Dora Wings P-47B

Hi All!

This is Dora Wings' latest kit, the Republic P-47B. It is a high-end limited-run kit and should be treated as such.

Here are a few suggestions for building the kit.

Make sure you remove all excess plastic, etched brass, and paint from the mounting surfaces. Failure to do so will lead to fit issues and drive you nuts.

In the cockpit there was no way with my fat and arthritic fingers I was going to use some of the etched parts, so I was forced to improvise. The two levers on the floor near the seat were replaced with fine wire and glue knobs. The throttle quadrant had 3 holes drilled into the top surface and again fine wire and glue knobs were used.

I needed to sand the cockpit assembly a bit so the fuselage would fit together.

Be careful as there are 2 rudders and 2 sets of elevators, make sure you use the correct ones, the ones with the fabric coverings.

The wings surprised me with the amount of trimming, and sanding required to get them to fit well. The tabs which fit into the fuselage need to be trimmed a bit as they appear to be too long. With all of the work fitting the wing, I still had a gap in the leading edge of the port wing.

The tail wheel assembly. There are 3 ways to do this. The first is the Dora Wings' way. That is how I did it, not thinking of the alternatives until too late. The first alternative is to assemble the tailwheel parts in step 40 BEFORE the fuselage halves are assembled. Make sure part E7 (the mounting bulkhead) is cemented in the correct position and dry (step 19). Add the assembly from step 40, and part H11 then assemble the fuselage. The last way, and probably the best way is to drill out the assembly from step 40 and use the Monogram tail wheel, it is a lot stronger. What happened with my kit is I tried the kit parts, and the tail wheel was broken off the first time I moved the kit sideway. I then tried to drill out the kit parts for the Monogram tail wheel and they broke apart, with me losing parts. So I was forced to use the Monogram tail wheel assembly. The issue is it is too narrow. I had to securely glue it in place. trim the Monogram doors the adapt the DW doors to fit.

Now for the guns. Dora Wings would have you add them in steps 27 and 28 with the leading edge covers in steps 30 and 31. But sure as there are thunderstorms here in Florida, if I followed the instructions I would have broken off the guns (just as I did in the Monogram P-47D Bubbletop I have on the SOD). The leading edge parts with the gun ports, parts E6 and E8 do not fit well and will need filling and sanding. So I add the guns individually. And I still broke one when attaching the tip navigation lights.

The majority of the kit went together so-so, I did use crazy glue to reinforce the landing gear legs, Be prepared to fit, sand, and trim the parts. If you wish to have diamond tread patterns on your main wheels, use the Monogram parts.

All in all, it is a nice kit. There are some issues, mostly of my making but the Dora Wings P-47B is a decent kit of a neglected variant of the Thunderbolt. One note about the markings, Dora Wings provides the titling "US Army" in an Arial style font. This is correct for the P-43, but in what images I have seen for the P-47A and B, Republic used the 45-degree lettering. I cannot tell if it was blue or black, I had black and that ia what I used. My model represents a Republic P-47B-RE serial No. 41-5901 called "Lucky Seven", a presentation aircraft from Republic to the USAAC, the seventh serialed P-47B. If you have some experience with limited-run kits, you should have an easy time. It would be an excellent introduction to limited-run kits, and I recommend it very highly.

Bruce

4 additional images. Click to enlarge.