Seems like we modelers are always searching for the perfect medium to use when it comes to weathering. I also switched to using enamel based washes for panel lines and found Tamiya’s accent colors and some of MIG products work very well. Trick is not to let these washes dry too long or they become a real pain to remove all the unwanted traces especially over acrylic clear coats like Future. That’s why I keep handfulls of Q-Tips on my work bench.

So now I use a combo of clay powders and enamel based washes. What sends me up the wall is when I discover I forgot to clean up a smudge or line etc after I sealed it with a flat coat. Always a never ending learning process isn’t it?

Harvey, looking great as always, and looking forward to seeing the oil work, however restrained.

I think that what you've done with the exhaust stains looks appropriate, with perhaps some blacken soot after final finish coat?

Also, a note on the P-47 exhaust in general... what you see there is the wastegate outlet. What looks like a butterfly valve in that opening is indeed just that, because this is the wastegate exit for the turbo-supercharger. Under normal running conditions this valve could have been opened or closed. However when running the turbo "all-out" (particularly at high altitude) these would open up to limit the amount of hot gases spinning up the turbine to keep from overspinning it when the engine is really pumping out exhaust. So when these valves are closed (and still partially when the are open), most of the exhaust gases exit the fuselage through the turbine housing, which is located in the fuselage, just forward of the tail wheel. That "bulge" that is open aft toward the rear of the fuselage underside is simply a collector hood for the gasses coming out of the large, circular turbine housing. So to my point, some exhaust stains can/should be done there as well. Also, I think the louvers in front of the wastegate port were just additional cowl vents, so I'm not so sure sooty gasses would be emitted from these, though it often looks like some of the wastegate gasses tarnish the rear most of these airways.

I've also read in some locations that many restored P-47's do not functionally use the complex turbo systems, and instead rig the wastegate outlet as the primary exhaust outlet. Be weary of stains seen here in photos of restored P-47's.

If your curious, simply looking up the diagrams for the turbo/exhaust/intake/intercooler system explains some of why the Jug is so jug like. It also explains the poseable intercooler doors on the fuselage, and also what was mentioned above... Sorry if this is tangent or perhaps all something you knew, but I felt obliged to share. 🙂

By the way, I really like the structure and content of your posts, keep the great work coming!

Excellent work on the Jugs!

Thank you all! Andrew, I appreciate the information! I do believe I saw some dirt on that forward intercooler in some photo, but looking back at it it was only 1 photo of a restored example so who knows what shenanigans is going on there. I may tone it down/remove it. I'll definitely add some exhaust to the that turbocharger outlet at the rear, at least on the razorback as I can't imagine the RAF did a huge amount of high altitude flying with their Thunderbolts considering the circumstances. I had heard that the P-47s flying about often lack the turbocharger but I didn't look into it enough to realise the situation with exhaust stains, so I'll give it another check over to see what I can change!

Part of the enjoyable process on models, especially on aircraft you're not accustomed with, is learning the tidbits of information and fact that you otherwise wouldn't have known.

Regardless, here's things are going;

Clear Coats

It was time for that moment, with weathering mostly done at the time I gave them both a clear coat of semi-matt. I always give models two coats to be sure, and at this stage they have a single coat on so I imagine the next photos should look a little different.

I also added some little fiddly bits, the antennas and machine guns are the obvious ones along with the undercarriage and doors. I'm quite surprised with how sturdy the machine guns sit in place and how they actually all point in the right direction, good design there.

Not good design was adding the sprue gate to the end of the barrel, not the side that gets hidden inside the wing. Oh well, nothing that couldn't be touched up. I also added a tiny amount of gunsmoke largely on outboard guns.

One thing not pictured yet is the navigation lights, I've seen people drill a hole into the clear parts and paint the hole to make it look like a coloured bulb. Well this is the first kit I've personally encountered which already has that small indent ready to paint the 'bulb'. Quite handy.

As for the pitot tubes, I spent a few minutes overlooking all the sprues and got quite confused. I then finally brought out the instructions to find the exact part number, only to realise that both pitots had managed to free themselves and are now surely consumed by the carpet monster. No idea when this happened, but I'll fashion some budget sort of spare. I'll either use some parts unused from the seat from the kit, or I'll use some random extra rods I never use with the Corsairs.

Indeed great progress, Harvey @scalerambush
Looking forward to your freshly created pitot tubes.

Thank you very much everyone, I appreciate the comment regarding the paintwork especially!

Removing the masks

With a second clear coat done. Time to remove those pesky masks. I can see a definite noticeable difference in the shine since applying the second coat.

No major issues, though a couple of bits pulled up on the razorback's canopy due to the use of the montex mask rather than eduard tape. Nice to see our pilot again.

As you can see I also took off the canopy of the razorback, I didn't take a picture at the time but the first thing I noticed was that it really needed some seatbelts so I'll go ahead and add them. Where the canopy was glued onto the fuselage I obviously didn't paint it, so I sprayed it in the green colour used before and added chipping with a sponge and brush.

The Little Bits

Mostly I focused on ordinance and checking that off the list. Each was given a wash. With the bombs I added the striped decals, and then later went over with a couple shades of green dry brushed across them. This gave them a bit of a cast texture (though honestly a little too much of a texture), but more importantly gave some variation.

Now lets talk about those Xtradecals for the RAF Thunderbolt. I've not had a great time with them, I find that the pinup is quite low detail, the roundels are very weak and ripped, generally not the best I've encountered. What annoys me more is that as far as I'm aware the only photo of this plane that exists is the one posted earlier, the Imperial War Museum lists the serial but Xtradecal puts it down as unknown. More annoyingly they provide a decal for the. 'Jappy Xmas', which is handy, but they don't have the quote marks or the QL54. If you're going through the effort of making part of the writing, why not all? Regardless, I added it with a brush.

And, a kilroy. The bubbletop has one hiding inside the fuselage, so the razorback needed one somewhere. I'll hide it away with his face facing the fuselage to keep him a little incognito.

Propellers were finally given attention. I tried a different approach to weathering than usual by using a black followed by a very dark grey, and then a tiny amount of silver on a sponge to chip the edge. We'll see how much is noticeable once they get a clear coat.

The M8 Rockets are a bit of a pain, painted in flat olive drab they don't take any washes particularly well as they're so dark. I used a little bit of wash to provide a tiny amount of variation on the tubes, and a black was for the lines though I doubt much of it is visible.

Finally the drop tank was just given a simple black wash.

Next up is to clear coat the little bits, sort out the antenna wire and finally make those pitot tubes.

Edit: Hey, what happened to that Eileen decal? I'll see if I can fix that. Hopefully it'd just a paint chip from the cockpit paint masks.

Edit 2: I was hoping it was a bit of paint flaked off of the mask, or at worse a dollop of rogue green as I had to respray to fix the edges of the fuselage that were previously unpainted under the canopy. Turns out that despite receiving a gloss clear over the entire aircraft, and most recently 2 semi-matt clears, this wasn't enough to prevent some tamiya tape lifting up the decal. Oof. Interesting that the names survived fine despite being under the tape too.

Thankfully yellow and red are among the most difficult paints to use by brush! Therefore repainting it shall be fun. Won't hurt to try either way.

4 additional images. Click to enlarge.

Amazing work, including all "little" bits, my friend @scalerambush!