David Hansen

It's decanted Tamiya white surface primer, that's been tinted by stirring in a brushful of XF-4 yellow green. YZC primer was not mixed to a specific colour requirement, so there's a lot of variance to be seen between manufacturers. Tamiya acrylics just stick to a primer, better than to bare plastic, especially if its very smooth. I wet sand all of my surface before painting, and it may seem like overkill, but i never have problems with Tamiya paint lifting. Typically, my paint schemes tend to be rather masking-intensive.

Mike, i'm not sure if you want to make the effort to fix this, but a mistake that just about every kit manufacturer of the F8U has made, is to include raised humps on the upper surface where the wing fold is. They should not be there. Not sure why companies keep making this mistake. Maybe they copied it over from the A-7 or something. Apples and oranges i know, but here's my corrected 48th scale F-8J wing... Just something to consider.... -d-

State of play as of Sunday... Found a seam on the keel which needed re work... The bottom is more or less ready to go. The uppers need the vertical fin installed, plus i need to re-mask the windscreen and i want to fine tune the fit of the G-Factor antenna posts, before the primer goes on. That's all for now, kids!

I like what i am seeing so far. It's a shame that we don't have a Hellcat kit on par with things like the Tamiya or Kotare offerings, but we go to war with the kits we have, not the ones we want or would like to have. Rodney Williams built a spectacular F6F-3 from this kit many years ago. Descriptions of the build are probably buried around here somewhere. I do recall the most labour-intensive part of the build was the wheel wells. Surprisingly complicated to re create from scratch. -d-

Glad to be of service Michael.

Thanks Andy!

Fabric covered areas on outer wing panels masked and primed. The control surfaces are taped in place, to keep them from rattling around in the box until they're ready for permanent installation. I'm still troubleshooting some issues on the wing leading edges and the wing fold region. Every one of these Tamiya kits have had a slightly different fit of the outboard sections to the center sections. Some fit better than others. None have been perfect, but none terrible. Probably within real-world production tolerances... I'll probably continue with painting the wings YZC, then mount the vertical fin and then finish up by priming the fuselage. -d-

The variances began in the postwar years, when the -4s and -5s were all the rage, and the -1Ds were relegated to the reserves. You will also see the walkway variations on Latin American Corsair operators. Vought was reluctant to put anything near the wing/fuselage interface out of fear of aggravating interference drag. Of course, painted tended to wear off in that very vicinity, but the metal was very thick in that area and they probably mathed out that the plane would probably be lost due to useage long before localized corrosion would be a problem..... Aesthetically i think it looks terrible but, that's how things played out. -d-

Looks good, so far. From what i can tell, after the war there was a lot more variance in how the non skid walkways were applied to -1D Corsairs. Interestingly enough it seems the -4s and -5s never got walkways applied. The AK Gloss Sea Blue looks good. -d-

Your disappointment sounds familiar. I had similar buzzkill with the 48th scale landing gear struts for the Tamiya F-4 kit. I am glad i dodged this particular bullet.

That finished powerplant looks wonderful!!

Latest progress update... The control surfaces were ready to go, and i had not mixed up a batch of the ANA 623 in over a year, so i wanted to get some paint on.... something to make sure i was still mixing the formula correctly. As usual, i laid down my coat of primer made from decanted Tamiya White Surface Primer (i got to the point i can shoot it directly into the airbrush without fear of armageddon), which is then tinted with a little bit of XF-4 flat yellow. Aside from the primer being a chance to check for any surface imperfections, i can take the parts out into sunlight to make sure i have adequate coverage. If the parts look dark green instead of blue, i know i need to put more paint on. Finally, i find that Tamiya acrylics just seem to bond to a primer better than to bare plastic. The vertical fin is just slipped in place right now. I have more work to do on the underside so i'm delaying installation as long as i can. This model will be on a slow burn in the background, while i work off some of my "Shelf of Doom" subjects.... -d-

I don't know why i keep doing this to myself...

Gosh, that sure looks cool, Dan!!