Due to this lack of time, mainly cause by work taking up too many hours during the day, my modelling has suffered a little over the last couple of months and general progress on projects has been slow. My P-47 Thunderbolt has taken a few more steps forwards now. The main construction work has been done, the fuselage is assembled along with the wings and I have even started to paint the bird. The colour scheme I have gone for is the Matt Black upper surfaces with bare metal below. So out with the Alclad and the use of various shades of Aluminium. My original plane was to start with Airframe Aluminium all over and pick out the odd panel with other shades. But I changed my mind and went for Duraluminium as the general colour, then pick out the panels with other shades.
I am painting this model in separate sections, i.e. wings, fuselage, cowlings, etc, to get the Alclad right. You can see in the above photo that the left hand wing upper surface is already in Matt Black. I found that it was easier to mask up the wing for painting the separate panels and upper surface not attached to the fuselage. I will be doing the same with the other wing and tailplanes as I go along. The engine covers and cowling are being painted in Alclad first and when the fuselage has had the same treatment, I will be dry assembled for masking prior to the Matt Black.
Here you can see the lower engine cover and the cowls already painted with Alclad. All of the cowl panels and engine covers are painted with Alclad to allow worn areas of paint to show the metal finish below. Most of the painting on the engine has been done, only a bit more weathering needs to be done to in now to finish it off.
The underneath of the wing shows the difference in the Aluminium shades that have been used. The undercarriage bay will need to be repainted and weathered before final assembly of the model. Panel lines will also be picked out and staining from the guns once the decals are added.
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