1/32 Old Revell F4U-1 Corsair

[Bigasshammm]

So I've started my Corsair project for my dad for Christmas. I'm on a time crunch obviously and it's probably my most ambitious project yet so I guess we'll see. I could, and probably should have, gone with a nicer 1/32nd Corsair kit but he has this one built in the basement from about 30 years ago. Figured it'd be cool to do it again. This build was brought to me entirely by the ARC community. I traded for the kit and then purchased the Eduard sheets and also a bunch of upgrades from two other members. I will also be looking for decals here real soon so if anyone has some 1/32 decals let me know.

The Eduard set made specifically for the Revell kit!

Progress so far. In the process of removing a couple vents near the wheel wells to replace with the PE parts. I'm not good at this so we'll see.

My first bit of PE upgrading. Removed the plastic from the center, added the vents, and added the round mesh covers. Looks OK I guess.

I believe I have a resin pit set coming tomorrow but I'm still going to take the kit's pit and the Eduard upgrades and build that as well. Whichever turns out nicest will go in the bird.

That's it for now. As long as I don't seriously screw something up with the PE or the upgrades I have coming then I should have no problem getting this done by Dec 24th.

Edited December 15, 2010 by Bigasshammm

[Shawn M]

best of luck, with PE and Resin it should go quickly.

[Bigasshammm]

Goodies!

Verlinden cockpit set, wheel bay set, flaps and main gear tires set, R2800 engine set

Compliments of RoyT

Plastic removed for PE vent. PITA

PE added. Turned out OK.

Today I work on both cockpits and may start trying to fit the wheel wells.

[HOLMES]

good going .... :)

[GreyGhost]

Certainly a nice start to your Pirate Build ... ;)

I bet your Dad is going to love it ....

Gregg

[Bigasshammm]

Verlinden cockpit is the pit of choice. Been working on it the last 2 days and it's about to go get sprayed.

Work in progress. Pieces fit like a dream.

Major assemblies completed off to get their cockpit green spraydown.

I'll be perusing the interwebs for cockpit pictures to try n get all the colors of everything right or at least close.

What does Pirate build mean?

[Falcon50EX]

Hello Mr. Hamm,

Thanks for posting the pictures of the Verlinden cockpit components!! I have a 32nd scale Revell kit under construction. It stalled out because it was looking like would have to scratch-build the cockpit and that was gonna be burnout city.

i heard reports that the Verlinden parts, while beautifully cast, were attached to some monstrous resin pour blocks that stood to seriously damage the parts in the cleanup process.

The Revell kit is a curious animal. It actually post-dates their 32nd scale F4F Wildcat, but it has less detail. Some things i found out (the hard way) about the kit are:

1) The proportions of the wheel well cutouts are a little off; the rear opening needs to be brought forward, and the forward edge of the cutout modified to be closer to the wing carry- thru spar. The center section of the wing is extremely weak, with very little contact between wing and fuselage on the upper surface of the wing. Bottom line is, without some internal reinforcement this joint will crack open at the slightest provocation.

2) The rear fuselage is a little short in length, but not so much that the general proportionality of the kit is thrown off.

3) The elevator hinge line running across the horizontal stabilizers sweeps forward; it should run straight from tip to tip, perpendicular with the longitudinal axis. I'm still debating hoew to go about fixing this...

4) If you build the wings out of the box, the right wing has about twice the dihedral of the left wing.

5) The Machine gun holes are located too far inboard.

6) The location of the panel lines depicting the wing flaps are misplaced and the flap hinges aren't very well depicted.

OK, all those anal retentive detail aside, i still think the kit has a better shape than the Trumpeter kit, especially the cowling. Also it can be found for dirt cheap on the contest circuit.

If you have any interest i'd be happy to share the progress pictures i made so far on my Corsair project. If you can afford it, i strongly recommend picking up a 48th scale Tamiya kit and using it as a reference to take measurements from to help in adjusting and relocating things like the wheel well cutouts, panel lines, intercooler flap, etc.

Oh- i THINK Pirate is referring to the Corsairs, which were a band of pirates which came from Northwestern Coastal France. Therefore a Pirate build is a Corsair build. Makes sense to me.

Cheers,

david

[richter111]

Also possibly these guys

[richter111]

Another

[HOLMES]

nice work

/HOLMES

[Bigasshammm]

Falcon thanks for listing the "known" problems with the kit. I'm probably not going to do much to make it authentic as I'm really not all that skilled and nor will my dad care. If it looks like a Corsair then it's a Corsair. LOL That said I'd still love to see the pics of your build so just PM me or whatever.

It never even occurred to me the Corsair = pirate reference. Derp.

Got the cockpit airbrushed green now going through and hand painting all the details. About halfway done. Maybe I'll have it done by tomorrow night but not sure as I don't have much time tonight if any and tomorrow day is full.

Pics will follow of the painted pieces.

[HOLMES]

Falcon thanks for listing the "known" problems with the kit. I'm probably not going to do much to make it authentic as I'm really not all that skilled and nor will my dad care. If it looks like a Corsair then it's a Corsair. LOL That said I'd still love to see the pics of your build so just PM me or whatever.

It never even occurred to me the Corsair = pirate reference. Derp.

Got the cockpit airbrushed green now going through and hand painting all the details. About halfway done. Maybe I'll have it done by tomorrow night but not sure as I don't have much time tonight if any and tomorrow day is full.

Pics will follow of the painted pieces.

[Bigasshammm]

Cockpit's painted and ready to be fit to the fuselage. I'm currently working on the tail wheel assembly as I type to get that ready as well. Fuselage halves going together tomorrow hopefully. They will be a B^%$^ since in test fitting they don't align AT ALL. Lots of putty and sanding in my future.

Everything not green in the pit was hand painted. I didn't wash or weather it at all as I want to keep it neat and clean. Won't hardly be able to see it once it's closed up anyway. But I have the pics to prove it!

Lot's of swearing coming tomorrow.

Kris

Oh the dials on the ip was a funny trick I did that turned out really cool. I painted them white first then took a fine black pen and just scribbled inside the circles and the after effect makes it look like gauges in an odd sort of way. Again you won't be able to see them much anyway so it doesn't really matter.

[Bigasshammm]

Major progress!

The cockpit is complete and fitted in the main fuselage. Surprisingly the fuselage, which fit together terribly in test fitting, held together quite nicely once the pit was in and the actual egg shape of the pit helped the fuselage go together better.

I didn't glue any of the pit pieces together and only have them held together with tape. This allowed for movement in it when I shoehorned it into the main body. I glued the rear of the fuselage together first and then cam in from underneath to push the pit in. I had to remove the radio station parts aft of the pilot's seat as they would not fit. You can't see them anyway so Idk why they were there. I also didn't glue the control stick in but it can't come out so it's now a moving feature of the pit and almost moves just like a real stick. Bonus!

Next on to fitting the wheel wells into the wings. This could be another obstacle.

Pictures...

Pit prior to being inserted. You can see the radio station removed in the first pic.

Tail wheel with PE parts added. Looks a lot nicer than the kit thick plastic. Hook will be added later once it's all finished.

There she is big and surprisingly beautiful.

I should have no problem getting this done by Christmas eve.

[Bigasshammm]

Another

Bought a set of these decals yesterday. I may do the number 1 ship because of it's red propeller hub.

decals

Working on fitting the wheel wells. I have one glued in and drying currently will move on to the second shortly. Pics to follow.

[Bigasshammm]

Few pictures.

Fitted the wheel wells which went really rather smoothly.

Then I decided to use the flap set that came with all my upgrade parts. Starting to debate that decision.

Kit flaps removed.

I fit one of the upper edges of the wings as I've been fooling around with the flaps testing their fit. There is a huge gap now between the wings and the flaps. Idk if the flaps aren't as wide as what the kit's were or what but it looks bad. I think what I'm going to do is put a couple strips of styrene down on the lower and upper half of the wings to close the gap and then set the flaps in. There will still probably be a small gap but I can live with that.

Pictures of the gap.

The wing parts fit just fine before removing the flaps so it has to be that the resin is smaller.

This is the first major snag but it should hopefully be and easy fix.

Tomorrow Gran Turismo 5 comes out so I will probably neglect the model for a few days.

[Bigasshammm]

Been awhile since I updated this. Neglected it for a few days due to the holiday and Gran Turismo 5!

Fuselage puttied and ready for sanding.

Wheel wells in.

Working on the PE cowl flaps. Wish I hadn't done this due to the immense pita but it looks nice.

Just about done with the cowl flaps. Probably finish tonight or for sure tomorrow.

1 wing flap installed. Arduous process putting these flaps in.

More updates this weekend. I might even get some paint on her. Still waiting on my decals I ordered from Squadron.

[HOLMES]

<_<

[Bigasshammm]

Today's early update. Mounted the flaps and installed lower wing half to the fuselage. Having an issue with the pit now may need to cut a little.

Look it's the ARC Christmas Raffle chat!

Brighter pic but blurrier, I suck.

Flaps look OK so far.

Checking out the cowl now that the fuselage is together.

Another

[Bigasshammm]

Even more progress today. Got a lot done thanks to the ARC raffle and the wife busy with Christmas decorating.

I've decided to do Big Hog of the VF-17 Jolly Rogers. There's an infamous instance where he was hit by friendly fire while coming out of a cloud and in several photos you can see the patches where he was hit. I took some of the pe fret and cut patches out of that to try to replicate this as best I could.

You can see the patches here.

And this is mine with the PE added. I think it will look cool upon painting.

Added some more PE access covers and sanded and fit the upper halves of the wings. Everything is fitting together wonderfully which is really scaring me after all my test fitting earlier.

Another shot of the upper wings and the new PE hatch covers. I got the gas tank filler on a little crooked but with the super glue and such I am not going to bother pulling it off and resetting.

Tomorrow I will sand some more and possibly even get some primer on to check out the seams in places. I'm not too concerned with the bottom of the plane so I only did minimal sanding and filling there. I also have to get to work on the engine so that I can button this all together eventually.

[mareku]

You are doing great modeling job, May be you would sharpen your pictures a bit!?

[Bigasshammm]

You are doing great modeling job, May be you would sharpen your pictures a bit!? :o

If only I knew how. I use my phone usually and the lighting in this room is not good as well. I'm building a workbench area in my basement and should have better lighting down there upon completion so hopefully my photo skills will improve over time. Otherwise I'm sorry I'm amateur at best.

Our digital camera doesn't hardly take any better pictures than my phone so that's why I use the phone all the time. Plus it's a lot easier to upload them to the computer.

[mareku]

If only I knew how. I use my phone usually and the lighting in this room is not good as well. I'm building a workbench area in my basement and should have better lighting down there upon completion so hopefully my photo skills will improve over time. Otherwise I'm sorry I'm amateur at best.

Our digital camera doesn't hardly take any better pictures than my phone so that's why I use the phone all the time. Plus it's a lot easier to upload them to the computer.

Do not worry. It is O.K. It is like with my english. I´m trying to improve all the time. Hapy modeling Bigasshammm, you are doing great with your model :o

Edited December 4, 2010 by mareku

[Bigasshammm]

WINGS!

grrr I rotated this pic in photosuckit but it didn't take apparently. Sorry for bad angle.

Bought paints today. Time for ARC raffle.

Edited December 4, 2010 by Bigasshammm

[mareku]

Looks nice :wacko: