Hello!

Here is my completed Monogram 1/48 P-47N-1-RE Thunderbolt. This particular P-47 was marked “2 BIG and TOO HEAVY” and “SHORT SNORTER”. The P-47N Thunderbolt was produced by Republic Aviation in answer to the USAAF request for fighter aircraft with greater fuel range to serve as escorts to B-29’s based in the Pacific Islands.

The “N” was a redesigned Thunderbolt with larger fuel tanks in the wings and it had the distinctive tail fillet added to it’s fuselage. With eight .50 cal guns and drop tanks, rockets and bombs this fighter really packed a punch to the japs in the pacific!

Here are some pictures of the actual aircraft as she was at Le Shima island in May 1945:

The Kit:
The Monogram kit was released again in the UK by Revell as a limited edition and I had to have it! I had attempted this kit many years before and I did not do very well. I have always liked the nose art so when the kit was re-released I knew I would buy one as I wanted to lay this ghost to rest!

The moulds are quite basic by todays standards and I still do not like Monogram’s strange engineering of having to fit the lading gear into the wings before wing assembly! One can only guess as to why they thought it was a good idea at the time!

That said, the kit fits together easily enough and before I knew it I was onto the painting stage. I used a new metallic paint this time, Xtreme Metal from AK INTERACTIVE:

I was well impressed with this paint! This stuff is great! If you put a decent primer over the model and spray this paint over it in a couple of thin to medium coats the plastic surface takes on the most realistic metallic sheen I have put on one of my models.
A word of warning though, this paint does not suffer fools. If you have to sand a section back, you can’t just over spray it. There will be a step in the paint and it will show. How do I know? Yes, that is right! I am the damn fool who did just that! Yes, I fixed it, but I also learnt a valuable lesson.

I used both AK’s Aluminium and Dark Aluminium shades for the NMF and I mixed my own shade of yellow/orange for the cowl ring and tail panels from Tamiya Acrylics.

I had intended to build this model “Out Of the Box” but unfortunately the kits gun barrel’s were so bad I needed to replace the with resin ones from Quickboost. If you have not used any of their items before, do check them out as their detail sets are excellent.

I also used a decal sheet from Super Scale to replace the kits nose art decals as the kit ones were not well drawn or printed. The Super Scale sheet was much better and the decals went on effortlessly.

I used AK Interactive panel liner enamel washes to weather the model and I used a matte finish from Vallejo Air to give a weathered appearance to the airframe.

So did I lay the ghost of models past to rest? Yeah, I think so…………

Take care and Happy Modelling!

Darren.