A good friend of mine has asked me for a favor and we got to talking...his father in law was a big WW2 fighter pilot, flew a p-47, well we got to talking and he said he would love a re-pro panel with the nose art of his plane "Missatin" in his office in like 1/4 scale... I can do the nose are but have no CLUE how to work metal or even the direction/materials/tools needed to do it... i don't care if i need to buy a bunch of tools, some i might have, but I figured we'd have fun doing it here is another guy who already does the panels, that i want to reproduce. point me in the direction. what materials am i going to need? what tools?
I've also wanted to do some of these and here's what I was thinking ... don't overithink it. Why not use rugged/light materials that simulate the same effects? I mean, you could probably to a lot of magic with a hammer and a custom made punch to achieve the same looks on a thin sheet of steel with a n aluminum framework beneath it, maybe even formed pieves of aluminum to give it the same general shape as a the fuselage. I don't know, it's just what I've been thinking. I'd like to know what you end up doing.
2024 T-3 aluminum. .032" would be ok for what you want. If you need rivets let me know. You could buck them with an air hammer if you don't have a rivet gun.
I think the Radio Control hobbyists have smaller sized Dzus fasteners. If you used a few of them along with 1/8" rivets, it might have a definite aircraft look.
If you want countersunk rivets you'll have to have a little thicker material or a dimple die. Go here. http://www.avwebbooks.com/4313.htm
Carroll Smith (Nuts, Bolts, and Fasteners) wrote several excellent books on race cars in the days of monocoque aluminum--in other wors, the roughly '65-75 time when an Indy or Formula car was built about like a WWII fuselge. I thing engineer to win and prepare to win, Nuts bolts and fasteners, and one of the sheet fabrication books around the streetrodding world will give you more than enough to build some curved panels with little access ports and such. Also check Flatdog--I think he has a contact who makes just this sort of repro nose art.
I could build a few if there was a need. I don't really want to get into anything big though. Give me some sizes and I might be able to work out something in trade.
well i cant really see closeups. but these are supposed to be repro p-47 panels, I see what looks like rivets, but cant tell http://www.fightingcolors.com/custompagestuff/custompage.htm thats the page http://www.fightingcolors.com/ website where i got kinda the idea from, i COULD just get a panel from this guy, but....i wanted to see if I could do it myself just for a winter type project.... anyone know about p-47s enough to know if what im seeing is rivets or not and if they are countersunk?
after looking at some p47 pictures i can see where the pics i post above where "that" particular panel was on the plane, I'm curious to see where my friends father in laws nose art was done, what panel....because that may make things much easier. I should probably buy a model kit and scale it from there too.
i just asked him "where" on the p47 the nose art was...could make this project much easier and just be as simple as this
Look at a couple of warbird magazines on the newsstands--I know someone offers a CD of blueprint and shop manual info for the Mustang giving dimensions for everything, likely there's one for the P47 out there.
A couple of years ago I saw similar reproduction panels at Kermit Weeks place in Polk City. They built a round shaped wooden frame (like a buck) and skinned it with aluminum. They used a domed nail to replicate the rivet to attach the aluminum. Once it was painted and the nose art applied... it looked great. If you need some vintage WW2 stencils cut, PM me. Terry
Nose art on P-47s was typically in two places depending on the fighter group. On the nose cowling or if the cowling carried group markings then just behind the nose cowling and forward of the cockpit. The one thing that has always bugged me about those repro panels is they nowhere near looking like anything remotely authentic. They cram lots of attributes from the plane into a space that is so small, realistically maybe one of those items would actually fit on the panel on a real plane. The Fighting Colors site belongs to Gary Velasco. I just got his book to add to my library and it is kick ass. Lots of stuff I have never seen before. Ask him what group and squadron he was with. I would suggest building your buck out of some 2x10s cut down with the curve of the fuselage and fasten the skin to that. One trick would be to look some detail drawings and enlarge that so you get the rivets in the proper place for that panel. The ones that I have seen where the artist strives for accuracy and detail in the piece itself aside from just the artwork, are night and day above the typical tribute panel. I've always wanted to do that very thing. At the shop, we just got some doors of a C-119. One is going to be our new sign outside, and the other will get some kind of nose art.
I have a friend here on Long Island you might know "Alex in wonderland" he has a shit load of A/C panels wings and rudders, I always look on Ebay for landing gear doors from big cargo jets and suck, always look and and are kinda cheep ( as airplane parts go) PM me if you like and I'll hook you up with Alex hes a great guy and very knows his poop FRITZ
cool stuff guys, cool stuff, I was thinking about making it 1/4 size maybe...and i think we both decided on not making it exact AND not cramming a bunch of shit onto one panel here is the actual plane, him, and the photo of his girlfriend that the plane was painted based on. I havent' got the artists name but apparently he was pretty popular.
Sorry for the tech week intrusion, but in a related note... "Harold Sparks returned home with his nose art. The Sparks family donated this priceless piece of history to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA The museum has a large display of 368th FG items"
The Jalopy Journal
