Dark Blue Killer - Tamiya F4U-1D Corsair

[jep1210]

I finally got to the end of the your build to date. Your wing root chipping is very good since you added the tiny ones with the silver pencil, really ties it all together. The tape residue on the gun ports look very convincing too.

[Anthony in NZ]

John, she looks awesome mate...love those GSB Corsairs!  

[John1]

2 hours ago, Jennings Heilig said:

 

You'd think I would have that URL.  And you'd be wrong!  I just asked Jonathan.  Hopefully he kept it.  

 

Per Dana Bell, all GSB airplanes had a non-specular anti-glare panel on them.  Sometimes it's hard to see, but it's there.

 

If you find the URL (or even recall what site the vid is posted), please let me know.  That's too bad about the anti-glare panel.   Much would have preferred masking and painting a separate color, it would have looked better.  Oh well, at least the area isn't glossy any more.  Better than nothing... 

 

JEP and Anthony - thanks very much for the compliments, greatly appreciated.   

[John1]

17 hours ago, Jennings Heilig said:

Any updates John??  I'm having withdrawals

 

Hi Jennings!   I'm an inherent slacker, even more so as I get towards the end of a build.   That being said,  I finally got some motivation and have done a bit a work.  Primarily with installing the hydraulic lines within the wingfold.  Also started a bit of work on the canopy (added the mirrors).  I'll post a few pics shortly.  Next up will be to try to replicate the canopy release pulley system.   That's gonna be some fiddly work, not quite sure how I'm going to do this, those pulleys are pretty small.   Tamiya seems to have missed that release lever as well.  Very uncharacteristic of them.

 

 

Stay tuned....

 

 

[John1]

So, just to prove I haven't been totally sitting on my butt for the last three week, I figured I'd post a few pics to show my very limited progress.   As noted above, I've been adding the hydraulic lines in the wing fold area.   I also added the kit's actuator linkage from the wingfold to the outer flap.  Kudo's to Tamiya, this area is incredibly complex and yet they seem to have replicated pretty much all the major bits, down to servicing placards.  They even provided the gun camera and landing light fixtures that are mounted within the outer wing.   Just as importantly, they designed everything in a manner that makes a very complex area fairly easy to build.  All I can add is to study the instructions closely and when in doubt, dry fit before gluing.   My modifications were pretty basic.  I drilled some small holes in the wingroot base for a couple of hydraulic lines (the remainder go through one of the lightning holes or just connect to one of the hydraulic actuators)  and added a total of 7 lines using small dia copper wire painted grey.  Note on colors - from the pics I've seen, these hydraulic lines came in multiple colors, including GSB.   I opted for a darkish grey just to add a bit of color vrs everything being dark blue.  There was also a larger dia (also made from copper wire) line in the aft section of the wing, this was painted flat black.   

 

I know I sound like a record here but Dana Bell's book has some very clear pics of this area that I found to be invaluable.   Regarding reference pictures - one word of caution -  I've noticed that if you are just googling pictures on the net, many of them are of restored warbirds.   Take these pictures with a big grain of salt, most warbirds are not 100% accurate replicas in all areas.    Many WW2 cockpit details are stripped out (armor, avionics, various small fittings, etc) and modern fittings added.  Same applies to hydraulic lines, etc. No guarantee that stuff like this is the same color or even in the same configuration as on a military F4U that was in service back in 1945.  In this regard, good period reference pics, such as those in Bell's book are invaluable.  

 

Anyhoo...  Here are a few pics of the wing fold.  Since this is sadly a football-free weekend, I'm hoping to get the other wing completed as well.  Wish me luck and as always, thanks for looking. 

 

This pic highlights some of the weathering I did with that artists silver pencil.  I really like using this!  Weathering is still ongoing, got to add a few black-ish scuffs and some chipping around the fuselage, below the cockpit.  The rest of the airframe will be left in it's current shape. 

 

 

 

[JeepsGunsTanks]

That's a damn fine looking Corsair. With the right background and a few effects, it would look like the real thing!

[JayW]

Absolutely stunning Corsair!!!  

[John1]

18 hours ago, JeepsGunsTanks said:

That's a damn fine looking Corsair. With the right background and a few effects, it would look like the real thing!

You mean the peeling paint on my deck doesn’t enhance the realism of my pictures?     

 

I seem to recall someone was selling a photorealistic carrier deck display.   I might have to track this down. 

 

Thanks very much much for the compliments!

[John1]

So I've got a bit more completed.   I added the hydraulic lines to the port wing fold (no need for pics, it looks identical to the ones above) and I started adding some details to the canopy.   I never noticed previously but there is a good amount of hardware present that strangely enough, Tamiya missed.    See below (thanks to Jennings and Mike Maben for these great pics):

 

 

 

This includes the red painted canopy locking handles, the yellow canopy release lever and a very complex pulley and cable system that runs from the exterior canopy release push-button to the yellow release handle.    I started out with the easy stuff - I fabricated the release handle from a thin diameter styrene rod, that I filed down to represent a more rectangular cross section.  I thought about using scrap PE but this handle is thicker and PE wouldn't look as realistic.   The knob on the end is simply multiple dabs of superglue that were allowed to dry between applications.   Aside from that, I just used a smaller diameter rod and a square of styrene as the base.    The locking handles were just a small section of .025" rod, cut to length and topped with a wafer thin section of .040" to represent the flared section at the end.  

 

Here is my progress so far....  I'm not totally happy with the outcome but I think it will look ok once the canopy is installed on the aircraft.   I'm on fence about the yellow handle that might be a bit too "chunky" but again, we'll see how it looks a bit later...  sometimes close up pics tend to exaggerate small details like this.  

 

 

 

Now I'm trying to figure out how to replicate the pulley system.   Space is pretty tight due to those mirrors and they kind of throw off the geometry of the system.   Not sure how I'm going to approach this one.   Stay tuned....

[John1]

So the canopy work continues.    Very time consuming and given my inherent laziness, still not close to completion.    Based on the pics above, I've done my best to replicate that very complex locking system on the interior bow.  Unfortunately, I've had to simplify things quite a bit due to the geometry of the Tamiya canopy when the mirrors are installed and just the very small size of the hardware involved.    All in all, at this stage, I've added a total of approx 18 parts so far and still have a ways to go.   The pulleys were very short bits of .020 rod, glued to styrene bases.   Hard to really tell what color they were from those pics, I opted for a light grey with black centers.  Although the pics show two parallel runs of cable from each pulley, I just couldn't do it.   I hang my head in shame, please don't judge me harshly for this transgression. 

 

The cables were simply very fine lengths of stretched sprue, glued in place using very fine needle nose tweezers and a drop of white glue on either end. I won't using anything except white glue for this type of work.  CA can leave soot and if I screw up, I'll never get it off the clear plastic.    

 

I also added some scratches to the canopy release lever and locking handles.   To complete this, I still have to add some bits to the base of the canopy and then final runs of cable.   As noted, these bits are simplified and the geometry is off but I think it's still better than nothing.   Anyway, here are some pics.

 

I''ll fix that silvering on the fuel tank cover decals before this is all over.  Trust me!

 

 

 

A few other pics to show the canopy and some additional weathering.  I used pastels to replicate the scuffing on the inner wings and added a few more scratches using that silver artists pencil (this thing is great for this type of work, well worth the $5.00 I paid for it at Michael's). 

 

 

In the pic above, you will note that notch cut out of the rear of the canopy frame.   Previously, pilots would notice that the radio would sometimes short out when the canopy was open.   Come to find out, the rear edge of the canopy frame was coming in contact with the antenna wire that entered the fuselage right beneath it (this hasn't been added to my model yet).   Rather than spend money and time moving the wire entry point or insulating the canopy,  Vought just simply took some tin snips and cut away a small portion of the canopy frame.   Easy-peezy!  

 

Anyway, that's it for now.  Thanks for looking.  

[JeepsGunsTanks]

Very nice!

[LSP_Kevin]

Gotta love that!

 

Kev

[Out2gtcha]

Love it!

[MikeMaben]

 

  Slick

 

 

[John1]

3 hours ago, Jennings Heilig said:

That looks fantastic John!  Even the suggestion of that detail is a huge improvement over just a plain injection molded canopy.  

Thanks very much guys!  

 

Jennings, I’m not done yet.  I’ll still add a few more bits to the base and will probably tweak the cabling a bit.  Just realized that the pics I posted don’t really show the canopy interior in very good detail so when I’m done, I’ll throw up a couple of better pictures.    

 

Almost done lads!   Thank you all very much for the feedback.