David Hansen

Latest Update. Fuselage and wing center section assembled. Mostly done with the fit issues on the boot cowl. Some re-rescribing to be done. Close up of the work being done on the boot cowl... Heres the major components, mostly assembled and laid out.... And just for giggles, here's all the big body parts put together, for illustrative purposes only. The model is, to use a technical term, The Shizzle. -d-

Wow, that is just sooooo cool!! i plan to eventually build one in 72nd scale for my Navy collection, but after i finish this F4U that may be too good to pass up. One question: Were the oleos that extended on the real plane when parked? It's really a crime the Navy didn't fly that thing at least once before scrapping it. It could have been very useful on the "Jeep" type carriers. A could however see those things nosing over, the props striking the wooden decks and splinters flying everywhere.... Truly an amazing build, brilliantly executed. Thanks for Posting! david

Seems to me the F-104 is like the BF-109G-6 of jet aircraft subjects. Every major kit manufacturer does one. Doesn't matter if the effort is outstanding, Meh, or downright terrible; it would appear they all make money. Unfortunately, because of that there's not as much impetus to make a world-beating effort at it, although Hasegawa has done an admittedly excellent job at it and has been doing so for a long time. If only they could do some of the exotic Navy and NF-104 versions..... sigh. Gotta build at least one F-104, since thew Navy flew em an all..... david

Just a brief update: The fuselage halves were glued together some time ago, and i mated the fuselage to the wing center section today. The boot cowl (Part G17) gave me some gap issues, because the firewall/ stainless steel dishpan (Part G7) was not fully back into the recess milled into the fuselage halves when i glued in place and wrapped rubber bands around it. The problem is fixable, but i'm having to mark, drill out and replace the raised Dzus Fastener heads on part G17. So, when you are building this kit, look out for this area. Here be dragons. So far this is still the only "issue" i'm having with this kit. I'm still Lovin' it.

Ahhhhhh. That looks MUCH better. Nice to see one in FAA markings. Nicely photographed, too. david

I've never successfully foiled a model, so not sure if my opinion counts for much. FWIW, i like it! I know it HAD to be a lot of hard work to make it this far, and i can imagine you're pretty exhausted after this build. Thanks for posting. Now that you are farther along the learning curve, can't wait to see what you do next! Cheers, david

Are the landing gear, spinners and canopy just temporarily installed for photography purposes? -d-

I am amazed and smitten by its awesome weirdness. Those Vought Engineers were brilliant, although many times too clever by half. david

Hi Loic, First off, i'm very much impressed by how you went about making those complex intake manifold shapes. Seeing it without primer, reminds me of a piece of modern sculpture. Second, I came across an "Issue" in building the Tamiya Corsair you need to be aware of, since sooooo much of this stuff is built off the stainless steel "Dishpan" firewall. I'm sure you know already that the firewall sits in a rebated area milled into the inside edges of the left and right fuselage. The firewall has to be absolutely, positively fully seated in the area so none of the firewall projects forward of the fuselage edges. There is a curved piece , sometimes called a "boot cowl" that closes off the forward fuselage immediately aft of the cowling flaps. MOST of it bonds to the fuselage sides, but the top aligns with the firewall. If the firewall piece is not properly in place and projects ever so slightly forward of the adjacent fuselage skin, the fit of the boot cowl will be OK down near the wings, but you will have a joint/ gap that gets progressively wider as you go up the fuselage sides, to the place where the rectangular top piece drops in. Most people agree the front end of that rectangular piece has a gap where it meets the boot cowl. i THINK i caused this by operator error. When i glued my firewall in, i mounted the fuselage to the wing section and wrapped a rubber band around the whole front end. What i think happened was the compression may have "squeezed" the firewall slightly out of alignment while the glue was drying . Now, the problem certainly isn't a deal breaker, but i'm gonna have to obliterate the finely molded raised screw heads in the process of filling that gap, and i'll have to replace them. I don't know exactly how or if this will impact how you are engineering the conversion, but forewarned is forearmed. HTH, david

Thanks Ben! -d-

Wow! It sure comes alive when the wing walkways and the insignias go on. Love it!! Whose wheels? -d-

Hey Allan, More likely than not, i will be painting on the insignias; had good luck with my 48th scale insignias, once i learned what NOT to do. Mal Mayfield does good work. -d-

Special: "Put Up or Shut Up" Edition! Hi everybody, Here are the first pics taken of my Tamiya Corsair, that will be built as the prototype Goodyear FG-1. The one and only photo of the prototype is pretty small, but i have much better imagery taken on the Goodyear flight line depicting what are probably the second or third aircraft. From what i can tell, Chance Vought delivered to Goodyear a F4U-1 in "Knocked Down" configuration, for assembly and tooling design wearing the original Blue Gray over Light Gray camouflage scheme. From everything i know so far, Goodyear delivered its very first FG-1 in their interpretation of the three tone scheme, with 360-degree cowl flaps, short tail wheel strut with pneumatic tyre, and national insignia in 4 locations without bars. This model is a prototype of sorts for me too so i'm buildng it almost straight out of the box. I have no secrets. Any questions, comments, criticisms, etc. are welcome. Hope you enjoy the photos. If you'll excuse me, i have some fuselage halves to glue together. david

Cool; glad it was an easy fix. Was a little afraid i might have hurt your feelings. Like i said before, otherwise a great build. and yeah the kit really IS sensitive to assembly. My "favourite" was the round, photo-etched oil cooler screens. Each one has a differently-sized key. Those were an unwanted surprise but i was able to work around that. FWIW i posted my Non-32nd scale Corsairs in the separate discussion forum. I will spray my seat with dullcoat tomorrow. then it will be time to close up my fuselage. Did not like those Tamiya photo etched seat belts one bit, but aside from that the kit has been a breeze. david

Hi everybody, i've been posting a lot of responses in regards to folks building the Tamiya F4U kit, and i'm just about the close up the fuselage halves on mine and start snapping progress pics. However, being a firm believer in earning the right to make comments, i thought it would be a good idea to post samples of my work, for those of you which havent seen it, just to reassure you i know what i'm talking about. i think. Submitted for your approval, my Corsair "Body of Work"... Brewster F3A-1: Tamiya, 72nd scale... Next, my F4U-2. Tamiya, 48th scale. Next, My F4U-1A. Tamiya, 72nd scale. Now, a close-to-finished project. Just need the motivation to build the tail wheel. F4U-1, Number 1. Tamiya, 48th scale. Finally, something i just got done... cause i really needed to get something done. F4U-1D. Tamiya, 72nd scale. I hope you like the pictures, in an effort to build some good will and establish "Street Cred" david

Nice looking Wildcat, Frank! I like the somewhat darker shade of Blue Gray than what you typically see; its a nice change. Glad you got to correspond with "Swede". I'm not entirely surprised he lived so long; my Danish granddad lived til 96. At any rate i'm glad ye got to talk to him. I was able to get pics of my F4U-2 to Ed Sovik while he was still healthy enough to look at them. i never spoke to him, but i know he really liked my model. I know Swede would have liked yours. I too have an FM-1 on the "Shelf of Doom". I've been holding out for just the right paint scheme. Personally i like to sand the raised rivets off. when you put a wash over the model the rivets look larger than life Cheers, david

Hey Ron, it looks great but something is bothering me. The wheel hubs look like they stand off too proud from the surrounding tyre. Are they kit rubber tyres? Are they only an interim item till something comes in from aftermarket? Is it possible the tyres are installed into the wheel hub/ brake assembly backwards? Are the wheels simply not pressed fully into the tyre? I don't want to take anything away from an otherwise beautiful build, but it just glares at me. No offense intended. david

I'm one of those whose had excellent results with Future, though like you i'm doing more and more painting of things like national insignia, etc. Go with what works. Cheers, david

And the Crowd goes, "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH........." Is the semi gloss surface in its final state or will it be glossed prior to decaling? Just curious. david

Welcome Aboard Ben. Hope to close up my Corsair fuselage soon. david

Bill, For the tensioner i'd go back to my original suggestion of finding the finest copper wire you can (the stuff i use is red in colour and came out of a piece of electronics) and a very small diameter piece of stainless steel hypo needle tubing. You could either a) make a separate hook for either end and CA in place or run a single piece thru the tubing and bend a hook on either end. I can try this out with my stash of hypo needle tubing and wire and find out if it works as well as i hope it does. stand by for my results. As for the wires themselves, i'm not sure how to answer that question. Most of my models are 72nd and 48th scale, and for those applications i use black pantyhose fiber. Its extremely thin and has a LOT of stretch to it, but teasing individual fibres out of the lycra matrix can be difficult. Other recommendations i've heard include human hair, hair from a wig, Dai-Riki fly tying line, EZ-Line, and stretched clear sprue. However i haven't tried any of these. david

Hi Bill, Well, the way i'd approach it is as follows. Speaking strictly theoretically for now, but based on good experience in the smaller scales. 1) You are gonna need a piece of aluminium rod of pretty small diameter. i think K+S still makes the stuff. This will serve as the antenna post on the rudder. 2) Starting with a #80 drill bit, carefully drill a hole at the seam where the halves of the rudder come together (where the busted off antenna post used to be). You should probably drill this at a forward angle to match the axis of the forward cant of the post. 3) Very carefully open this hole out, going up one drill bit size at a time to avoid splitting open the rudder along the seam. 4) Ultimately you will need a hole same size as that of the aluminium rod. For strength, i'd make the part that goes into the rudder at least as long as the protruding part of the post itself. 5) Once you have a piece of rod cut to the right length and test fitted, put the part that is the antenna post in a flush -faced pliers, or a vise if you have one and slowly squeeze the round part into an oval and make it flat. It's obviously gonna flare out a bit in the process but thats OK. 6) Using files, flexi-files, sanding sticks, etc., re shape the flared out profile and file away the excess until the squished part looks like the gently tapered rudder post/ mast. Aluminium rod sands and files fairly easy so it not exactly an arduous process. 7) This comes down to choice, but you could either... a) drill a hole thru the tip of the mast to accept an s-shaped hook made from fine copper wire or... File out a rectangular notch in the tip/ back side of the post, to which the s-shaped hook will hook onto. The above approach has worked fine for me in 72nd and 48th scales; don't see why it wouldn't do the same in 32nd scale. You have my sympathy. david

Nice Job! Despite being roughly the same age, The 1970-ish vintage Hasegawa F6F is definitely a better representation of a Hellcat, than Revell's F4U interpretation of a Corsair. Nice choice of paint scheme too. Seems most people opt for either McCampbells "Minsi III/IV" or Vraciu's "Gadget". The kit has some shape issues, mainly with the windscreen and canopy but its much better than the Trumpeter kit in terms of overall shape. Would love Tamiya to do this in 32nd scale but fear it won't sell as well as a Corsair. So, it looks like this kit will need to serve on for a while. But well executed regardless. Thanks for posting! david

Maybe Revell of Germany......? Maybe not. The "Boffins" will savage them. Again. david

Personally, i think there's a market for brass antenna posts in all three major scales. I just don't know if something like that is best made via a kind of spark-discharge process, or lost-wax casting. Same goes for pitot tubes for propeller-driven aircraft, a la Master. I have lost count of how many plastic antenna posts i've snapped off in my lifetime. There are just some details on models that polystyrene isn't well suited for. My rudder halves are glued together and i was gonna cross that bridge when i got to it, but i will probably replace the kit antenna post with aluminium rod, filed to an aerofoil cross section. Much easier to file to shape than brass, just so long as its not too long. Brass is better for longer posts, if they need to take any kind of tension (and mine do). As for the rubber thing? What about pieces of copper wire, bent to a hook shape, inserted into either end of a piece of stainless hypo needle tubing? Maybe stretched plastic tubing over wire but its hard to get a consistent diameter. However, its worth trying. david