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Hi all,

This is the cockpit of my second model, Tamiya's F4U-1D. It took the better half of last night and today. Please let me know what you think and where you could see improvement--feel free to be critical, because while it's only my second model I'd like to really improve my skills quickly and have something decent-looking on the shelf! I'll probably end up doing Roger Hedrick's yellow-nosed version, as I've had a hard time finding much in the way of aftermarket decals for the -1D variants. Thanks for looking!

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I did use the Zoom set--pretty small stuff! I have an Ultracast seat that would be good for this, but in case I screwed something up, I decided to just thin down the kit seat with a file. The part I probably had the most frustration with was trying to get the seat belts to lay down in a somewhat natural way.

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Here's the engine--I added some ignition wires to try for a little more detail. Most of the engine is painted in Alclad aluminum, with the center part Mr Surfacer 1200. One thing I didn't realize at the time I needed to do was coat the engine in Future before I applied and rubbed off the dark wash--I rubbed away some of the surface detail of the engine! I'll know better next time.

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Thanks for looking, and again--I'm also looking for criticism and advice!

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I installed the cockpit into the fuselage and put the center wing section on, but I must have really screwed up the alignment of the fuselage because there was a decent little step that had to be sanded away, along with half of the detail in the front. It looks like I'll be learning just about every skill during the course of this build...

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I also figured out how to use the macro setting on my camera, so here's a very close shot of the interior.

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Thanks for looking!

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Trek, Im actually turning the last corner with a Tamiya F4 myself. I had the exact same problem happen to me as well and shelved the thing for a week or two before deciding on mating the halves and sanding or taking some time to look at what was causing the misalignment.

Unfortunately, its too late, but I did find that the cockpit was causing a clearance issue that needed to be dealt with for the halves to align correctly. After fiddling with it and perhaps sanding, you would be able to get to align just fine.

Overall though, for being a second model, you are doing better than I.

Keep the posts coming :monkeydance:

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Thanks for the kind words! I've finally been able to do some more work to it over the last few days, and have photos of my attempts to sand down and re-scribe some lost detail on the top of the fuselage just in front of the cockpit. I'm pretty sure I could have avoided most of that if I'd been more careful in gluing the parts together.

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Probably not the mot beautiful re-scribe in the world, but it looks alright to me for a first attempt. We'll see how it looks with paint on it. Anyway, most of it will be covered by a decal I think.

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The landing gear after a coat of light aluminum Alclad II

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And then again after a little weathering and painting the tires, which was aided a lot by an Olfa circle cutter.

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The tailwheel was a pain in the butt--I broke off the hook and re-attached it several times before it was all said and done, and pretty much gave up trying to hide the seam after a certain point. I'll have to be more careful with this part in the next Corsair.

Thanks for looking and for the comments! Hopefully I'll have it painted soon.

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Greetings,

Nice builld so far. Could you please tell me how you got the different control levers installed in your cockpit? I usually have trouble with these and you did a very good job.

Thanks,

cbreeze

After cutting them from the fret with a knife and sanding them a little if needed with a sanding stick, I put a little dab of thick CA glue on a post-it note. When I've got the lever gripped the best way with a pair of fine tweezers, I dip the bottom in the CA glue and touch it to the surface it's supposed to attach to. This usually works pretty well, but you do have to have a steady hand as the CA glue sets up fairly quickly. Right after it can support itself, I sometimes grab a toothpick and straighten it out if necessary, too.

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the landing gear and the tires are very good.the weathering is impressive..

:whistle::taunt:

Agreed! I really like how the mail landing gear wheels are hollowed out inside the rim as they should be. Very nice look indeed. It's all in the details, right?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, I've been working on the model off and on for the last two weeks or so, and now it's finally done. I've taken some pics that I haven't had time to post yet, so I'll start with painting the main part.

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I preshaded with black or nato black--I don't remember which. I decided to preshade most but not all of the panel lines and also random lines in the direction of travel--I like preshading, but don't want it to end up looking like a toy either.

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I decided not to use the decals for the non-skid surfaces, and instead painted with Tamiya nato black. In retrospect, I think I should either have used flat black or gone with a lighter shade for the fuselage, as I don't think there's quite enough contrast between the two colors. The body color is Tamiya sea blue with some flat blue mixed in--I think the next time I need this color I might add a little more blue to it.

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I guess I didn't take any between painting and the finish! Here's a shot of the interior after I took the masks off. To paint I followed David Aungst's suggestion from Hyperscale and pushed the canopy into place with blu-tac. I used scotch tape for the front part of the canopy and Parafilm-M for the sliding canopy portion. It was a little tricky to use at first, but I think I prefer the Parafilm-M, as it was super easy to remove. Either way, I kind of mucked it up and had to re-do it several times after cutting into the canopy a little. Hopefully it doesn't look too terrible.

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Sorry about the crappy pictures--I don't really have a good photo setup, and just take them on my bench with bad lighting. The flash also overstates some of the finishing parts a little--it looks a little more subtle in real life. I still need to put up the antenna wire, too.

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That turned out great! I haven't built a prop plane in a long time, but that's making we want to. You've done an awesome job for this being model number 2. I wish my model number "way higher than 2" would look so sharp.

Thanks for sharing your build.

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