1976 Revell 1/72 scale P-47 rises from the junk box

[plasticprime]

This P-47 was part of a “Battle of Berlin” 1/72 scale kit I purchased in 1976. I had put the fuselage together in “glue bomb” fashion and sprayed it with an old rattle can of Testors silver with the idea of blowing it up with a firecracker as part of a Super-8 film. That never happened and it was thrown into a junk box, which I recently came across. I decided to resurrect it and practice techniques I’ve never tried before. This was my first attempt at masking with tape (all rattle cans - don’t have an airbrush). I still had the original decals, many of which disintegrated upon use, but careful fidgeting with Micro Set & Sol saved some of them. I used yellow dry transfers to fill in the gaps. Back in ’76 I had originally attempted to paint the canopy by hand and then tried to remove the less than satisfactory results with turpentine, which completely fogged it. I found some online tutorials on restoring clear parts and finally got it so you could at least see through it. I scratch built a red fuel cap for the underbelly tank and had to build a new antenna mast. I mounted the finished model on a brass rod and used a picture frame as the base. The picture frame was unfinished, so I sanded and stained it. I created the graphics for the frame and used a photo I took to create the impression of an underbelly reflection. None of this is historically accurate, but I like the way it looks and I think I managed to salvage something reasonable from a total write off.

[Jim B]

Great looking Thunderbolt.  Very nice.

[TarheelRick]

Oh my yes, very nice Thunderbolt, the true workhorse of WWII.  Even though it often flew in the "shadow" of the P-51, it still did an excellent job.

[plasticprime]

On 6/1/2021 at 10:22 AM, Jim B said:

Great looking Thunderbolt.  Very nice.

Thank you!

[plasticprime]

5 hours ago, TarheelRick said:

Oh my yes, very nice Thunderbolt, the true workhorse of WWII.  Even though it often flew in the "shadow" of the P-51, it still did an excellent job.

Thank you! In many respects the P-47 was like a flying tank. It was an awesome platform for ground assaults, and it could withstand a great deal of punishment as well. And I think many marks provided a fair amount of armor plate protection in the cockpit for the pilot. 

[PappyD340]

Very nice!

[DonW]

7 tons of screaming sh*t, my Dad used to say. As he was a Spitfire pilot, you can appreciate his point. The emergency procedure, he told me, was to undo the safety straps and run around the cockpit.

Great model of a redoubtable aeroplane.