richdlc Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 (edited) Hi everyone... well after dying of flu for the past week I finally got round to some modelling & managed to finish up the tailwheel area. The last couple of months I've read and re-read about the interior colours of Corsairs - should I go for salmon pink primer, interior green, chromate green or sky blue pink with polka dots? The overwhelming evidence suggested chromate green/yellow primer. For this I used Revell US interior green mixed with a touch of yellow. In many reference pics I have, the colour appears different according to light conditions - the weathered/shadowed areas appear almost orange, whilst the highlighted areas appear quite yellow. To replicate this, I gave the entire thing a wash of burnt sienna oils, then drybrushed with progressive lighter shades of green and yellow. I finished off with metalising / paint chips with shades of silver and grey. (Arrestor hook still to be weathered ) the wheel strut was usually painted the same colour as the airframe. I have also been researching the 'Glossy Sea Blue' colour used on USN aircraft from about 1943 onwards. After a few failed experiments, I decided to go with a matt finish - not only was I extremely reluctant to paint an entire model using gloss, I intend to heavily weather this machine in accordance to ref pics of Korean War Corsairs, which will dull the finish anyway. I brush painted the landing gear Humbrol 77 (Matt Navy Blue) mixed with a touch of black. I separated the bottom of the strut so I could reposition the wheel at a slightly offset angle. The wheel itself represents one of the smaller, hard rubber tires used by Navy machines (I intend to build a USN Corsair undergoing field maintenance at a Korean airfield) and uses the kit hub and a small slice of appropriately diametered hollow plastic tube. Here's what it looks like buttoned up.....unfortunately all that detail vanishes You can still see a little through the open access panels...but at least I'm satisfied it's all in there. The circled hole is the rear lifting point common to a lot of prop airplanes - you stick a metal tube through the fuselage and can then use that to manhandle or lift the plane. Once finished, I'll scratchbuild some jacks and have the rear of the plane lifted up (hence the deployed arrestor hook). I had to reposition the one on the kit for two reasons - firstly it didn't correspond to where one of the bulkheads was, and second my reference pics showed it slightly further forward of the tailplane, rather than directly underneath it. I simply filled the old one with plastic rod & drilled a new one on either side: well that's it for now - now I can button up the fuselage and return to scratching the fuel tank bay etc. This part of the build has taken around 40 hours & TBH is only worth it if you're a card-carrying rivet counter like me hope you like it so far.... stay tuned till next time rich Edited February 20, 2011 by richdlc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big matt Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Looks good Rich. I think you are right to avoid salmon for your build. I wanted to use it on the early -1A but there is still some skepticism and conflicting info. I had a perverse sense of fun working on the tail section as well, but you are right, it will all disappear. Bummer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesHatch Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Looks like you have a tail-wheel fetish like I do! Great work...loving this build Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richdlc Posted March 12, 2011 Author Share Posted March 12, 2011 Hi everyone, a small update as of 12/3/11 Firstly, thank you all for the positive comments! The first major thing - I got the fuselage halves glued together! Unfortunately most of the tail wheel detail immediately disappeared...but I was ready for that lol. Next up, I detailed the fuel cell bay - the most prominent features of this are the ribs (with piping behind) and the cradle that the cell sits on. You can see pics of the cradle earlier in the thread. I made the ribs with plastic strip of various diameters - I started out by marking out the position of each rib using a very thin strip of plasticard, then built on those. I sandwiched piping and cables in between, then finished off with another thin strip on top to seal everything in. This is what I had to reproduce (pictures by kind courtesy of Drew King) - you can clearly see that at different times of day, and in different light conditions the colour varies between chromate yellow and interior green, so I'll have to consider this when it comes to painting: starboard side: port side: and here's my interpretation - I think the cradle is possibly a little too big, and not at the correct angle....but no one will notice (hopefully) unless they have intimate knowledge of the Corsair finally I added a few cosmetic details to the starboard fuselage side, namely the drop down boarding step, and I also opened up the hand grab 'thing' - I'm assuming that the springs on these hand/foot kick panels eventually wore out & the panels stayed open on some aircraft - there's a good pic of just such an occurrence on p.64 of the 'modeller's datafile' on the Corsair that's it for now, please feel free to comment or ask any questions thanks rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misha71 Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 very impressive work Rich. you have done amazing job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big matt Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Great scratch work Rich! I am looking forward to seeing how you handle the primer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Ron Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Looking good Rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martinnfb Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Stunning.I am looking forward to see the finished product. M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richdlc Posted March 13, 2011 Author Share Posted March 13, 2011 thanks very much for the kind comments guys! Rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richdlc Posted March 16, 2011 Author Share Posted March 16, 2011 *update 16/03/11* just a quick one today guys- I managed to finish painting the fuel cell bay tonight. I used the same paint combo as the tailwheel well, so US interior green mixed with chromate yellow. Wash of burnt sienna and highlights with chromate yellow, gunmetal and flat silver. I'd really appreciate your feedback about how it looks as I think I over-egged the pudding slightly with the metalizing. I'm not sure that gunmetal would be an appropriate colour to 'chip' things - I saw a really cool Spitfire build on the forum where someone used watercolour pencils (in this case dark grey) to give a very realistic worn look to their metal areas - I'm pretty sure though that a Corsair would be shiny aluminium under all the paint? Anyway I've used both colours, and I can always blend things in more with another wash...ho hum. Once again the macro pictures magnify everything tenfold! Anyway here it is, hope you like it: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richdlc Posted April 17, 2011 Author Share Posted April 17, 2011 *update 17 April 2011* Hello everyone - finally managed to get to a stage where I can post an update.... Been working on the gun bays for the last month or so. I always intended to open them up, and bought the Aires set to use as a template - the more I researched, the more it became apparent that the bays, although quite accurate, were missing a lot of detail. There's one or two good shots in the 'KD431 - Time Capsule Corsair' book, as well as the 'Modeller's Datafile' and AJ Press books, but I found most pictures on the net via Flickr.com...plus I had assistance from my 'most secret sources' (taps side of nose) which helped a great deal... I decided to leave the starboard gun bay completely empty, so no guns or ammo boxes. The ammo boxes in the Corsair were ingeniously made as part of the wings - I'll scratch those later....for now, I attacked the Aires part with a razor saw and removed the ammo trays/ammo belts - I then added as much detail as I could see from reference shots - there's still about 10% guesswork though. The details are plastic card and rod, the spent shell chutes are made from very thin sheet metal from a takeaway carton, the wiring is various wire/soldering wire, and there's one or two etched parts from the Aires set. Here's what the bay looks like to start with (top left of shot): and here's what I ended up with after detailing: spars, bracing in the ammo box bays: cross members: test fit: painted up - once again I used a base colour of US Interior green mixed with chromate yellow, a wash of burnt sienna oils, then drybrushing.... and a test fitting: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richdlc Posted April 17, 2011 Author Share Posted April 17, 2011 finally, for now, I started to add detail to the starboard elevators and flaps such as end panels....I'll stick with Trumpeter's rather over engineered flap hinge system but will have to cannibalise it all to fit the open gun bay....also added some missing details to the gun bay covers: that's it for now folks, hope you enjoyed this update - next up I'll have a go at detailing the main wheel wells, then it's engine compartment time! Till then, thanks for looking rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 Crikey Rich, this is great and ambitious work! I tip my hat to you. Good stuff. Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Ron Posted April 17, 2011 Share Posted April 17, 2011 Lots of scratch work going on here. Looks good. Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richdlc Posted April 18, 2011 Author Share Posted April 18, 2011 thanks guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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