Gadfly's F4U - *** Finished ***

[Gadfly]

Hi,

With my MiG build progressing. I thought I'd jump on board with quick n dirty build of Academy's F4U I'm going to add nothing just build it as it comes. However I'm not going to use the Academy decals as they are the work of the devil.

Fortunately I'm partial to prop Corsairs and have Xtradecals nice Corsair sheet which helped me with my build of the Revell new tool F4U earlier in the year..

Here is the Kit...



Here is the Decal sheet...



Lots of options to look at although I might avoid the FAA ones as it means modifying the kit a bit.. The RNZAF options look nice but I'm a bit weary of those as The RNZAF never operated off carriers so I'm not sure that qualifies them for this GB???

Any how we'll splash a bit of paint around and see what we end up with.

Cheers
GF

[Martin R]

Lots of options to look at although I might avoid the FAA ones as it means modifying the kit a bit.. The RNZAF options look nice but I'm a bit weary of those as The RNZAF never operated off carriers so I'm not sure that qualifies them for this GB???

Hi GF,

Nice to have you on board (see what I did there?).

Land-based examples of types that have regularly operated off ships are within the rules of this GB (see Post 1 of the Sign Up & Chat Thread). Hence, I hope you do choose an RNZAF Corsair, as I for one would love to see it!

regards,

Martin

[Gadfly]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for the welcome, pun and clarification.

I did read the guidelines but I got confused if it was aircraft had operated off a deck or type had operated off a deck. You clarify its type so I'll take a look at the RNZAF options...

Cheers
GF

[Marek]

That is gonna be another interesting 'outlaw' plane .

[SteveC]

Fortunately I'm partial to prop Corsairs and have Xtradecals nice Corsair sheet which helped me with my build of the Revell new tool F4U earlier in the year..GF

Looking forward to seeing this finished. The Old Airfix Corsair was one of the first kits I built, so could I please ask for a brief opinion of the new Revell Kit, as I would quite like to build another one.

Thanks,

Steve

[Gadfly]

Hi,

In 72'd I'd rate F4U-1A kits as follows...

1.Tamiya
2.Revell
3.Academy / Hasegawa

The Tamiya kit is simply superb. The Revell is very nice with a good level of OOB detail.

Here is the Revell kit built.....



HTH

Cheers
GF

[Gadfly]

Hi,

Ok progress on the Corsair..

Cockpit painted and I added some belts made from foil.



I also painted the IP it features raised detail which I actually prefer to decals I painted it carefully and picked out the dials with a shaved toothpick to apply the paint.



I looked through the Decals options and the RNZAF schemes are mainly for the 1-D model. The reality is the 1-A and 1-D differences were pretty superficial from what I can make out.. so i'll run with one of these RNZAF schemes... Which are GSB all over... So a simple paint job..




More later I'll probably get the fuselage buttoned up and perhaps the wing on..

Cheers
GF

[Martin R]

Fortunately I'm partial to prop Corsairs and have Xtradecals nice Corsair sheet which helped me with my build of the Revell new tool F4U earlier in the year..GF

Looking forward to seeing this finished. The Old Airfix Corsair was one of the first kits I built, so could I please ask for a brief opinion of the new Revell Kit, as I would quite like to build another one.

Thanks,

Steve

Steve,

As Gadfly says, the Revell has a goodly amount of detail right out of the box and sure looks like a Corsair. However, some of the detailing is not appropriate to the F4U-1A it purports to be and some of the outline shapes aren't quite right. OK, that's JMN mode disengaged. All I'll say in addition is that I found the parts breakdown is a bit odd and the kit could be considered to be a bit overengineered. However, take your time, do lots of trialfitting and you'll be OK.

Gadfly,

I had the devil of a time getting the main gear legs and supporting structure in place and even now they have a non-prototypical forward rake to them . Do you have any tips on assembling this area, as yours look spot on?

regards,

Martin

[Gadfly]

I had the devil of a time getting the main gear legs and supporting structure in place and even now they have a non-prototypical forward rake to them . Do you have any tips on assembling this area, as yours look spot on?

regards,

Martin

Hi,

I built the Revell Kit in January which is a while ago I don't have anything insightful to add on the U/C other than the standard trial fit and adjust as required.

I'm not sure I agree the Revell kit is over engineered although I can see why you might say that. I think they have made the most out of the tooling by giving themselves options for future versions. The kit goes together well and is able to produce a nice result OOB.

If you want a 'better' kit then the Tamiya is the way to go IMHO.
Cheers
GF

[Gadfly]

Progress with the F4U

Assembly is reasonably straightforward and I had the wing mounted to the fuselage in reasonably short order. Cleaning up the seams was reasonably straightforward.

Here it is currently..



You can see the r2800 is also pretty much complete I painted it with Vallejo steel and the crankcase a grey colour with various black and umber washes. Its not the best r2800 representation in the world but will suffice..



Finally I did a bit of work on the .50's the kit openings were ok but weren't completely round so I opened them up to accept a bit of alloy tube and cut some sections of tube and glued them in with CA then filed them back flush with the leading edge.. Result is much improved gun blast tubes.



I need now to do a bit more surface prep and add the canopy before adding the GSB colour..

Cheers

GF

[TobyC]

Some very nice detailing especially in the cockpit

[SteveC]

That is coming along really well. Somehow that Gull wing makes it look like a real brute

And thanks all for the helpful comments about the Revell Corsair.

Regards,

Steve

[Martin R]

The gun barrels are a really nice addition.

[Gadfly]

Hi,

Thanks for the nice words.

I added a bit of paint. The RNZAF aircraft had a reasonably hard life operating from basic Airstrips in the Solomon Islands so the Aircraft tended to weather reasonably quickly with the toll of operational flying and reasonably basic conditions for repairs etc.

As such I followed the advice on the Xtra Decal sheet and faded the GSB quite heavily to almost a grey colour all of the shading was done post main coat with tints of the base colour. The paint is Tamiya Sea Blue lightened with white. the undersides which would not have faded as heavily were given a coat of the standard colour apart from the outer wings which were often folded from what I can make out looking at period photos.

Here are some shots of where were at currently..





I think the majority of the base colour is pretty correct now. So I'll leave it to harden up over the next 24 hrs then add a coat of gloss varnish and decals etc.
I might assemble the cowl and motor as that will help with the post decaling weathering..

Cheers

GF

[splash]

I have published a walk round of the F4 Corsair in the Fleet Air Arm Museum at RNAS Yeovilton Here is the link http://cluster8.secure-staging.uk/ashdo ... index.html

I hope you find it useful.

Regards Splash