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Tamiya 1/32 F4U-1 Corsair Birdcage


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The Tamiya Instructions are actually pretty good-if you study them- but there are a very few places where things are just vague enough to cause some hiccups.

 

The most notorious of which are those wing sleeves that are inserted during construction of the outer wing panels. The instructions clearly state they are not supposed to be glued into position, but people blow right past that, glue them in, and then they're shocked when the wings don't glide onto the wing spars into position, resulting in lots of butchering of the spar to make things fit.

 

Really glad i studied the instructions before i started mine.

 

The painting of that upper canopy segment is another vague area, and finding some of the color codes that are called out on the front pages involves a little bit of hunting.

 

Having said all that.....STILL the best model aeroplane kit ive ever built.

 

-d-

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The Tamiya Instructions are actually pretty good-if you study them- but there are a very few places where things are just vague enough to cause some hiccups.

 

The most notorious of which are those wing sleeves that are inserted during construction of the outer wing panels. The instructions clearly state they are not supposed to be glued into position, but people blow right past that, glue them in, and then they're shocked when the wings don't glide onto the wing spars into position, resulting in lots of butchering of the spar to make things fit.

 

Really glad i studied the instructions before i started mine.

 

The painting of that upper canopy segment is another vague area, and finding some of the color codes that are called out on the front pages involves a little bit of hunting.

 

Having said all that.....STILL the best model aeroplane kit ive ever built.

 

-d-

 

Yeah agree with you David! There's nothing wrong per se with the Tamiya instructions. And I had worse ones, like Kinetic's.

They really need to be studied carefully as the kit itself is quite complex but well engineered.

I made sure to go through them and cross out whatever steps were unnecessary and made notes everywhere.

But, of course, I missed the painting guide and just assumed some stuff on the clear parts...  :doh:

Anyway, that's one reason why I like forums and FB groups. There will always someone to point out something I may have missed!  :clap2:

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That looks great. Can you tell us how you faded the camo?

 

Thank you!  :)

These are the steps I followed:

 

1. Having primed the model with grey I then preshaded the panel lines with black and white. Kept it as random as possible and avoided preshading all the lines.

2. I sprayed on the camo as normal. I initially used bluetack to separate the colours but realised the demarcation was too sharp. So I went over them freehand to get a more faded line.

3. With the exception of the white undersides (as the preshading was enough) I used darker versions (by adding some black) of the two blue colours and went over some of the panel lines and lighter versions (by adding white) on panel lines as well as centres of some panels. Again keep the effect as random as possible.

4. I blended all the different blue hues by doing an overspray of the airframe with a very diluted version of the light blue.

5. I did the chipping with a paint brush and steel colour. As I wanted to reduce the shine I again went over the whole airframe with the diluted mix of light blue.

 

Those were the basic steps. Hope it helps!  :)

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