ChuckD

Progress! wheel wells and wing roots are dine. No weathering yet, but a base coat is down. No warranties express or implied on spelling, grammar, or diction due to wine consumption. 8|

Absolutely awesome!

Hi, all. Back with a small update. Progress has been kinda slow this week as I've been busy with work, stuff with my kiddo, and I've been under the weather. I think for the diorama, I'm not going to attach the a/c to the base. The odds of the dio traveling outside my model room (before it makes its final trip to the dumpster after I'm cold and in the dirt) is near zero, so it shouldn't much matter if the plane and base are detachable. With that in mind, I'm taking some time to detail things on the under side of the plane that would never be seen if attached to the base. The Corsair has quite a bit of plumbing running through the wheel wells, so I tried to simulate that here. I also opened the lightening holes on the bottom of the spar to run plumbing in there. I'm still searching for photos of the gear bay forward of the spar though. There has to be plumbing in there for the main hydraulic actuator and other sundries. So far, all the sources I've found have come up dry. I've got amazing photos of the bay aft of the spar (thank you again, @Dana Bell!), but the search continues for a good look forward of the spar. I had to add the door actuators so that I could plumb them properly without the doors being in place. Fortunately, the doors can be added after the fact with no issue. The only downside is that, until the gear is slotted in place, they become load bearing when the assembly is placed right side up. You can already see that the actuator on the right has started to weaken. It's amazing how helpful it is to use lead wire. It's so much more friendly to use than even soft copper or brass. Anyway, that's it for now. Next up will be a similar treatment to the other wheel well, then assembling the main gear. On the plus side, I just learned that my new company closes down over the holidays, so I get an unexpected paid week off between the holidays! With nothing else planned, that should allow for some pretty decent progress to wind out the year.

What a cool build. I've often thought of recreating some of the chickenhawks I used to fly. Too bad this kit is so hard to find. Back when I was flying a lot, my FBO had a C-172N on the line (N6370D) that was just beat. Inside and outside, it was scratched, dented, cracked, and torn up. But man, did that airplane ever want to fly. It'd hop off the ground in a heartbeat, fly like a dream, and landed as smooth as glass. The line guys at the FBO started calling her "the hooker with a heart of gold." She wasn't much to look at, but she really knew her trade.

Oh, I watched you work through that process. You deserve the highest commendation, but that's 100% more effort than I'd want to undertake. Just sell me a sprue, HKM.

I agree with all the sentiments above. I was jazzed about the A-26, but never bought one due to its many issues. The B-24's issues don't bother me as much, but I'm part way through the HB kit now and probably wouldn't bother with a new tool kit regardless of perfection. One massive Liberator is enough for me. Back on the topic of A-20s, it would be awesome if HKM came up with a way to combine the two kits so you could build a gunship with the individual exhaust cowls. I'd buy the G kit and a cowl sprue any day, but right now I don't see a way to build a G with the individual cowls without buying both kits and bashing them together.

Thanks, that's definitely a great mindset for this hobby. I like to think I strike a balance of detailing where it's visible vs time and effort wasted on something I'll never see. At least, I strike enough of a balance for my tastes and I respect everyone else's artistic license to detail as their heart guides too. For me, this hobby is the confluence of my passion for history and my desire to do things with my hands. It also satisfies an artistic creative drive too. So in the end, it's very cathartic for me. I took the week after Thanksgiving off and spent it in the model room listening to jazz and building away. As a bonus, I was, for the first time in 13 years, able to turn off notifications on my phone and ignore work emails. It was probably the the closest I have ever come to true zen enlightenment.

@Dana Bell I just received all three of your Corsair books yesterday. Thanks for the prompt shipping! What an awesome collection of resources for geeks like us. I found the color profile you mentioned, but wanted to say that some of the details shots of the gear bay are what I've found most helpful at the moment. Right now I'm trying to add wiring and other sundries to the gear bays. Do you (or anyone else) have good reference photos for the part of the gear bay forward of the spar? I think I have everything I need for the area aft of the spar, but references are short for the other area. Thanks!

Fascinating, thanks. I'll see if I can grab a copy of it. You know, if this turns out to be a presentable project when done, I'd be happy to give this to you as a direct descendant of the man being portrayed. I just don't know how I'd get it to you without UPS or the likes turning the whole thing into plastic kibble. Anyway, I couldn't stand the back of the cowl flaps being completely devoid of details and none of the aftermarket detail sets are in stock anywhere, so I added a little bit myself. It's not much, but it does add some visual interest behind the flaps. As it stands, I currently have the tailwheel, cowls, and engine installed and am working on the lower wings. I'll be adding some wiring to the gear bays to busy them up a bit.

Once I finish my Corsair build, I'll jump in on this.

Sweet merciful God, please don't connect that to the Internet.

I echo these sentiments verbatim. They're always my first stop for model stuff. I shudder to think how much money I've sent them in the last decade.

It can't be terrible if it's right.

I read that he was one of the few people whose health improved while in a POW camp.

Following and looking forward to seeing it!

I got a good chuckle out of this, thank you. The line on his note is something of an inside joke, but rest assured, he's a pretty awesome kid and he got his cake.

Thanks, Dana. I appreciate the compliments and the clarity. Which Corsair book are you referring to? The rivet counter one or the aircraft pictorial one? Disregard, I just ordered all three off Amazon.

Thanks for sharing. If you think of the name of Bruce Campbell's book, let me know. I'd like to learn more. It is my impression too that, with the shoestring nature of the campaigns in the SW Pac, the pilots often flew whatever ship was available. Certainly some guys had assigned or "owned" planes, but my impression is that was the exception, rather than the rule. Well, let's talk about that. Obviously, the colorized photo shows it in the early 2-tone scheme. The profile for it in Michael Claringbould's Pacific Profiles book also shows it as a 2-tone bird. My thought process was that, being an early ship in a training squadron, it was probably rotated to the training role once it was so weary as to not be useful in frontline service. Thus, it would likely still be in its original 2-tone camo scheme. However, in looking at the photos, I can definitely seen an argument that it is a 3-tone scheme with straight camo lines running along the longitudinal axis of the a/c with the demarcation between the dark blue and medium blue along the upper edge of the bar in the insignia. What's the consensus here? Upon further research it appears there likely will be no consensus. Many forum posts here and elsewhere with @Dana Bell's input lead me to believe this would be the 3 tone camo.

Back in my 20s, I got the opportunity to see a panel presentation put on by the Yankee Air Museum. The panel consisted of Chuck Yeager, Bud Anderson, and Gunther Rall. I later got to meet and shake hands with Anderson and Rall, but Yeager was charging so much for the privilege of coming near him, it put me off. Mr. Rall signed a copy of his book for me. It was loud and his hearing wasn't great, so I now have a copy of his book with an inscription from him that starts, "To Jeff..." (Spoiler alert: My name isn't Jeff.)

Thank you! @John1 It was Shapeways that has all the 3D printed conversion pieces. I hope you've got deep pockets though, my friend.

So, it's apparently time for me to buy a lottery ticket. No sooner had I stuck a piece of tape over the Quinta IP, than this happened. I was trying to mix up a lighter color of green to use for dry brushing when I squeezed my ancient Vallejo white juuuuust a bit too hard. Man I got lucky; not an errant speck on the unmasked areas. Anyway, after recovering from that, I went on to finish the cockpit today. The interior is lightly chipped via the sponge method, then dirtied up a bit with oils and enamels. The results of the Quinta set and painted wires are really nice. Where the tail wheel would toss up debris and dirt, I splashed dark enamel washes along with some lighter mud tones using the speckling method. Again, the speckling is not nearly as pronounced to the naked eye. If I had more brain power, I'd get really good with model photography but I only have so much bandwidth and I already spend enough of my days in front of a computer anyway. So, I'll live with my phone doing it's consumer-friendly best and over-emphasizing the speckling. The results of the wiring below the IP are pretty solid and I'm happy with them. They can't be seen much when it's all together, but it still adds quite a bit of visual interest. And, with that it was time to close up the fuse! This is always a fun milestone of any airplane build. Don't tell anyone, but it's starting to look like a Corsair already. The roundish body of the corsair swallows most of the detail I spent yesterday building. :/ And that's it for now. I'm back to work tomorrow, so I suspect updates will slow down quite a bit, but the next steps are to add the firewall, exhausts and engine. Then it'll be on to the tail wheel assembly and the wings!

I think Shapeways or Model Monkey has a lot of 3d printed conversion kits in that scale. Not cheap, but very nice.

Revell has/had the 1:144 scale round bridge Fletcher for years. The premium edition comes with a full Pontos set of etched and turned brass. These are my end results of the premium edition kit. https://postimg.cc/gallery/DLrdR7r

Holy smokes that's dedication to the cause. Please post a build thread as you build and detail.

Sounds like you're looking for some sort of ball mount so that you can adjust the position/attitude of the plane on its stand? Am I reading that right? The only thing that's coming to mind readily is the ball fitting on a stopper for a sink drain. I wonder if you could retrofit something like that to work.