Tamiya 1:72 P-47 Razorback Construction
Most of the cockpit detail is as moulded by Tamiya and really would look just fine right out of the box. The Eduard set and Yahu instrument panel take it up a notch though. As I mentioned, I'm not a big fan of Eduard's pre-painted etch and usually remove most of it with lacquer thinner right off the bat. Eduard's paint is thick and grainy, some of the colours are downright bizarre and the printed instruments are nowhere near as crisp as the printed acetate they used to give us, thus the Yahu replacement instrument panel. Also, although Eduard's painted seatbelts look great on the fret, the paint will easily flake off unless they are applied in a very stiff and unrealistic "freshly ironed" pose.
The etched seat looks great, but it is considerably larger than the kit seat so I had to move the rear bulkhead back to accomodate it by inserting bits of plastic in the bulkhead mounting slots (circled in red above). This meant of course that the mounts for the cockpit moulded in the fuselage halves also had to be modified accordingly.
Wiring was added to the engine from fine wire painted a copper colour to simulate the braided covering. Just barely visible on the oil sump is a miniscule Pratt & Whitney logo from Fündekals.
I added the sway braces to the bomb shackles by punching tiny discs out of .005" plastic sheet with a Waldron Sub-Miniature punch & die set. Short lengths of fine wire were superglued on and then each one was inserted into fine holes drilled in the bomb shackles. I made a couple of extra ones just in case, this turned out to be a wise decision as I promptly lost the first two I tried to use. A similar method was used for the sway braces on the fuselage shackles, though with slightly thicker wire.
Gun blast tubes are stainless steel tubing, pitot is from Master. Brake lines are 0.2mm lead wire. The tires should be block pattern (see below), but somewhat surprisingly, no one makes any aftermarket 1/72 P-47D wheels so I had to make do with the kit wheels.
Below: The only two photos I managed to find of this aircraft:
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