaps and use a magnet or similar approach to connect the engine to the firewall) or I could rebuilt it correctly. i bit the bullet and decided to build a new engine. Which involved buying a new kit. I’ll eventually build a second complete aircraft and find a way to correctly mount engine 1.0 after taking a hacksaw to its backside. I’ve attached front and rear views of the two engines... Note the odd alignment on the back of the engine on the right. I submit myself to your abuse for the asinine assumption that someone at the factory had actually test-built one of these and that the part alignment was indeed correct. Mea culpa! so. Now that’s fixed, and I have a whole spare kit to do other things with! next, on to the whole -5-RE thing. the obviously visible differences between the -5 (that I’m building) and -20 (what’s in the kit) variants of the P-47D involve the cowl flaps and external stores. The -5 still had the older squared-off cowl flaps, and no hard points/shackles on the wings. The wing hardware is a simple adjustment - just don’t install the bomb racks. Life is good. the cowl flaps were a bit of a challenge as I had to *add* material. This involved mostly cutting a piece of card to fit, plus some sanding and filling. That’s all now done, except for redoing the rivet holes and painting. and I am now back to where I was at the beginning of the holidaze, ready to stuff all this into the fuselage and close it up

I am coming to really appreciate the ANYZ spark plugs and braided line its sometimes a pain to connect, but it looks gorgeous when it’s done

Step by slow step! i keep hoping for more Bench Time, but it comes in drips and drabs over the holidaze... at any rate, I did finally have a chance to finish the engine. I debated some additional hoses And such, but they would be mostly buried, so I decided to pass also, since the cowl will be on and closed, I didn’t pay *too* much attention to the back and side views of the engine. the parts that might be visible through open cowl flaps will get a bit more attention later, but for now this is it. Now, on to stuffing all the plumbing inside and closing up the fuselage... that will take a bit of hammering and sawing, and possibly some explosive

That would be...amazing!

Managed to get a bit further on the engine - it’s beginning to look a bit like an engine now...

Some additional early Christmas goodies at the Poet Household Eduard once again made off with chunks of my personal net worth... A Big Ed set for the Trumpy P-40B, and a mess o’ goodies (including a complete replacement cockpit) for the Revell Spitfire MkII

Lesson learned!

And... something to warn everyone about i was looking at getting a resin replacement for the P-47 engine, as there are thing about it that I just didn’t like in terms of the engineering approach taken by Trumpeter. so I ordered the supposed-correct replacement from Engines & Things. gawds what a mess - this is the sloppiest casting I’ve ever seen. Some of the bits are utterly unrecognizable, while that that can be recognized are simply...wrong. i don’t know if the have better versions of other engines, but I am embarrassed on their behalf for selling this stuff

Santa made an early delivery at the Poet residence... I’m looking at a Battle of Britain grouping after I do the 8th Air Force and southwest pacific stuff I have already on the queue... so I nabbed the 1/32 Revell Spitfire MkII and He-111 P1 kits for that then... since I’ve always wanted one and this is likely as close as I’ll ever actually come to owning it... the old AMT 1/16 ‘55 Chevy Nomad kit. This kit has both stock and factory speed options, so I’ll have some fun with it. The interior is sadly lacking detail inside the roof - I’ll have to decide if I want to fix that or just shrug and go with it. I’ll probably let my OCD out to play and find some way to finish the pillars and roof liner, just because I’d always be irritated if I didn’t...

Harv - what scale is that figure? It’s amazingly life-like!