Thanks guys there is light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully not a train.

Bish the wash is the Flory dark dirt before being washed off. Very sadly the coats of paint and gloss have meant all the panel lines I lovingly scribed are not holding the washes so well. But it is a show boat, so that is not a huge problem, but mark it down to experience.

I thought it looked like Flory. I know the feeling. I had the same issue on the canberra, it does not hold well to gloss especailly on shallow panel lines. I have found when i want a clean finish rather than cover it all, i use a fine brush and just run it along the lines. I then left for 24 hours and used a dry cotton bud (q-tip) and that helped a lot.

That looks fantastic Lost. I sure like the markings. 

I've found that if I add a small dash of dish soap to the Flory washes they will work much better on glossy finishes. I hope that helps out some.

Thought it was time to bump this back up!

She's up on all three legs now

Here is the tail wheel area. to give it solidity, brass wire was drilled into the wheel, then bent up to go into the swivel. the fork is built up around the wire to hide it. The wash in the panel lines was improved with Steve's method, still not as much I was after.

And the exhaust stacks were painted, given a bit of colour and installed.

Surely it can't take too much longer...

Good to see the legs on LA, will be nice to see this one done.

She's looking great LA! 

Almost to the finish line!!! 

Looks all fantastic and such Lost. Sweet work. Now, bring it home.

Thanks for the great comments guys, I am ready to see this done too.

So the next stage was finishing off the undercarriage and radiator scoop. The actuators and covers were put on the u/c and the scoop and its actuator installed.

The back view for the scoop:

and close up of the u/c:

Keep finding little details I had missed: formation lights, intake splitter, pitot tube... But still not much to go.

O wow, that undercarrage looks amazing. And if i remember right, thats all scratch built.

Bish

O wow, that undercarrage looks amazing. And if i remember right, thats all scratch built.

 

Beautiful job there. 

Thanks guys,

yes apart from the wheels (Barracuda Cast) the u/c is all scratchbuilt.

And we are geting even closer now!

Okay, cue music...  (I'm thinking the theme music from 2001 A Space Odyssey)

17 months

22 kit pieces

375 extra pieces of styrene

14 resin bits

5 foot of brass

1 tube of 5 minute epoxy

724 cups of tea

THE MB 5 IS COMPLETE

So it was set up for the display at Farnborough in 1946. That's why it is so clean with virtually no weathering. Kept with a satin finish for an end of war plane, certainly photos make it shinier than a flat finish.

So this has been quite a journey, we went round the block a few times more than strictly necessary and should have been done many moons ago. But I have learnt a bit and improved my scratchbuilding along the way.

Thanks very much for running a fun GB again Bish and for your patience. Thanks everyone for the kind words and your own great builds. I keep on learning...

Think my next build will be OOB though.

Piers

Lost, she looks impressive, as is your perseverance. 

Great skills here, and again, that is one heck of a build with what you had to start with.

regards,

Jack

LA, really nice build, thats a great fin9sh and some totrally amazing detail in there. And a huge well done for sticking with this, dedication in deed. Really well done and thank you very much for sharing it with us.

Front page is updated. So, any plans to try one of the AZ Model kits

@lostagain: 

That turned out beautifully! The yellow underbelly really pops nicely. 

Hey LA, she's friggin' gorgous! Great job all around!!!

You do know what this means though? Someone will come out with an injection molded kit now....

Thanks again guys

Gamera, Bish was having a dig about this perfidy from AZ:

But I will not be touching it, never ever...

And I do still have a few vac forms to do - Dynavector's Fairey Gannet (there's a kit of that), Rareplane's Seversky P-35 (there's a kit of that), Falcon's FW190 D-9 conversion (there's a kit of that) and a Northrop Delta (no kit of that).

One of the drawbacks of my glacial building speed - injection kits are out before I get to finish (or even start) the vac form!

Lol, I've never built an AZ kit. Is it limited run? In that case it might not be too much easier than your vac-form.

That came out completely on the fantastic side of epic. What a truly tremendous job you have done Lost. I am immensely impressed with your scratch building skills. Rest assured that all the effort you put into this has paid of in spades. Thank You very much for sharing your skills and talents with us.

As for my progress on my Corsair, well, there really hasn't been any. The wife unit and I have put in an epic effort into our yard and garden this spring. In addition to taking care of my mother's yard, this has required the attention of nearly all of my free time. The rest of my free time has been spent recovering from the resulting aches and pains. Yet, there is some glimmer of hope. The big push we are putting in over this holiday weekend should be an end to the lion's share of the effort and put us into maintenance mode. This, coupled with the onset of the heat of summer, should free me up to finally finish up the Corsair. thanks for hanging in there with me.

G, that was the funny thing, though i am not sure LA found it amusing. The AZ was released not long after he started his. But all credit to him, he could have just ditched it and bought the kit, but he didn't.

AZ released 2 kits. that and a naval version.

I am not sure if their kits are limited run or not, i know they like to do lots of versions of the same aircraft, they have a very large range of Bf 109's.

About the AZ kits, I have couple in the stash.  They are kind of like Sword brand, in that they have no location holes/pins, even the horizontal stabilizers are mated via flat surfaces - no tabs.  So kind of like vacuum, but the parts are definitely injected plastic on sprue trees.

regards,

Jack

Wow! A Sea Baker! That's really a what if!

Jack, they sound like the short run Kiwi Wings Boomerang and High Planes Mustang Racer kits I have. I need a few OOBs before I head back there...

jgeratic

About the AZ kits, I have couple in the stash.  They are kind of like Sword brand, in that they have no location holes/pins, even the horizontal stabilizers are mated via flat surfaces - no tabs.  So kind of like vacuum, but the parts are definitely injected plastic on sprue trees.

regards,

Jack

 

Thanks for that info Jack. I didn't know that about the Sword kits either. Nice to have a heads up. 

Joe,

Thanks for your kind comments. It has been good trying out a lot of new things, a lot was learnt from the other talented builders in these GBs. It also helps that all the stuff ups don't get mentioned or are hidden by judicious photography!

Know what can happen when the house takes over things for a while, especially when the weather is good.

But now you have to bring the Corsair home, 'cos that way I won't have been the last to finish...

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Yes, I have returned to finish what I started. I regret the way too long hiatus and certainly hope that there are some of you still tuned in. After a very busy spring I was having a hard time getting remotivated for the bench. But, a couple of weeks ago the members of the Grand Junction, Co. Modelers Society accepted an invitation to my home for a group build day. 5 members made the 2 hr. drive over and we had a grand time. Needless to say, this was just the jump start I needed to get back to the F4U Corsair and make progress toward finishing it up. 

What have I done in the past few days? Well, I applied a coat of Alclad aqua gloss on to the aircraft and as such, it is ready for some decals. Next was work on the engine. It has been painted, coated with future, wash applied, then coated with MM semi-gloss. Small holes were drilled into the ignition ring and plug wires installed into them. Now I just need to glue the engine parts together, trim plug wires, bend them into the cylinder heads and finish touch up painting.

Thank You Bish for allowing me to bring this to a conclusion. And thanks to all who tune in for the stretch run.

Good to see it back Joe, would have been a real shame not to see this finished. Nice work on the engine and looking nice in with the paint job.

Great to see you still moving on this Joe and cool work there on the engine. 

I still need to finish up my halftrack for Bish's halftrack GB that ended about two monthes ago... 

Thanks Bish & Gamera. So, I'm taking it then that my pics here that I posted from postimage.org are showing up all right on your end.

Sure, I'm seeing a photo of the engine with the wires attached and a second of the Corsair sitting on a paint rack.