Excellent job!!

I've got this kit on it's way in the mail.  Did you encounter any fit issues?  I've not ordered the wing folds, but everything I'd read said Tamiya did a nice job of these.  Based on your experience, I'm strongly debating your advice in the SAC upgrade.  I also plan to use the superfabric seat belts and Montex paint masks, as well as the True Details tires.  I'm debating as well Ultracast exhausts, not sure how much they'll show, though.

You've done a really nice job on that one.  I like the slightly miscoloured panels, and it looks like some nice surface detail there.  Is everything recessed?

Beautiful job on one of Tamiya's best kits.

That's gorgeous workmanship. Outstanding finish. Bravo!  :)

Great job!

Andrew,

Tamiya's Corsair family - in any scale - are all great kits. They have their little inaccuracies, but the surface detail is all recessed and it's gorgeous. The plastic is very workable.

The wing fold option comes with the kit - the instructions are pretty clear on the optional paths you'll need to take in order to do folded or extended wings. The SAC upgrade is really only necessary if you go for folded wings. You won't need the metal landing gear (although they are really, really nice!), the kit gear are plenty sturdy.

The Ultracast exhausts are a nice upgrade to the kit parts, IF you get good parts. Ultracast is normally top-notch quality, but both of my exhausts are slightly short-shot. You need a magnifier to see it, but the imperfections are there. The resin is so thin that it's transparent. I had to be extremely careful not to crush the tiny things. As I said, I've never seen a quality control issue on an Ultracast product before, so here's hoping I got the one bad set.

Feel free to send me any other questions you have.

Fantastic job, museum quality!  Congratulations.

Toshi

Aww haw haw maaaayaan!!!!! This sir Kevin, is a modern art masterpiece!!!! I just got ahold of a Tamiya F4U1/2 Birdcage Corsair (thanks be to Joe Rix-aka The Reverand) and you're really getting me stoked to build it.  I just finished up the Revell F4U back in late October / early November and if it hadn't been a gift for a really good friend of mine at Christmas I would have left it in the trash can (the 1st time)!!! It took an amazing amount of work and elbow grease to pull off but all in all I was happy with the outcome. As I look back, I was truly amazed at the level of frustration and puzzled thoughts as well as patience I put into that build as I was constantly thinking how to get out of the daily crisis that always seemed to arise. My point is that I can definitely appreciate a Tamiya Corsair these days!!!! There will never be another Revellogram Corsair placed on my workbench!! (p.s. I have a spare full Revell kit..........you want it? )

Your build here is among the greats man.

Good work, good photos!

Kevin, I see one HUGE problem with it... it's not on MY shelf! Man, oh man! Great job on that! Yes, I love Tamiya's Corsairs. I built one about a year ago, and like you said, they have there little hiccups  here and there, but they're great kits. I've progressed as a modeler, at least I keep telling myself ;-), and I'm wanting to do another one before long.

What did you use to wire the engine, if you don't mind me asking? I tried speaker wire with mine, but could never get it to stick. I've switched to modeling CA, so maybe that was the problem... I used sprue, and it looked okay, but I like yours much better.

Thanks for sharing, and again, great job! Raymond

Beautiful work!!! I have to agree, it's one of Tamiya's best engineered kits, a true joy to build.

OH MY WORD ,  your corsair would win ANY model show I think. Absolutely stunning.

Excellent build there!  Those instrument decals really make a difference.

Mike

Really, really nice!

This is a master piece of work. I'm speechless. LOVE IT.

Raymond G

Kevin, I see one HUGE problem with it... it's not on MY shelf! Man, oh man! Great job on that! Yes, I love Tamiya's Corsairs. I built one about a year ago, and like you said, they have there little hiccups  here and there, but they're great kits. I've progressed as a modeler, at least I keep telling myself ;-), and I'm wanting to do another one before long.

What did you use to wire the engine, if you don't mind me asking? I tried speaker wire with mine, but could never get it to stick. I've switched to modeling CA, so maybe that was the problem... I used sprue, and it looked okay, but I like yours much better.

Thanks for sharing, and again, great job! Raymond

Raymond,

Thanks for the compliment.

For the engine, I used normal copper wire stripped out of... something. I think it may have been an old airbrush compressor motor. It looks great for the ignition wires, but is a little too small in scale for the crankcase oil lines and other stuff. I should have spent a little more time hunting down a couple of different wire sizes.

I tried to create realistic terminals for the wires by slicing up stretched sprue and gluing the slices to the ignition ring, then drilling into them a little with a #80 bit to give the wires something to hang onto. On the cylinder ends, if you look VERY closely, I actually made spark plug terminals using micro brass tubing. I drilled into the cylinder heads (the kit has a tiny molded depression where the plugs should be) and CA'd the tubing in place. This allowed me to cut the wires a little long and simply stuff the excess couple of millimeters into the end of the tube, and CA in place.

On the rear of the engine, I didn't do anything... the wires simply terminate someplace in the correct general area. It's completely invisible once installed in the cowling, so I decided not to double my workload.

Here's a few more photos of the engine under construction. Here you can see the modified ignition ring and spark plugs in place:

And here's the start of the wiring. After this, I wired the first row of cylinders before gluing on the second row, to keep as much access as I could. Then the second bank of cylinders went on and I wired those.

A different view of the completed engine:

I hope that helps!

Excellent job with this Corsair Kevin!  She's pretty! =]

That is an absolutely outstanding Corsair. You have done a stellar job on the paint and detail. Truly top notch. I'm quite intrigued by your use of a dot filter on your paint. You don't see that very often on aircraft and I've considered using it myself. It seems to have come out rather nicely for you. Have you used this often? The Corsair is my favorite aircraft is my favorite aircraft and I have a healthy stack of kits to build. Although I have yet to build one of the Tamiya Corsairs it is fairly widely known that their Corsair is one of the premier kits out there. I'm grateful to for sharing your marvelous build with us. Oh, by the way, where did you score the instrument decals?

JOE RIX

That is an absolutely outstanding Corsair. You have done a stellar job on the paint and detail. Truly top notch. I'm quite intrigued by your use of a dot filter on your paint. You don't see that very often on aircraft and I've considered using it myself. It seems to have come out rather nicely for you. Have you used this often? The Corsair is my favorite aircraft is my favorite aircraft and I have a healthy stack of kits to build. Although I have yet to build one of the Tamiya Corsairs it is fairly widely known that their Corsair is one of the premier kits out there. I'm grateful to for sharing your marvelous build with us. Oh, by the way, where did you score the instrument decals?

Hi Joe,

Thanks for your kind words. I don't find the Corsair particularly pretty (blasphemy, I know!) but it has a charm all of its own, like a muscle car, and I have several in the stash - including three Special Hobby/AM F2Gs, with mods and conversions to build post-war racers out of them all. I must be a glutton for punishment! If you treat yourself to a Tamiya -1 series Corsair you won't be disappointed. They're great kits.

I have used oils since I first started modeling for washes and drybrushing, but truthfully this is the first time I have used the dot filter technique. The first time I saw it used was on ChukW's fantastic SB2C Helldiver build. At the time, I wasn't even aware that this is considered more of an armor building technique. I give credit where it is due - I totally stole the idea from him.

The more I use oils for weathering, the more I like them... largely due to their extremely long working time, and the fact that if I screw up, I can simply wipe the slate clean and start over. I'm still learning new ways to put them to use. I also love to use oils for wood grain effects - I recently built Tamiya's Aichi M6A1 Seiran and did all the wood on the beaching trolley with oils.

Applying a dot filter is very easy. Really, the only downside is having to wait a couple of days for the oils to dry completely before being able to move on with the build. One thing to note is that I avoided using any red over the blue base coat - didn't want to tint the Corsair purple!

As far as Mike Grant's cockpit decals go, I buy them directly from him on his website. I use a mix of 1/72 and 1/48 decals to get the various sizes I need, and use a Waldron punch set to cut them out.

Very beautiful build. Thanks for sharing your work.

Thanks for the reply Kevin. I too use oils a good bit but, like I said, have yet to try the dot filtering. Thanks for the source for the instrument decals.

I can't say as I find the Corsair particularly "pretty" but it does have a certain menacingly attractiveness to it.

JOE RIX

can't say as I find the Corsair particularly "pretty" but it does have a certain menacingly attractiveness to it.

That is one tasty looking bent wing Bird! Very nicely done Sir!

That is one the finest, if not the finest, scaled rendition of a Corsair I've ever seen. Gorgeous, GORGEOUS color!!!!! And the Brooklyn Butcher??? Seriously?? That is just too cool!! Everything about that model is on point. This is probably in the top three of my favorite builds. New wallpaper for my desktop for sure

Thanks everyone, for the kind comments!

Let's start this at the proper place...   JEEZ THAT'S NICE!  I took a little break from my Tamiya 1/32 -1A to meet a deadline on something else but this is giving my the inspiration to get back to it.  

As I was going through the photos I took particular note of you use of the dot filter then read further where you picked it up.  Having gone from all aircraft all the time to all armor all the time I picked up lots of goodies from the armor world that are a mystery to a lot of the aircraft guys.   I've done demos at club meeting of dot filtering, streaking and the hairspray technique.  The armor guys are nodding and the aircraft guys are scratching their heads. Many can be used to good effect regardless of the genre.

If I may... without the intent to hijack the thread...

 The aftermarket product that are usually geared towards armor for things like streaking effects are very useful to.

 And in case you missed it at the top...

 JEEZ THAT'S NICE!

Awesome build, really top shelf stuff.

wing_nut

Let's start this at the proper place...   JEEZ THAT'S NICE!  I took a little break from my Tamiya 1/32 -1A to meet a deadline on something else but this is giving my the inspiration to get back to it.  

As I was going through the photos I took particular note of you use of the dot filter then read further where you picked it up.  Having gone from all aircraft all the time to all armor all the time I picked up lots of goodies from the armor world that are a mystery to a lot of the aircraft guys.   I've done demos at club meeting of dot filtering, streaking and the hairspray technique.  The armor guys are nodding and the aircraft guys are scratching their heads. Many can be used to good effect regardless of the genre.

If I may... without the intent to hijack the thread...

 The aftermarket product that are usually geared towards armor for things like streaking effects are very useful to.

 

 And in case you missed it at the top...

 JEEZ THAT'S NICE!

Thanks Marc! I don't mind the threadjack one bit. :)

Being a relatively new modeler, I've really tried to keep an open mind about painting and finishing styles. This is the part of the hobby that is the most artistic and subjective, and also the part that I happen to have the most fun with. Spanish School, modulation style, whatever... it's all good and can all be used to good effect on just about any model. I can appreciate a highly stylized finish on a model even if I know its not particularly realistic. I know several very talented modelers who build across different genres, and their style is easy to spot no matter what they build. I really enjoy models like that. Even a model with no weathering at all can be done beautifully - e.g. Mike Grant's crisply finished airliners, a distinctive style that is all his own.

I saw a video tutorial done by Mig Jimenez recently and he talked about building up effects in layers, like you would use layers in Photoshop or AutoCAD. The trick with models is that you can't turn layers on and off or delete them, so you have to plan ahead. This is where I turn to more experienced builders for advice, and it has paid off in spades.

One aircraft that I am keen to build is the one pictured below, a 1st ACG P-51A. The weathering on these aircraft is pretty extreme, and frankly I think the armor guys are the ones that have the tools to pull this off right. Aircraft techniques with the airbrush, yes, but also filters, streaking effects, and even chipping - you could use the whole lot doing one of these planes.

In the end, I guess I'm pretty free-thinking and willing to experiment when it comes to paint and weathering, again because I happen to find it really fun. When I want to try something new or unorthodox, I bust out a sub-$10 1/72 kit and don't feel bad if it doesn't turn out how I envisioned... the next model is usually a lot better.

Thanks again for the compliments, they are very much appreciated!