Fleet Air Arm Group Build

Leon,

good to hear from you...........Wow! That Hellcat looks amazing! I really like the paint and markings. Superb!   

Mike,

thought you'd gone AWOL for a while there.......... Glad to have you back mate. Look forward to hearing what you get up to on the bench.

Hey Darren!

Nah, not AWOL, just been really swamped at work lately. Feels real good to be back posting & building again, that's for sure! Worked at the bench pretty much all day today and I plan on getting a few more hours in tonight after my wife turns in for the evening, with an almost identical schedule planned for tomorrow.

You lucky !

I have been on my toes since 05.00hrs and got home at 22.00hrs.....I really envy you! Still, I have a long weekend coming up so hopefully I'll get some time to myself.

Darren, Thanks for the kind comment on the hellcat. I appreciate it. Now, I am really, really trying to get back into the corsair. I think once I get a little steam going again, it will be a very fun build again...I'm trying to accept and be happy with the fact that it doesn't have to be perfect.

Hope all is well.
Leon

Hello to all,

Been away for a few weeks getting things together for my move.  I leave Saturday morning for Florida (Frank you still coming to visit?)  I will be gone from the forum for a few more weeks until I get set up.  i hope by then that I will be back to building  Wanted you guys to know that I do miss chating with you guys. 

Talk to you all in a few weeks from sunny Florida.

Roy

Good luck with the move Roy. I hope all goes well!

A question, and I beg forgiveness if it has been covered previously in the thread, but on a corsair with sky colored bottom would the gear legs be sky or metal or something else?

Thanks,
Leon

Hiya Roy!  Glad to hear from you, and good luck with the move.  It hasn't been the same around here without you.  I do hope to come visit sometime in the future.

Leon- Here is a link to some Corsair color info.  They do not specifically mention FA aircraft but, but interesting info all the same.  Hope it helps!

Hey all-been busy-I've been admiring everyone's excellent work-just haven't had the chance to respond.

Had a couple of days to work on the cockpit-I ended up using the PE & resin seat.  I liked the PE belts better, but the resin seat had better detail.  Anyway, after test fitting the canopy, it will have to be built closed, so most all of the detail work will be unnoticable....oh bother...but here's what it looks like before closing it up.  Wings are on-gonna leave the tail wings off until after painting for a change-should be easier to mask.

Kit goes together well-not a lot of seams to deal with.  Probably won't get much done this coming week..and I'll be out-of-town 7/28 to 8/5-no computer & no models...so this one probably won't get finished until late August....

Nice work on the pit Bob .

regards,  Rick

Wow, nice one Bob!  Your office is absolutely breathtaking!  The Hellcat is on the top of my "to build" list, seeing yours really makes me want to start it.

Woohoo!  I am on vacation for a week and a half!  Planning on lots of workshop time, except for a break later in the week for a trip to EAA AirVenture.  Some of the highlights this year are celebrities like Gunther Rall, Chuck Yeager, Tex Hill and planes like Glacier Girl, a U-2, F-22 Raptors, F-117, B-2... It's ALMOST too much!

Bob, nice office!   She's coming along quite nicely.

Frank I too am on vacation for the next two weeks.  wish I could get to an airshow around here but instead I am taking the family camping for a week so no build time for me. 

Thanks Bob! 

Well, the Corsair finally beat me.  I was working on stripping it last night and broke off one of the wings.  It appears that the alcohol will soften up the plastic if you use too much of it.  I remember on the Zero having something similar.  In that one's case, small fractures began to appear and the plastic started getting soft.  The Corsair had a lot more paint on it and thus required more than the usual amount of alcohol.  The entire wing sheared right off, and I decided to just call it quits on it and salvage as many bits as possible for the next one.  I managed to carefully extract the interior bits, and the prop, engine, landing gear, cowl, and minor bits are safe.  The next one will have a head's start, I guess!

Darren- Will you strike the Corsair from my list, and add the Mk.46 Seafire I am building for the Spitfire GB?  Thanks!

Frank, Thanks for the color link. It's too bad to hear about the corsair, but man you sure did give it your best effort...

Bob, nice looking hellcat you got going. Can't wait to see more.

Leon 

Bob-

very nice work indeed sir! Love how you've done the cockpit.

Frank-

mate.........I'm gutted. I know how hard you worked on the Corsair and I was really looking forward to seeing her in FAA livery, still time to put it behind you and move on. I'll be glad to share your progress on the Seafire.

Daywalker wrote:

Hmmm... Me thinks the cap'n might be off hoarding all of the rum, by thunder!

Well lads,

even though I've been off duty for three days, I have not had a lot of time in the workshop. Friday was spent catching up with my best mate and we went to the LHS to see what we could get our hands on.........

I came back with some cracking stuff! I found SAM publications Modelers datafile:Pt.I Merlin Engined Spitfires and Pt.II Giffon Engined Spitfires.......these two books are amazing!! They have absolutely tons of info/pics and diagrams all aimed at the model-maker. Part I is now out of print, which is why I just had to have it! if you see these books get them them while they are still around!

Also, I bought a kit..........Trumpeters 1/48 Hawker Seahawk-yet another build for my ever expanding FAA collection. After a long day of talking models, a few drinks and a hearty meal rounded off the day nicely.

Saturday, I managed top sneak away to the workshop and get a little bit done. I am having a real battle with the wings on my Seafire, so not much progress made there. I'm hoping that once I get all the surfaces smooth, I can crack on with the paint job at long last! The rest of my time went into my Mk.IX Spit which I'll report on over at The Spitfire GB.

Hope you all are enjoying the weekend! This case of rum is for our Roy to celebrate his new home-hope all goes well for you mate!

Cheers lads!

Thanks guys.  I may do another one before this GB ends, but it would be a while.  Meanwhile, I'm going to plod on with the Seafire.

Good score Darren!  Looks like we will be coming to you for Spitfire info/pictures!

Hey buddy! Sorry to hear about your Corsair. Man, that's a lot of time invested only to see it end this way, but I think we've all been there at one time or another (I know I have). It isn't easy. My advice....sit back, pop open a cold one, and then get busy on that Seafire.

On a different note, enjoy your vacations, guys!

Frank-

you asked what trouble I was having with the wings so here goes.........

As I am building the Mk.47 I need to use the parts needed to make the folded wing. As you will see from the instructions, Airfix intended this version to be built with its wings folded. So in order to build it with the wings down a few tweeks are called for. In order to create a stable wing I opted to use the lower Mk.46 wing and the upper Mk.47 wing, instead of all the Mk.47 wing parts. This is great until one discovers quite a gap between the molded on-flaps and the lower wing halves on the underside of the wing.

With me so far?

All of this causes a ripple effect, the wingtip formation lights will not fit properly and the the trailing edges of the entire wing need thinning........ I have used zap-a-gap to fill the trench on the underside and thinned tippex to cure the trailing edge problems.

So how does this effect you? As you're building a Mk.46, it won't. You lucky

The only problem I think that you will encounter is the formation lights......if there is a step on on side of the wing, cut it away and superglue the light in. Then all you need do is sand it down to get a flush fit.

Phew! I think thats about it...........

I hope in some way this is helpful!

Darren-

Thanks, that does help!  I have read in the reviews about the thick clear pieces for the lights, I plan on glueing them in flush on top and sanding the the bottom until flush.  That way, the missing detail will be on the bottom only which I can live with!

If you run into any problems with broken Mk.47 wing pieces, mine are all spares so just say the word and I will send them off to you.

BTW, when you glued the wing to the fuse, was there a large gap in the roots?  I have only test-fit mine, and it looks like that may be the case.  I had thought about first glueing the upper wing halves to the fuse, then the lower.  But, there isn't much glueing surface in that area and I am nervous about a weak joint there.  I have also thought about a spacer in the fuse to spread it.  Did you have any problems there, and if you did- how did you deal with them?

Glad to help Frank.

The wing roots on the Mk.46 wing should not be too bad from the little I remember aboutb building that version.......hang on a minute, I'll go look at the old one in my workshop.

Right, I've had a good look at this thing and to my complete surprise......I managed to get a really good joint! If memory serves, the wing root itself was OK, its the mid fuselage piece that caused a bit of grief.......get the wings lined up and suprglue the mid fuse bit afterwards. I recon you should be OK. Remember, the Mk.46 wing is a good fit!

I really hope this helps, I last tackled the Airfix Seafire nearly eight years ago and a lot has happened since then! Do let me know how you get on.

24,257 hits............damn! We're coolest GB on the planet!!

I really do wish I could buy you lads a few pints in my local. This is the best GB ever.

Cheers!

TANGO 1 wrote:

24,257 hits............damn! We're coolest GB on the planet!! This is the best GB ever. Cheers!

It's a blast here, thanks everyone!

Darren- Thanks for the info.  But, I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "mid fuselage bit".

Sorry Frank,

I'll try to elaborate.........If you take just the lower wing, you will have the wing and as part of the same piece, part of the middle underside, that would sit just aft of the cockpit. When you glue the wing to the fuselage, this rear part of the lower wing will sit away from the rest of the airframe. A bit of glue and masking tape should help eliminate the problem.

Any better? 

Blimey, this modeling lark is tricky!