Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

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pmmaker
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Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by pmmaker »

Well, finally finished this one off after a short hiatus. It turned out to be an unexpected long duration build due to some technical issues and well, a general lack of enthusiasm on my part.

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Technical issues: This was an original Japanese release of this kit by Hasegawa.
The box had lots of Japanese characters showing this to be a VERY old kit. As such, the decals were horrendous and rather unusable. The problem with is is that this particular aircraft was the scheme I REALLY WANTED to build. With no after-market decals available, I had to make due and use these. That meant a lot of extra work, scrounging, and hand painting and piecing together to get some markings that looked okay.

Generally, the build went well. All the parts go together nicely. Filling and sanding is limited to the fuselage seams and the wing roots. I used a fine saw and cut my canopy to be able to have an open canopy display. Overall, building this model was a bit of fun despite my heart not really being in it. I used Testors olive drab and aircraft grey in shake cans for the painting - something I generally don't do, but found I actually liked doing.

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So here are some quick pictures of the completed build. Overall, it didn't turn out too bad. I've got a couple more of these Hasegawa Thunderbolts sitting in my stash waiting t be done - I'll be getting to them sometime soon.

pmmaker

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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by PTB11 »

Terrific work.
Regards, Paddy.

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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by PropWash »

Nice job, PMM. I am overwhelmed by the size of the stars on the underside of the wings. Was this marking specific for this aircraft? Or did they have trigger-happy AAA gunners in their area they wanted to make sure knew it was a friendly in their sights?
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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by pmmaker »

PropWash wrote:Nice job, PMM. I am overwhelmed by the size of the stars on the underside of the wings. Was this marking specific for this aircraft? Or did they have trigger-happy AAA gunners in their area they wanted to make sure knew it was a friendly in their sights?
From all I've read and pictures I've seen of the real planes, the double national insignia on the under wing surfaces were standard markings. One (I believe the left one) was larger than the one on the right. I've never encountered an explanation as to "why" it was done, just that it was the way the P-47 was marked.

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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by iggie »

That's very tidy!
Best wishes

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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by Old_Tonto »

Top build mate. I love the old Has jug.
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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by jssel »

They were both the same size and were for ID purposes. Oh..........real nice build.
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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by JohnRatzenberger »

The large insignia (same size usually) under each wing was unique to P-47's in Europe to distinguish them from the Fw-190, the only other significant radial-engine single engine a/c in those theaters.
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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by uavdb »

The giant under wing insignia was in fact to differentiate it from the Axis aircraft namely the Fw-190. AA gunners were a notoriously nervous bunch...
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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by shangos70 »

Nice work, it's a long time since I painted the main colours while the kit was still on the sprue. Was the fit good or did you need some touching up along seems etc?
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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by pmmaker »

shangos70 wrote:Nice work, it's a long time since I painted the main colours while the kit was still on the sprue. Was the fit good or did you need some touching up along seems etc?
Thank you shangos, I appreciate the kind words.

Yes, I try to paint main components prior to building. This allows me to maneuver the parts without manhandling a complete model. When I build a model, I build it "component" style. I build wings, fuselage, and landing gear as individual sub-assembles and decal them. Then I put all these sub-assemblies together. At that point I do my corrective fixes, touch-ups, and filing/sanding. For me, this is just the system that works best.

This model was no different. When I built the fuselage, I had to do some minor filling and sanding which was nothing out of the ordinary. Once I mated the wings to the fuselage, I filled the wing root joints with a product I love to use called "Perfect Plastic Putty". Once dry, I gave a light sanding, masked off the fuselage and wings, and touched up the wing roots with a quick spray. I really encountered no "building" issues. As I posted in my initial thread, my problems with this build centered exclusively on the decals.

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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by skypirate »

Nicely done!
Coincidentally I have the same kit on the bench, and I have built another many years ago.

Cheers,

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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by flyingt »

I like it I use rattle cans too.i like the display.
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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by K5083 »

Great work. I don't know why you say there are no aftermarket decals for this kit. There are tons of them. This are some accuracy faults with this kit but they generally go unremarked because they make the model look better than a real P-47 (slimmer sleeker fuselage) so nobody minds them.

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Re: Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Razorback "Little Chief"

Post by pmmaker »

K5083 wrote:Great work. I don't know why you say there are no aftermarket decals for this kit. There are tons of them. This are some accuracy faults with this kit but they generally go unremarked because they make the model look better than a real P-47 (slimmer sleeker fuselage) so nobody minds them.

August
My definition of "available" may differ than yours. If I have to pay three or four times more for a sheet of decals than I pay for a kit, then in my view, they aren't readily available. If none are listed on eBay or my local hobby shop doesn't have any decals for the kit, they aren't available. For this one, the decals weren't available. The only sheet I could find were in 48th scale. One of my local hobby shops did have a set for $24.99, more than twice what I paid for the kit but the wrong scale.

I don't mind buying after market decals if the build is a really expensive kit that I am very much invested in building to a high standard. But for a quick weekend build of a "cheapie" kit, I won't spend the money. As I've posted in my introduction to the forum, sweating all the little details of any kit no longer concerns me. I've built some pretty inaccurate kits that I totally enjoyed and love to display.

Thank you to everyone for the supportive comments - they are appreciated.

pmmaker
The Mad Hatter: "Have I gone mad"
Alice: “I’m afraid so. . . you’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. . . All the BEST people are.”
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