Tamiya 1:32 F4U1-A1 Corsair Build Thread

Thank you! You're setting a pretty high bar... It's putting me under a lot of pressure.

Outstanding work as I was anticipating from you. Love those F4U's!

Thank you... my wife chuckles about the "modesty" description. She doesn't read my posts so she doesn't understand that side of my personality.

As promised, the model is finished! After painting the semi-gloss black on the prop blades yesterday, I spray the Testor's One-Coat Clear lacquer to prepare the blades for the decals to come. The finish on the blades' front was fine, but the lacquer out-gassed on the blade backs and bubbled. Those bubbles dried that way and made a mess. I let it dry overnight and worked with wet/dry abrasive cloths from 3200 to 8000 grit to restore the surface and then re-shot the black. After that dried, I put on the decals including the yellow decal tips. That needed a lot of setting aids since it needed to wrap around the edges a bit. When it dried well I touched up the edges with Tamiya yellow which matched the decal yellow perfectly.

While all this was drying I added the antenna wire using fine-gauge E-Z Line. I put a small phosphor bronze pin at the base of the antenna mast as a belaying point for the antenna wire. On the "Big Hog" version, there is a single antenna from the top of the rudder to the base of the mast. And then there seems to be a solid fitting just below the rudder tip that also taps into the wire. I used a small piece of Albion brass tubing as the top insulator (painted white) and a piece of thin guitar string as the tie-in. Thin CA holds it all together. E-Z Line is great since you can bump into it without any damage. Try that with stretched sprue.

I put the prop on, and it was done. Oh... and I picked out some details on the bomb rack with the panel line highligter. The sliding canopy just kind of sits over a couple of tiny pins and it's not very secure, but I didn't want to glue it with anything too agressive, so I just added a couple of dots of MicroMark Pressure Sensitive Adhesive to keep it from popping off. I did shoot the plane with the Canon and then used focus stacking software (Zerene Stacker) to merge many images focused at different points on the model to create a totally focused image from front to back. It generally takes 5 to 8 exposures focused at differing points moving rearward to give enough focal spots to make a complete image. If I had more lighting, I would just stop the camera down its smallest aperture, but I just have an LED shop light hanging overhead.

Here's the baby sitting next to my other 1:32 plane, the Avenger. I've talked with my LHS and I'm going to display the Corsair there for a while so others can see it. This picture was taken with the iPhone with flash so you get that harsh shadow behind each model.

So... to sum up, what are my thoughts about the model and what, if anything, did I learn new.

The Tamiya model right out of the box is a very complex and satisfying build. I added hydraulic lines and engine detailing, not because I had to, but because the scale and detail of the basic model made it fun to add to it.

I attempted and was successful in hand air brushing the 3-color demarcation line without resorting to any masking whatsoever. That was new for me.

I furthered my skills at detailing radial engines which I really get a kick out of.

I finally built the plane that was so beautifully detailed in my F4U Corsair Book that I for years and years.

Found more uses for the Molotow Chrome Pen.

Furthered my skills in handling exhaust staining.

And lastly, had a blast building that amazing cockpit that no one else can see. Luckily I have all those pictures. Even if you're not going to post everything you do like I do, you should capture your builds photographically becasue it's just fun to go back and see what you actually did.

Many thanks for your time and patience in documenting yet another great model. Your modesty and humor provide a great narrative, and your modeling skills are obvious. I find your RR builds a joy as well - keep 'em coming!

Thanks guys! It really helps that phones have such wonderful cameras in them. I have a iPhone 7 which has a 12 MP camera in it. I'd like to get the 10 with the two-camera with telephoto. The wide angle can distort perspective a tad. When I'm finally done tomorrow, I'll take some final beauty shots with the Canon EOS and control for full depth-of-field.

So... Then there were none...

The bomb is now hung below the pilot where it belongs, the prop is almost finished and will be tomorrow. The antenna is in place and will be rigged tomorrow. And the last tad that goes on are the wing tie backs and the pitot tube. The version I'm building "Big Hog" has a very simple antenna rig. I even got the three rear-view mirrors hung from the front edge of the movable canopy. Took a couple of pics tonight with the canopy in place. The prop is not fully on. It has some final finishing and decals to go on.

What really helped the photos is that piece of backdrop paper. My lighting is very, very simple; just a big two-tube, Costco LED shop light. It comes through a bit towards the yellow end of the spectrem and I correct it in Apple Photo Preview.

I really don't like the red prop hub, but that's what this plane flew. I've got the painted and clear cowls so I can change off. I like the clear because that engine needs to be seen. It was too much work to hide. It's bad enough that you'll never see that beautiful cockpit again.

And I know y'all want to see another plastic build, but you'll have to be patient. I'm onto my next structure for my railroad. This one is a selectively compressed Victorian structure that still exists in the Bronx. It was a picture in the New York Times which I found online and drew it up in SketchUp. This model will be truly 21st Century: laser cut parts and what's not are 3D printed. There will a little bit of crafting work to do, but not much.

I drew these parts in SketchUp and exported them as STLs which are 3D printable. It makes the building possible since making those ornate eyebrows very doable as well as the cornices and corbels. Scratchbuilding them and making resin castings was a possibility, but it wouldn't have been easy.

After this building, I'm going to do another super kit....possibly and SWS Skyraider, one of the new 1:32 bombers out there, or maybe one of the new Landing Assault Carriers like the Wasp, new Essex or Iwo Jima. Stay tuned. But there will still be one more report tomorrow when the Corsair is finished.

This build is really looking good. You give a lot of nice close up shots and details of your progress. 

This is looking really good! It’s all come together and looks sharp. You’re going to have to go right into another build log, lest i miss your mullings over missing parts that flew to the stratosphere and parts that keep breaking  it’s like I’m building it along with you for sure.

Looking good. Again, this is fun to watch and thanks for sharing.

Getting near the finish line. I put liquid mask on the windscreen and stuffed some wet tissue up underneath so I could air brush the flat clear on the entire plane. I also wanted to hit the pilot since he has a bit of a sheen that I didn't want. But before I did that I also put liquid mask on those cool, clear goggles so they wouldn't get totally fogged. After the flat spray, I went back and did a very minor additive to the exhaust stains with some flat black and my new Badger 200 detail gun. I then took a bunch of pictures. Note: all the complex decals laid down beautifuly with the MicroSol and MicroSet. I also airbrushed powder stains on the wings (maybe overdid that a bit).

I repainted the wheels as you might see in the above. The "Flat Aluminum" I was using out of a Tamiya Jar of that name seemed very dark. I found another bottle and it was much, much brigther. I suspect, the former was a mix I made to simulate galvanized steel. I also used the black panel line enhancer on the wheels to give the castings more relief.

I brought the model back to the panavise and finished up all the wing joint stuff. I had three lines that needed connecting to the outer wing, and then add the outer flap actuating rod. Due to my constant messing around with that errant wing joint, the wing position changed slightly, and the rod was a bit too long and needed so custom fitting. It wasn't Tamiya's problem. It was definitely mine. And, although I tried, one of my pre-fit lines had fallen off. It took me 20 minutes to get another wire into those tiny holes. And to make matters worse, I had no more 0.011" carbide drills. I have ordered more and I'll have them in a couple of days, but I won't need them anymore. I was able to finally get them all fit and repainted Rubber Black for the flexing ones. I retouched all the paint, did a bit of weathering and the wings joints are finished. Of all aspects of the Corsair and this model, the intricacy of the wing joints is one of my favorites. Having the flaps split and having them lying on a curve adds to the complexity. Tamiya did a great job engineering this. The Avenger's flaps are all contained on the fix-wing portion so the swing joint is much less involved.

Getting down to the last parts: 

The prop consists of three separate blades, a two-piece hub, the hydrodynamic piston cover and a polycap to hold the prop onto the propshaft. I glued all together and then filled the little gap that exists. Tomorrow, I'll sand the filled joint, paint and finish the prop.

While I'd love to have a chrome dome, this particular plane had a red hub and red dome. 

Making the prop blades separate alllowed Tamiya to mold them almost joint line free. There was almost nothing to clean up except for this joint.

Last up was the bomb and bomb rack. After assembling, I airbrushed both Olive (Bomb) and Insignia White (rack). I then shot the upper surface of the bomb to accept a large decal with all the bomb's specifications. There's still some detail painting on both pieces and some PE propellors for the front and rear fuses.

Tomorrow the bomb will be finished and installed, and the prop will be ready to go also. That leaves the antenna and pitot tube. After that, I think it's done.

Thank you! Today I actually made it through without breaking anything...

The Life Color paint hasn't disappointed. It's also easy to touch up scratches since it seems to blend back nicely with the airbrushed coat when dry. It cleans up with isopropyl alcohol, but I don't thin with it. I use Testor's universal acrylic thinner for non-Tamiya paints. For Vallejo, I only use their thinner.

Before I discuss today's progress, I finally got a handle on spilling stuff. Even though the Tamiya glue bottles are wider on the bottom than the top, they DO SPILL and often with horrendous results (see my repair on the island of the USS Essex...). And the Microscale bottles are far, far worse. They spill even if you open them carelessly.

So for the Tamiya bottles I took a piece of scrap and routed out a cavity for the bottles and then used some servo tape to secure them into them. I could have made the plank wider, but it seems to be working. And for the Microscale decal solutions I simply clamped them into my woodworkers vise... not to tightly, but enough so they WON'T SPILL. 

Spent the entire work session putting on decals and I'm almost done. I first coated the underside with the Testor's One-coat Clear Lacquer since I had forgotten to do it. I used the Tamiya Clear flat on the wings, and caught myself only matte finishing one nav light before I realized I had to remask them if I ever wanted to look through them again. So I stopped and quickly added liquid mask to all the wing transparent parts... and then did the flat painting. The results are good. The Tamiya flat seems to lay down more evenly than Dullcoat.

Still to be done with these is some very mild powder stains from the gun ports and ejections chutes. 

I brush painted some Tamiya gloss onto the upper part of the landing gear strut to prepare it to receive the trickiest decal to apply in the whole model; an specification plate on the Oleo Strut. I let this dry and worked on getting some more stencils on the fuselage. I took the decals off their backing with tweezers and placed them on the two main struts and then used a toothpick to manipulate them to get them in place and vertical. It was finicky and my hands were very shaky. I hadn't had lunch. When I had lunch I also took a shot of some wonderful 18-year-old, single barrel Elijah Craig 90 Proof Bourbon. In about 10 minutes, my hands were much steadier. It would have been much easier to put on this decal during gear assembly, but that would have made it impossible to airbrush the entire assembly. Instead, I held off until I was doing all the other decals.

There were tons of tiny stencils on the fuselage and some big and tricky decals. I worked methodically from aft to front and held the plane in the Panavise during most of it. The big stars, like on the port side, went on nicely. I had no tearing after coating them with the Microscale Decal Film. Then I got to the white striping in front of the cockpit.

What this detail actually represents is sealing tape that was put on the early Corsairs to prevent fuel from seeping from the fuel tank compartment and fouling the windscreen. I've also read that it was to stop fumes from entering the cockpit. In later iterations, they no longer needed this taping. Until my research I thought it was some kind of identifying feature, but it wasn't... it was operational.

So I got the decal wet and then realized, after looking more closely at the positioning, that part of the decal wraps around the FORWARD CANOPY. Yikes! I wasn't planning on installing that now! And before you can put it on, you need to glue on the bulletproof glass shield and reflective surface for the gun sight. So I have an important decal sitting there all wet and I have to get the canopy on. I needed to kill the gloss on the top of the instrument panel too. I moved quickly and got it all glued in without screwing anything up.

Once I was applying the decal it went on pretty smoothly and needed a lot of setting solution since it bending around some curves.

I finished all the rest of the stencils, painted the gas cap, and got walkway strips on the tops of the mid-wings. 

I flipped the plane upside down and started working on more weathering and stenciling on the belly. The Tamiya Panel Line Highlighter works much better on a sealed surface and its low surface tension lets it flow down the seams pretty easily. I used some mineral spirits to clean up excess since it is solvent based. I used some black weathering powder to add more exhaust stains. I then got all the bottom stencils in place. I added the four remaining little gear doors that close behind the extended landing gear. These too had to wait until all the hydraulic piping and detail painting was finished since they really block access to the front gear well... and blocks seeing some of the neat details too.

There are a smattering of stencils left for the horizontal stab and elevators, and then the plane's decals are done. What's left? The entire model minus the wings need to be matte coated, and I now know that the Tamiya bottle flat finish does airbrush very nicely. I have to put on the wheels and attach the tail hook. I need to paint and build the beautiful propeller, which also has some decals. The yellow tips are actually a decal in this kit. Never had that. There are two added vertical antenna masts that need to be installed and then some radio antenna wiring (E-Z Line) that I need to run. And I have to build, paint, decal and install the one piece of ordinance; a 500 lb. bomb. I can't forget the pitot tube, which should be the last thing to add since it will be the first thing to break. And the model will be finished.

That's a beautiful build you've got going. I haven't seen that Corsair book in ages. I had it in the stacks, but a puppy got a hold of it and there wasn't much left afterwards. I'm glad you went in another direction with your paint choices. The Tamiya rattle cans for Navy Blue and Intermediate Blue are way off. Looking forward to watching this come together.

Happy Monday. Started the day visiting my cardiologist to see how to stop my latest AFib experience. It's not too bad. The last time, a year and a half ago, ended itself after 11 days. I'm at day 9 of this episode. He wants to do a stress test and another echo cardiogram just to rule out any physiological abnormalities. My BP was actually pretty good considering. 

Then went to the LHS to buy some AK Ultra Matte, of which they were out, so I bought some Tamiya Flat Clear instead. I also bought a Badger 200 (made in USA) single action detail air brush to replace the Chinese ones that are less than a year old and working poorly due to their dissolving O'rings. They are incompatible with acetone, but they don't mention this in the instructions, and to get dried acrylic out of the fine passages, acetone works great.

I got to work after 2:00 p.m. and finished stenciling the wings on both sides. The top side (which will be practically invisible in the folded position) has some skinny walkway decals which gave me a little trouble, but they're okay. He wings now have to be flat coated which will disguise all the contrast inconsistencies.

Got to work on the Fuze decals starting with the big stars and bars on the port side. It went on nicely without tearing.

Of course, all this success can't be allowed without another ridiculous setback. The wing support spar that has broken 2 times, broke completely off again when I inadvertantly put some side pressure on it. Believe me, it was not a lot of pressure. The cause: the styrene walls of the holes holding the metal pins were so thin that the side pressure broke them out and the pins were FREE. This time, I could no longer drill and pin... there wasn't any material left in which to do it. It was like when you have a previously filled tooth break, especially one with a big filling. There's nothing left to hold any more filling and it's time for a crown. Unfortunately in this case, a crown was not an option. 

So I turned to my next standby, J-B Weld. I got the pins back into their now-open grooves and held them temporarily with thin CA and then applied the epoxy which will cure overnight. It should hold... hopefully. If it doesn't, I'm kind of at a loss. I could get a new part from Tamiya, cut off the entire hinge assembly which is molded with the main spar, and then glue and pin the hole assembly to the spar. That would be the end game.

I may clean up the epoxy when cured to give a bit more definition to the now-lumpy detail. Moral: don't break the darn thing in the first place.

I just went down and checked it, and it's already cured enough to tell me that it's holding. So here's hop'n.

I would allow 2 weeks from order to delivery. I ordered Japanese insignia for my ZM Shinden and Ki-45 Nick and they took about 2 weeks for delivery.

It is well worth having a good look around the website and they might do custom stuff too, but I am not sure.

Thank you! And that's a great suggestion. Unfortunately, I've already applied the decals to the wings. I'm comfortable finishing with the decals, but if I do it again, I think I will paint them on.

How long do you think delivery is to Kentucky, USA?

Outstanding work and rescue!

Usually when something like that happens to me the resulting casualty is unrecoverable and has to be consigned to the recycling bin!

I personally would have invested in some insignia masks and painted them on rather than mess with decals and I do think Maketar Masks have some mask sets just for this...

and indeed they do

https://shop.maketar.com/?product=132-vought-f4u-1a-corsair-for-tamiya-kit

They also do the 1D and birdcage! I would choose the Kabuki tape option as that stuff doesn't suffer shrinkage as vinyl does and would save you lots of time messing about with gloss varnish, decal mediums, matt varnish etc.

James

Rare Saturday session...

I would withhold judgement about how good I'm doing until I'm finished. I say that because, while I had some successes today, I had a near miss that could have been catastrophic. 

First thing I did was air brush the canopies starting with semi-gloss black and then with sea blue, I also airbrushed the frame on the bullet proof glass plate. 

The results were gratifying. The Tamiya masks were very accurate only limited by your ability to cut them out correctly. In retrospect, I should a have left the masking in place on the outside until it was glued onto the plan to protect the glazing from anything. I may put some masking on them just for that purpose. It won't have to conform to the canopy frame, just protect the clear stuff.

I was trying to decide what kind of gloss clear I was going to use prior to decaling. I have Pledge with Future, Tamiya Gloss Spray and Testors High Gloss Clear Coat for model car building. I painted the rear of the test article with Tamiya and the front with Testors. I know how Future works. I like the level of gloss the Testor product produced. It's not Gloss Coat, it's a differently formulated product.

I then, using the extra decals from configurations I'm not building, applied a stars and bars to the front on the Testor coating. I read that the decals are thick and unforgiving, and they were right. Not only was it thick, but it fell apart in three places. I got it to settle in a bit with MicroScale products, but wasn't very pleased. I then coated all the decals my config was going to use with MicroScale Decal Film coating. When it dried I put another decal on the aft and this time it was successful. Here was the broken decal.

And here's the successful one.

I then glossed the wings on the two faces that are receiving the big decals. That's the only drawback with 1:32 planes (besides finding display space), the decals can be huge.

With the decal film coating, none of them cracked or broken in such a way as to make them unusable. The first one did crack, but with setting solution, it's not visible. Here is a shot showing both wings just after decaling before the setting solution finished working.

When fully dried, they did settle in pretty well, but do obscure some of the underlying details. I got a note from one of my buddies at the hobby shop that I should use AK Ultra Matte to re-coat after decaling. I will buy it if Marty recommends it. The decals have actual holes in them to enable some protruding details to show through. I was careful to not put the decal film liquid on these holes so they would be clear and not any trouble.

I then re-covered the pilot with some wet toweling so the gloss would get him, and sprayed the plane in the areas where big or complex decals were going.

And then the first diaster happened. To spray the plane, I was holding the plane by the cowl since it didn't get many decals, and then the engine separated from the plane!! I didn't realize that the joint was not that structural. 

To add insult to injury, when I grabbed at the fuselage which was falling away I grabbed the very tacky gloss coating and gave it some nasty fingerprints. 

I glued the engine back on, and let it set up and then went to repair the fingerprints. Luckily, they'll behind the big fuselage decals. 

And then the 2nd disaster hit. Engine separated again, and this time, engine and plane hit the concrete!! Speed ring detached from the front of the engine, that pesky landing gear door came off for the 4th time, a faux wing hinge broke off, and the two bottom exhaust sets broke loose.

It took me a while to triage the mess. I needed to reattach the exhaust with brass pins and did the same with the broken wing hinge. The gear door went back where it came from without protest. I got the engine back on with Testor Tube Cement this time to give it more manipulation time, and got a bit on the cowl behind the cowl flaps. I was able to touch up spray the sea blue to fix the glue smudge, and got it all back togeher. Whew!!

Alls well that ends well. It could have been much, much worse. The landing gear didn't get hurt. Those delicate wing fold regions were unscathed except for that fake hinge. Nothing in the cockpit was harmed, and nothing on the engine itself, even though it bounced around on a concrete floor. So I'm relieved.

I also got that all important P&W decal on the engine gear case.

I did get most of the stenciling on the wings' bottom, and the fuse with have a chance to dry completely before decaling it. So it was a productive and scary Saturday.

This is coming out really nice. Outstandinng work!

Milestone Day!

First up was to paint the wings. The Life Color Intermediate and Sea Blues are not as "bluesy" as the Tamiya color sheet, but look pretty realistic based upon photos of the real planes that I've seen. The outer wings undersides are not insignia white. Instead they are the intermediate blue since when on the decks with wings folded, the white wings shining upward would make the ship captain very unhappy. In fact, that blue is not much different than the aircraft carrier blue wood deck stain used in WW2.

After the paint dried (helped with the hot air gun) I carefully removed the liquid mask off the light lenses and I was very pleased, especially the landing light. It really looks like a silvered reflector under there. You can't beat the chrome pen. Chrome silver paint just doesn't cut it.

Then it was time see how I could free hand paint the multi-color scheme with the airbrush on the test article. I am soooo glad that had that since it really built my confidence that I could actually do it without a hard masking line or setting of the masks with blue tack or rolls of masking tape. 

I used my main line Badger for this, but the demarcation was a bit too fuzzy so I tried the detail brush. While I was able to sharpen up the line a bit, the brush was working terribly, and was sputtering putting big drops out in all the wrong places. I tried a total cleaning with acetone, which worked, but then I noticed that the tiny O'ring behind the air nozzle was shot and dissolved in the acetone. What kind of paint spraying tool uses a rubber that's not compatible with acetone??? 

While not perfect, it proved that I could paint to a line. The line, BTW, I drew with a pencil before spraying. I took the pattern from the Tamiya instructions.

I then drew the pattern on the real model only spent more time on getting it correct. I needed to do some extensive masking to keep overspray from getting on the white areas that would be in the line of fire, e.g., flaps, landing gear and doors, and of course the entire exposed cockpit. I sprayed the vertical stab and rudder, and after force drying, masked it from the rest of the model since the rudder has a sharp color separation line.

Then I drew the pattern. Incidentally, using the liquid mask as a temporary adhesive to hold the removable cowls in place worked! I sprayed the intermediate first letting the line wave a bit between the white, which apparently it did in the prototype. I then did the sea blue. I didn't like the demarcation and I was able to go back and forth a couple of times to get it to be fuzzy... but not too fuzzy.

After demasking and doing some very minor touchup, the bird is painted. I'm letting it dry well over the weekend and will gloss it to ready it for all the decals and stencils.

After these pics were taken I went back and cleaned up the separation around the oil cooler inlets.

Tamiya provides nice masks, perfectly sized, but you have to cut them out. I used a fresh #11 blade and cut just enough depth to cut the mask and not the backing sheet so it was easier to separate the two. I actually enjoyed this. It was a nice delicate cutting op on something that wasn't styrene. It's the last thing I did today and I'll airbrush them on Monday. They get black first (the inside color) and then Sea Blue. I am sure that this paint job will come out very well.

The plane needs some gun shot residue around the gun ports and some residue at the shell ejection ports. I'm not sure what kind of debris is around those. I'll have to check the reference shots.

The first thing I did today was build a "test article". The free Corsair, while missing lots of parts, had enough to cobble together a workable fuselage. With this I can practice free-handing the airbrushing of the three-tone early Corsair scheme and, if necessary, develop a masking scheme too. This alone makes that box of miscellaneous parts worth a lot. I don't have to screw up my very valuable model. Instead I can screw up the test article and then screw up my valuable model.

As you can see, the upper wing surfaces are not there. In fact, there are no wing parts, which again leads me to wonder where they are since the lower mid-wing was still in its stapled plastic bag. That part gets completely built before you add the top skins. The regular cowl parts were also missing which tells me the guy built the engine, but the forward fuze bulkhead is also missing and that would have been glued to the un-built fuselage. The kit did have all the transparent parts so I glued them together and put them on. In the kit, the entire engine cowl is supported by the engine itself and it is in real life, but without an engine I simply glued the cowl to the bulkhead with tube cement. It only has to hold on during masking, painting and de-masking.

While this was drying I installed all the wing lights and coated their lenses with MicroScale Liquid Mask. The wing tip lights also got the Chrome Pen treatment and then the lenses were installed (like all the others) with Bondic.

I then carefully masked the transparent part of the lens so the frame with get airbrushed wing colors. Notice the round mask on the center of the landing light lens leaving the frame exposed to get painted. The chrome interior looks very real.

The outer wings have some added details. The first set is a swivel for the hydraulics that connect to the outer wing. I wised up and pre-drilled the #85 holes for the magnet wire. I broke my last #85 when it dropped from the upper work bench to the lower... about 4 inches. I've broken as many of these drills just by putting them down on the bench carelessly as I have in drilling. And since I'm no longer putting them in a pin vise, I find that my breakage is greatly reduced.

Another interesting feature of the model is the level of small details that would never show up in a smaller scale. Observe the gun camera and the transparent window that it views through. That small plastic window was a challenge to glue in place.

Curiously, Tamiya chose not to include any machine guns, gun bays or ammo. Most 1:32 kits do this. But, the kit is so sublime in all the other ways that I forgive them.

It was time to place the wings and cut all the hydraulics so I can install everything after painting. While fussing with them and the plane in the Panavise, I again bumper the left outboard wheel door and broke it off AGAIN! This time I needed to secure it better and attempted to drill and pin the hinges. This worked for a few minutes until I bumped it again and this time it broke down the middle of the tiny hole holding the pin. I re-glued it on AGAIN with thin CA and it's holding. I have to be careful around this. I have a history and knocking of wheel doors.

So here's the piping staged and ready to go after painting. As I mentioned yesterday, you can't glue the wings on and expect to paint and decal anything underneath. All the painting and stenciling needs to be fully complete and THEN the wings get slipped on. 

But... I couldn't resist taking some more status pictures will all the flight surfaces in place.

I'm still considering whether to use the transparent cowl or the solid one, so the solid one needs to be in place during the painting. While it snaps in place, it wasn't holding tight enough to block paint from encroaching into the engine compartment so I put some liquid mask on the tabs and am holding it together with a rubber band until in dries. If this doesn't work, I'll wrap the engine underneath with some wet tissue and then put on the cowl. The Corsair has one of the busiest wing fold areas of any naval fighter that I know of complicated by the flaps being split.

Finished building the flaps today and mounted them. There's a little tiny piece that closes off the flap-fuselage junction. The first one flew into the ether, and there wasn't another one on any of the sprues left over from the free Cosair my LHS gave me, so I made a scratch-built one. I didn't spend the time to put rivets on it. I actually think the model may actually have too many rivets. The skin on real plane was mostly spot welded. It was pretty advanced technology for the time. It made for a very smooth skin. Rivets were only used to hold panels in place for the welding process.

With the flaps on it was time to finish off the wheel wells and weather the bottom. I'm not good at this and my detail air brush was not cooperating. First of all I think you need to seal the flat paint before using the Tamiya Panel Liner since it instantly wicked into the flat white and made a much more dirty bottom than I was anticipating. Then I got puddling when spraying Tamiya Smoke for the exhaust stains. I ended up trying it three times and repainting the white each time. The final results work, but I'm not that happy.

I spent time chroming all the piston rods and painting all the hydraulics.

I think the wheel wells are too dirty!

When setting up to take this picture, the broken wing spar broke again!! The plastic actuating rod was not up to the job and the piano wire pin let go. This time, I removed that pin and used some Albion Micro-Brass tubing along with a phosphor bronze pin and rebuilt the junction. 

After cutting off the plastic strut, I had to drill the remaining lug with an 0.022" carbide bit held in my fingers. I used and even finer drill to start the hole in the lug's center.

I needed to telescope a smaller tube into the larger to provide the correct diameter for the pin. This time, it's holding very well.

With this done, I jumped the step where the canopys were masked and painted and went on to the outer wing panels. As usual, the engineering is perfect. I used the Chrome Pen to make all the reflectors for all the wing lights shine light true reflectors.

After assembling the wings in the "down Flap" position, and then the beautiful ailerons, I tried the wings on their spars and see how they looked. 

Here are the complete wings minus the outboard flaps (tomorrow). I really like how Tamiya makes you think that there's really working hinges in there and yet they're securely glued into the wing sockets.

The last thing I did was to paint the clear lenses for all the running and landing lights. Letting them dry overnight will ensure they don't get finger-printed. The kit includes a mask for the landing light lens. I'm going to glue the small ones in with Bondic with the color on the inside and then use MicroScale liquid mask before painting the outboard wings. They get painted and decaled off the model or else you'll never be able to decal the folded side of the wing. This complicates finishing up the piping at the wing joint, but I'll manage. 

I would love to be able to do the demarcation free-hand and not mask the separation line, and maybe I'll practice on the other fuselage that I do have in the free kit. I really don't understand the work flow of the man to whom this kit belonged. He cut parts off the sprues with their little bit of the sprue attached, but you lose the alphabet i.d. which you need to properly locate the parts. I also don't understand what he actually had completed since the engine and cockpit are missing, but the fuse is still not built. The fuze is built before the engine is built so he must have been going out of order. Also wing and flap parts were missing. Strange.

Thanks guys! I'm pleased that I'm inspiring others.

Well I'm back after a nice visit with my son and family in State College, PA. He's building a custom home and we were able to see it almost finished (move in is Dec 14). It was a massive undertaking and I helped a bit by providing some detailed SketchUp renderings of rooms before they were complete to help in the decision making.

Got back in the shop this afternoon and finished up piping and building the undercarriage. I was able to attach the wheel door cylinders to the doors and then to the plane and still do the piping. I pre-drilled the cylinders to accept the piping while they were off the parts. I then masked the bottom and sprayed Insignia White (Tamiya Flat White an a touch of Flat Black). With that drying I started building the inboard flap system.

It was good that I took a break from this build since it was not difficult to fix the piping that had come loose, whereas before we left, I was definitely struggling. It's not quite accurate, but it's busy enough that no one will ever see the missing lines. For example, the main gear jack having only a deploy line and not a retract one. I also don't have the right amount of pressure and drain leads going into the airframe.

I then was almost ready to spray the bottom, only to catch myself. I hadn't sealed up the holes to prevent Insignia White from getting into that beautiful engine, those neat exhaust pipes and the inside of the tail wheel housing. I used dampened paper towels to plug up the cowl flaps, the engine front and the inside of the tail wheel housing. I trimmed Tamiya masking tape to plug the exhaust opening.

I then airbrushed the white on the bottom. Since this is the first layer of the three-color scheme, there's no need to mask the separation line. I will go back and do all the detail painting. For example: the flexible hydraulics are black rubber hoses vs. airframe color for the fixed lines. Some of the gear pivot points are bright metal, and I have to chrome the piston rods and oleo piston.

With this drying, I started workingo on the inboard flap sets. These parts have some PE details added to their ends to give even more detail. For dropped flaps you need different parts than retracted flaps, so you have to keep yourself straight that you're looking at the right instruction pages. I've taken a Sharpie and redacted the pages that are not appropriate so I don't accidentally read them.

I test fit the right-side flap and carefully inserted the actuating rod into the notch behind the PE. It looks pretty good. The underside of these flaps too get painted white.

Tomorrow, I'll continue with the flaps and start work on the outer wings.

I'm looking forwards to seeing the undercart painted up. White is always a SOB to paint.

It's time I returned to Tamiya's 1/32 warbirds and am constantly looking for a reasonable price. Maybe in the post Christmas sales and EBay.....

The engines on my ZM Ki-45 are done and I am launching myself into the main wing spar and cockpit.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, America!

Happy Monday! Unlike most mortals, I like Mondays as much if not more than weekends. That's because of my deal with my wife where I do nothing in the basement on weekends. So Mondays are when I can build models and that's fun for me. More fun than watching college football of schools of which I care not.

Picked up the Life Color Sea Blue and Intermediate Blue for the Corsair. And while I was there I was given a present; another Tamiya Corsair. This one was a "Bird Cage" version that was produced by Tamiya a bit earlier. It was not complete and was from an estate. Missing was the cockpit, the lower wing details, and most importantly, the engine. I would have loved to have built another engine to display along side. I did, however, get the wing fold parts (a dollar short and a day late) and the landing gear parts, of which I did use one this afternoon.

My session today was spent assembling those very intricate main landing gear. Many parts are included and there's a steel shaft that is glued into the two halves of the main strut. This stiffens the assembly nicely and I'm sure that it will support the plane as it should. Being a tail-dragger, no nose weight is needed to have it sit correctly. I drilled the jack cylinder to prepare it to receive the hydraulic lines. Which, BTW, I find that it looks like the middle line from the valve didn't go through the wing bulkhead. Instead, it goes through the main spar and enters the gear chamber. This tells me that it's the one that operates the jack. So I prepared the valve by attempting to pull the solder pipe out of the wing bulkhead and re-route it through a hole in the main spar that I drilled. But the line was too short! So I tried to pull the line out of the brass ferrule, but the middle and bottom ferrules broke free of the valve body. So now I'm in the middle of reattaching everything... and then I ran out of time.

The gear will be painted off the model since there's a decal that goes on the strut that will be easier to apply when they're separate. There's very little of the oleo piston showing so using the Chrome Pen or Bare Metal Foil is going to be very challenging. You don't have to rig a break line on this model. It's nicely molded by Tamiya.

We're heading to PA for Thanksgiving so I'll see y'all on the Monday after the holiday. Everyone have a pleasant, happy, satisfying and very safe Thanksgiving!!

The problem is that styrene is just not sturdy enough in the thin cross section that the scale hinge is. It could be out of an engineering plastic like Delrin which is used from model train couplers and is very tough. Even ABS is better than pure styrene. I may try and build the brass hinge just for fun. If it could be a lost wax casting, now that would be something. My guess is the real hinge is a steel or aluminum forging. Cast metal wouldn't cut it.

Nice save with the hinge.

It would be nice to be able to have working hinges, but although 1/32 is large scale some things are just a bit too much and I do applaud you for taking a look at that opportunity. Maybe if Airfix put out a 1/24 kit then a working hinge might be included in the kit, or it would be easier to produce one in that scale.

I would love to see what you could do with Airfix's new 1/24 Hellcat released next year. It is already on my list.

Have a nice Thanksgiving.

James