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, in fact
I think it's too large for 1/72nd scale. 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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