[yet another] 1:48 Tamiya F4U-1a

[Johnny1000]

Hello all

I'd been posting this on another forum, but there doesn't seem to be much overlap of readership (or rather, of active posters at least) so I thought it might be of interest here as well. If it's redundant, let me know, and I'll just carry on there.

 

This is the second part of project modeling the aircraft my grandfather flew in WW2. The first part, a 1/48 Tamiya F4F-4 representing his tour at Guadalcanal with VMF-121 and VMF-223 in the Fall of ’42, is posted here.

 

This time I’m doing the ubiquitous 1/48 Tamiya F4U-1A. Neither the actual airplane nor the kit requires any introduction, so we’ll skip. 

 

A bit of history: 
When VMF-121 returned stateside in early 1943, Joe Foss was given command of the newly formed VMF-115. My grandfather, Jacob Stub (pronounced “stoob”), newly married, and now a captain, joined him. After a tour at Guadalcanal flying Wildcats, the Corsair was a welcome upgrade. In Eric Bergurud’s definitive history of the air war in the Pacific, “Fire In The Sky”, my grandfather commented on the Corsair (while throwing shade at both the Navy and the Hellcat):

 

This was taken in Santa Barbara just before they shipped off. That’s Stub standing just to the right of the downward propeller blade. Foss, with the mustache and officer’s cap, is kneeling in the center.

(He’s just a kid. They all are.)

 

As they trained in California, the air war in the South Pacific was raging, with Greg Boyington’s VMF-214 in particular racking up impressive records and making headlines back home. The young men of 115 were probably expecting a brawl and more victories to with it. After all, at Guadalcanal Foss had bagged 26 planes in just a few months. In a Wildcat. My grandfather, only 4, but most of his first tour he was a wingman, which is a low scoring position. Imagine what they could get done with a serious fighter. 

But by the time they got back in theatre, the mighty Japanese base at Rabaul had collapsed, and the air war had moved on north and east. Professor Bergurud wrote me, “His second tour was on the Island of Emirau where he succeeded Foss as squadron commander. And like Foss, he never saw a Japanese plane during that time.” 

At one point, Charles Lindbergh came to Emirau as part of his famous civilian tour of the theatre to consult on adapting the Corsair to a fighter/bomber role. When I was a kid, his name came up once in front of my grandfather, who snorted and dismissed him as a ‘horse’s bottom.’ (He was generally a generous and kind person, but could get a little salty after a few. )

 Foss (L), Lindbergh (R)

 

One last thing. Here’s an excerpt from the VMF-115 war diary, dated 22 August 1944:

 

That’s the day my mother was born (international date line aside). I imagine him sitting on his parachute in his plane on the way to or from dropping that thousand pounder on the E. Young Plantation on New Ireland, knowing that he was due to become a father any day, while my grandmother was in labor 7500 miles away.

 

My plan is to try to build a Corsair from VMF-115 at Emirau as it would appear on the afternoon of August 22nd, 1944. To that end, I’ve collected references and a bunch of goodies. 

 

I understand that  the Tamiya kit can make an excellent build out of the box, but I have a particular agenda here. I hope you’ll bare with me. Thanks for looking.

-J

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
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[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Looking good so far 👍 i think i will have a seat in the back  if you dont mind ? 

[Johnny1000]

Corsairfoxfouruncle: Great!

 

22 October:

 

“It was a wonderful weapon and we were delighted to get it”

 

I’ll start with the cowling, like everyone else does...

 

The kit cowl flaps are fine, but Corsair cowl flaps splay obscenely open, so we should get in up in there. Vector has a lovely resin set which also includes a cowl ring with ribbing detail.

 

The first thing is to cut the ring from the pour stub, which connects to the front of the ring. I used a Dremel with a cut off wheel for this, then a grinding bit to clear out the middle, sneaking up on the edges. 

 

Now we need to get to round. A broom handle was about the right diameter.

 

 

Twisting on the sandpaper wrapped around got me pretty close. 

 

To line up the ribs, I made a template with an illustration program on the computer and printed out. Blue Tack holds the ring to the template, and then more Blue Tack on the end of toothpick holds the part in place, while sill more Blue Tack holds the toothpick in place. This way, I can line up the parts just how I want them, and then daub a drop of thin CA via capillary action to lock down. One you get going, it’s pretty quick to work your way around.

 

And here it is. Despite my best attempt, they still aren’t perfectly straight. On closer, if belated, examination of my references, they should also be kind of grouped in twos. These aren't super noticable, more to give the impression of more engineering than anything, so once they're painted and tucked behind the reduction housing, it’ll be fine.

 

Adding the actuator hardware to the cowl ring is slightly different: BlueTack again holds the part in place, this time so the part being glued can lay flat. A tiny daub regular CA on the actuator and then drop into position, with a few seconds for tweaks.

 

After all the actuators are in place, we need to thread in the actual cable. Fine wire left over from an electronics project came in handy, but you could use anything. Old computer cables from obsolete standards—firewire 1, SCSI, etc—are useful here. If you don’t happen to have, you almost certainly know someone with a box of unusable cables.

 

I need to go back a get a few of these a little straighter. Once they aren’t glimmering silver the flaws should be a little less noticeable.

While we’re at it (procrastinating on starting the cockpit, that is!), let’s chop up the rudder so it can sit at a nice angle. A JLC razor saw makes quick work of it with minimal collateral damage.

I also cut out the trim tab so I can give that a little nudge over as well. In scraping out the molded trim actuator, which is going to get replaced later, I overshot a bit. Yikes!

 

Gently sand down with assorted Micro Mesh Swabs, then fill with Mr Surfacer 500. Let that sit a few minutes, and then wipe across with a q-tip dipped in Mr Color Thinner, and sand again. The Mr Color Thinner is really mild, and won’t melt the plastic (as least, not right away).

 

I glued the rudder halves together, and then used oversized .020 and .010 sheet styrene from Evergreen to cover. Later, I’ll trim down and sand in the curved front shape. 

 

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
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[Johnny1000]

24 October:

 

The seat on a real Corsair was basically just a metal bucket. The pilot sat on his parachute for a “cushion.” So it follows that photo etched brass would make the basis for a reasonable facsimile. I have the kit seat, of course, and an Ultracast resin, but let’s see how the seat from the Eduard PE set builds out, while trying a new (to me) technique at the same time.

materials: iron, flux, solder, extra hands, and something to solder.

 

I’ve done a bit of electronics soldering, but this is my first go with a scale model component. I was a little intimidated by trying to solder precisely enough for modeling, but I did a couple experiments (and have a backup plan) so decided to give it a go. 

 

First we need to cut out and form the part. A quick remedial for those who are new to this (looking in the mirror, here). A firm surface—acetate, in this case—and a curved blade help us from deforming the part while cutting. 

 

After cutting, flat pliers help hold the part in place while filing off the fret stubs with a fine file.

 

A photo etch bending tool can help make precise bends with small parts. This is The BUG (not sure why it’s all caps, but that’s what they call it) but they all seem to work similarly. I got it because it was the cheapest all metal design I could find. 

 

This chair is pretty simple, so it’s not as critical here, but it’s still a help. Slip the part to be folded in an appropriate cut out, lock down, and then slide a razor blade under and gently fold up. Easy peasy.

 

Do the other side the same way. (With complex shapes, think through the folds first, so you don’t fold yourself into a corner.)

 

And finally fold up the seat by hand. The seat needs a curve formed into the end to match the curve of the sides. I used a dowel as a guide. In the process I broke off the bottom. It’s not a big deal, but makes the first soldering step a bit trickier.

 

The principal is simple enough: heat the pieces to be joined enough that they melt the solder, creating a “welded” (nerd alert: what’s actually happening isn't welding at all, but instead is ‘intermetallic bonding’) joint. Don’t try to melt the solder directly with the iron, because unless the parts being joined are hot enough, the solder won’t dissolve in the base and there won’t be a strong join. 

 

There’s a bunch of ways this could go sideways, and I’m sure I’ll find most of them. 

 

First, dab on a bit of flux where you want the solder to flow. The solder I’m using happens to be rosin core, which is usually enough for electronics work, but we can’t depend on that to guide the solder for this. 

 

The solder escaped a bit. Bugger! But I can sand this down and it will be fine. I couldn’t get the parts aligned with the helping hands, so the seat bottom rests on the second hand, and then I’m pushing it into place with a toothpick and a bit a blue tack. (You’d think the blue tack would melt, but it doesn’t seem to.)

 

Continue with the sides, and soon enough, voila…  a seat!  The nice thing about solder is that it’s file and sandable, or you can carve it. You don’t want to leave giant globs, but if it’s a bit messy you can clean it up. I still have to add the cross panel, but my Jedi soldering skills aren’t quite there yet for super fine work, so I’m going to attach with CA.

 

L to R: kit seat, the brass seat, and the Ultracast. 

The kit seat is out. It looks like an industrial barkalounger. 

 

This isn’t a great shot of the Ultracast, but I’m not totally feeling it yet. The detail feels a bit mushy. That top bar (omitted from the kit, and needs to be addressed regardless) is a bit droopy, which doesn’t give much confidence in protecting poor Captain Stub on his mission (and if he doesn't come back, that would change the whole corse of history, making my eventual appearance much less likely!). 

 

I haven’t completely decided, but I’m leaning toward the Eduard at the moment. There’s a slight misalignment on the cross panel—riding a touch high on the left, operator error—but I’m pretty sure I can hide that with an artfully placed seatbelt.

 

[postscript: I've since gotten some advice about how to solder cleaner joins with less mess, starting with using flux paste instead of flux.]
 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
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[Johnny1000]

3 November:

 

Uncle Edward helped fill in a lot of missing or poorly formed detail in the cockpit. 

The elevator tab wheel (at least I think that’s what it is) seems over scale, so I tried scratch building something a little smaller with punched styrene discs and a bit of lead wire. I’m going to try to smooth everything out with Mr Surfacer. 

I really like the detail on the Eduard instrument panel. It’s not super accurate for a Corsair, which had a relatively featureless IP, but I think I’m okay with that.

The base coat is Tamiya XF-69, NATO black, followed by Tamiya X-22 clear. Once that dried a bit, I did black oil wash around the bezels and a medium grey wash to pull out fastener detail. I still need to pick out buttons and add placards, etc.

Sitting on the ‘film’ with the actual instruments. I need to clean it up a little, but this just might work.

 

That's it for now. Thanks for looking!

 

T

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
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[Thom216]

Looking great. The Tamiya kit is a nice one, and it really pops with those resin bits. Nice work with the PE as well, that seat looks perfect.

[Johnny1000]

Thanks @Thom216

 

13 November:

 

Hello all, a bit more work on the cockpit. First up is the chair mount. As rendered by Tamiya, it’s made up of solid triangles of chunky plastic, which provides good support for the chair, but isn’t especially accurate. This is probably a bit too deep into rivet counting nerdery for most, but I was interested in the challenge. This turned out to be easier than it looks.

 

After first measuring the apex of the triangle, that is to say, the point furthest from the bulkhead, I cut .030 styrene rod for the mount using a NWSL Chopper II to help keep lengths consistent and also to take advantage of the angle guides. A bit of blu tack holds the parts in place while I dab Tamiya Extra Thin.

 

After making each triangle structure, I connect them with more rod measured to the width of the chair. (I ended up deciding to go with the Ultracast. While the Eduard has the most character, the Ultracast just looks the most like the real thing.)

 

Once it was completed, it was time for surgery on the bulkhead. I nibbled the chunky triangles away with sprue cutters, and then filed the remainder. This left gaping holes, with I filled with styrene chunks and CA. You won’t be able to see it once the chair’s in, but it seemed worth it to take a minute to fill. The protruding top bars are anchored in holes carefully drilled into the middle of the molded on bracing. I’ll trim them to the exact length when I mount the chair, but first I’m going to paint everything separately. If I need to, I’ll add additional support at the bottom.

 

I have a reference that shows a lot of plumbing in the lower front bulkhead made from small gauge electrical wire and .3mm solder. This isn’t really all that accurate, but is more meant to be impressionistic, while also hiding the join with the foot trough assembly. 

 

Finally, for now, I started painting the console. It needs a little tidying up here and there, but is starting to look okay. The Eduard PE really helps fill in some key details, like the spigot looking knobs on the port side, and much better wing folding and arresting hook controls (towards the back, both port and starboard sides). The cooling flap levers (red/yellow/yellow, lower left) are PE, but with knobs made up from build up thick CA.

 

I still need to add the document case on the starboard side, and I’m probably going to scratch build the manual bomb release, which goes to the left of the trim tab wheel on the port side. 

 

One thing that is sort of vexing, is the oxygen bottle. I had a really hard time masking, and then yellow isn’t the easiest color. It’s also not rendered correctly, in that it’s rendered molded into a panel on the console, where it should be strapped to the back bulkhead. I think I’m going to fix all these problems by just cutting it out, trimming the excess, and then adding straps and nozzle detail. 

 

Thanks for looking.

-J

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
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[Johnny1000]

14 November:

 

That oxygen bottle was really bothering me, especially once I worked out how it was in the prototype. Using a combo of J&L fine razor saw, a scalpel, and a Mission Models micro chisel, I carved it out. Gruesome! The riffler file (the weirdly curved file) helped me get in that spot to smooth out the remaining surface, though I’ll probably just fit in some .005 sheet styrene and call it a day.

 

Ooof! Gnarly! (And naked, post Windex bath)

 

A bit of Milliput epoxy putty helps fill in the missing chunk. Once it’s fully set, I’ll sand it down to shape. Worst case, I’ll snip off the nozzle bit altogether, flip it over, and start over with new nozzle detailing on the other end so any misshapen bit is tucked out of the way.

It’s a stupid detail that no one will notice, but it makes me so much happier.

 

Thanks for looking. Onward!
-J
 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
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[Johnny1000]

20 November:

 

Oxygen Bottle redux!

 

Apparently my sculpting skills are a bit feeble. That, plus I wanted to play with a new toy, so I didn’t really try that hard to get the kit oxygen bottle in shape, but instead decided to start from scratch.

 

A nice length of sprue is our material.

 

Chucking it into a cheapo ($60) mini drill press I recently picked up with a file as a kludgey vertical lathe, I first turned it to get the radius I wanted…

 

…then used varying grit sandpaper to round the ends. For the second end, I trimmed it to a little over length and then flipped it, and chucked the round end in, just hand tightening to turn.

 

To drill the hole for the nozzle, I used the drill press as a drill press, with small bit carbide bits. Again, just hand tighten. That way if the bit snags, it’s less likely to break. The white stuff is a bit of an old sponge to keep the vise from damaging the soft plastic work piece. 

 

To make the nozzle, I used Albion aluminum tubing. I first had to drill a hole in the side of the vertical part so I could have a positive connection to the actual nozzle part.

 

The almost finished result. The nozzle valve is just punched .05 styrene, and the neck is the next size down Albion tubing. The straps are from the Eduard detail set. 

 

I need to touch up the paint, which got a little dinged while getting the straps on, but I figure it would be pretty banged up anyway if the ground crews have to regularly pull it to recharge, so I’m going to do chips and dings. This will get attached to the console when I mate it to the back bulkhead.

 

Thanks for looking.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
clarity, date added, image resize

[Johnny1000]

20 November:

 

While things percolate on the cockpit, let’s start on the engine.

 

The kit engine is okay, if a little spartan, so I’m using the Quickboost PW-2800. First, X-1, glossy black as a primer.

 

Alclad aluminum. This time I wanted to try getting a metallic base coat, and then use a wash to bring out the detail.

 

The detail on Quickboost engines are great, but the ‘quick’ part isn’t completely accurate because you have to add a few details, including the push rods, and the ignition ring and harness. None of this is all that hard, but it does take patience. Start with the push rods. 

 

I had pre-sprayed a length of .020 Evergreen rod XF-1. Twenty thousandths is just under a scale inch. I haven’t been able to find good dimensional drawings, but the pushrods in reference images look a little chunkier—maybe an inch and half in diameter—but .030 (1.44 inches) looks too thick to me, and I’d rather be a touch under scale than over. To get the length, I roughed in with a divider, test fit and carefully trimmed until it was right. Some of the cylinders are longer than others, but this puts me in the ballpark. Using calipers, I measured my test sample.

 

I got this tip from Paul Budzik. Basically, if you add a length of strip styrene on one side, terminating right at the blade, it makes it really easy to transfer your cut dimension to the guard. You just insert your measuring tool flush to the strip, and then slide the guard to mate on the other side, and that’s your cut dimension.

 

Chopping 18 perfectly sized rods is then a breeze (sort of). At the top of the photo you can see a better shot of the styrene strip.

 

To position, I used blu tack on a toothpick. On this build, blu tack is becoming more and more essential. Once placed, thin CA with a glue Looper locks it in, starting at the base of the gear reduction housing, because any slop will be hidden by the ignition ring. Add a little dab of CA on the underside of the push rod where it joins the cylinder block to complete. Once you get going, it doesn’t take that long to do the whole row. Happily, the bottom row doesn’t have provisions for push rods, and you’d never see them, so never mind.

 

Done! Handling the rods means a few touch ups, but NBD.

 

I have a few ideas for how to approach the ignition ring that might be interesting. I’m trying to decide between whether to represent the earlier tubular ring (as seen in the squadron portrait in the first post of this thread) or the later squared off ring. 

 

More soon. Thanks for looking.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
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[airbus320]

Some superb modelling on display here and a great backstory too!!! 

 

Chris

[Biggles87]

Only just found out this so I'll have to stand on a box at the back. I've always liked  the Tamiya 1-48 Wildcat and Corsair kits, they shout " build me now! " at you when you open the boxes.

 

looking forward to more

 

John

[Hewy]

Great work so far johnny, good stuff

Glynn 

[Johnny1000]

Thanks all, much appreciated!

 

22 November:

 

One more mini-update from the plane en route to holiday celebration (and away from this build, just as I’m starting to get momentum… argh!). 

 

Washes! 

 

I really hate making things glossy—it just looks wrong to me when we’re talking about a fighter plane. But I really love what washes on a glossy surface can do, so I grin and bear. That cowl ring, for instance, even with that awful glare, has so much definition now. 

 

This time I tried using Tamiya X22 gloss, instead of Future because I didn’t want to have to wait 24 hours to apply the wash. I let the Tamiya gloss set for a few hours, and then went in.

 

I’m a bit old school, I guess, in that I’m using oil paints and mineral spirits instead of purpose produced products for washes. I’m completely prepared to believe that they’re easier to use, but there’s something about concocting it yourself that appeals to me. 

 

The chair finally made it onto the bulkhead. There isn’t a lot of surface area on the attachment points, so I used five minute epoxy for a stronger joint. While it’s a debatable use of effort, I think the tubular framework represents the real thing a lot better, and will be at least somewhat visible in the end. This will look a lot better with highlights picked out, matte, and with seatbelt.

 

Sidewall. Kit detail with solder and stretched sprue wiring. I was going to scrape all this out and scratch build new with a little more depth and fidelity, in the case of the boxes, and a slightly lighter touch, in the case of spars, but sense got ahold of me. 

 

And the other side. The kit detail on the throttle box is really rudimentary, so I scratch built new. It’s still a bit under-detailed, because there should be three levers coming out. I might revisit. The placards are from aeroscale. I left the ejector pin mark because it will be hidden by the console. 

 

I’m almost ready to finally get the cockpit pulled together. At the very least, I can’t wait for everything to get back to matte. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving! At least, to everyone stateside… Happy Random Thursday in November! to everyone else. And thanks for looking.

 

-J

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
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[Johnny1000]

9 December:

 

Because the cockpit is a bit murky in the shadows, details benefit from exaggerated contrast so they don’t get lost. It’s time to pull out highlights and push shadows. For this let’s try oil paints. I have a starter set of Windsor and Newton oils. It wasn’t very expensive and should last a really long time. The one thing is, you have to be comfortable mixing colors. 

 

With a little color theory, it’s really not that hard. In this case, we want shades of interior green. Start with yellow. If we were going to be purists about it, we’d just add in black until we got the right shade, because that’s how Vought painted theirs, but I had mixed the original interior green per Tamiya’s instructions, with XF-3 Yellow, and XF-5 Green, so yellow and black is a bit unsaturated in comparison. 

 

I squeezed as little paint out of the tubes as I could, and this is way more paint than I’ll be able to use, but that’s okay. There’s a variety of shades to draw from: darker on the right, middling on the left, and highlights up top.

 

After brushing highlights and shadows. Basically edges and anything facing up gets highlights, and anything that would be in shadow gets a slightly darker shade. Don’t worry about matching the base color exactly—the whole reason why we’re using oils is because they’re so easy to blend. Just take a clean brush, gently brush in the base color, and the seam disappears, and you’re left with a slightly 3D effect.

 

Onto the seat belts. I’m using FineMolds plastic belts. You have to order them from Japan, and they’re kind of expensive ($15 for a set of four), but they are easy to shape and really detailed on both sides.

 

Part of my original ‘vision’ for this model was I wanted to have one of the shoulder straps twisted, and for them to generally look haphazardly left by the previous pilot. 

 

I’ve started weathering, and the seat is a little too scratched and the belts a little too dirty. I’ll go back and clean that up a bit.

 

The famous oxygen bottle in his new home. 

 

I had done a lovely map case with oils that goes on the side of the console in that great gaping black area, but it popped off while test fitting with back bulkhead/seat assembly and seems to have vanished. Hopefully it will turn up later, or maybe I’ll scratch a new one up.

 

Placards from Aeroscale really help bring life to the cockpit. 

 

There’s these funny protrusions sticking out on the lower left instrument panel which are meant to be connected to the throttle. I cut them off and drilled out with my new little drill press. Later, when the main cockpit assembly is in the fuselage, I’ll fit wires in to connect to the throttle, which is attached to the sidewall.

 

Instrument panels on. It’s almost starting to look like something, though in the cruelty of macro photography, it looks like the IP backing film is a bit low on the left side. I glued with a couple dots of white glue, so maybe there’s a way to fix it.

 

That’s it for now. With this post, I'm all caught up with the log, so now postings will slow to a crawl as it takes me forever to make progress. 

 

Thanks for looking.

-J

 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
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[Biggles87]

Wow! You've done a great job there, I particularly like the oxygen bottle and the cowling flaps.

I will wait patiently for more, your progress can't be any slower than mine!

 

John

[Grey Beema]

Great job on the cockpit. Much better than mine.  I'm going to pull up a chair if you don't mind.  

 

I'll be especially interested when you get to the flaps as this kit is engineered to be flaps down but if you want it flaps up you need to do a fair bit of fitting..

[Johnny1000]

@Biggles87 Thanks! Don't be so sure... I'm really slow. (It doesn't help that I have to do almost everything at least twice, and let myself get mired in pointless details... case in point below.)

 

@Grey Beema Thanks, and please do. I've thought a bit about the flaps, having never seen a period shot of a parked Corsair in the field with flaps down. Did you do the flaps on yours?

 

Apparently, when I said "I’ll go back and clean that up a bit", what I meant was "take two steps back." The other morning I had a few minutes and thought "I'll just go in and knock that out..." (Spoiler alert! Bad idea!)

 

As I was touching it up, I started trying to clean up an errant blob of CA, and a poorly executed repair on the support pole, and just started making things worse, eventually breaking one of the shoulder harnesses in a way that will be hard to cover. I was able to save the lap belts, so that's something.

Luckily, Ultracast seats come in twos, and I had another set of shoulder harnesses left over. Naturally I had to 'correct' the cross bar on the support, which should sit at the back of the junction fixture, not in the middle as molded. I cut it out, filed out groves, and then CA'd a length of 0.020" styrene rod. 

 

I should have it back to zero—except hopefully better than before—soon.

 

Thanks for looking.

-J

Edited January 16, 2018 by Johnny1000
clarity, date added, image resize

[Grey Beema]

2 hours ago, Johnny1000 said:

 

@Grey Beema Thanks, and please do. I've thought a bit about the flaps, having never seen a period shot of a parked Corsair in the field with flaps down. Did you do the flaps on yours?

Hi Johnny,

i have previously built the Corsair, and have one on the go at the moment.  I have built both with wings unfolded and flaps up.  TBH I thought that if you folded the wings the flaps automatically dropped until looking at pictures of Corsairs parked on RN decks the other day, then I realised a number had folded wings and flaps up.  The Tamiya kit needs a bit of fetling to get the flaps up, not sure I've done a good job of it.  

 

I think I've clipped a little to much off the wing tips and am trying to work out a)if it notices,  if it does notice, how do I put them back! And then how to fit the Nav lights...

 

if you're bored at all, here is my small collection, Corsair in there somewhere..

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

@Grey Beema .. If you think you cut to much off you could take some thin round sprue or stretched sprue the required length glue it to the wing tips. Then sand/file until you get your desired shape ? Then notch for the lights and use clear sprue. That or micro Krystal kleer i think is the product to make such things. Hope that helps ? 

 

Dennis

Edited December 12, 2017 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[Biggles87]

3 hours ago, Johnny1000 said:

@Biggles87 Thanks! Don't be so sure... I'm really slow. (It doesn't help that I have to do almost everything at least twice, and let myself get mired in pointless details... case in point below.)

-J

 

You are describing me exactly.

 

John

[Squibby]

Me too...

 

But your results speak for themselves. I'm loving the work you're putting into this 'pointless' detailing. I especially like your oxygen bottle.

 

I've got a birdcage corsair sitting in my small stash that should greatly benefit from your thread

 

I'm intrigued at your plastic seatbelts, From your work it looks like they really are readily 'drape-able', do you essentially just fold them over and extra thin cement into place? I might try to get hold of some of these to try, the detail certainly looks amazing.

 

 

 

[Johnny1000]

@Grey Beema That's a really cool project, with some really nice work. Thanks for sharing, will comment over there.

 

3 hours ago, Biggles87 said:

You are describing me exactly.

@Biggles87 I reckon we'll get on just fine, then.

 

@Squibby Thanks. I'm really very proud of that oxygen bottle. Your current Mustang almost made me go back and start over on the sidewall detail, but then I took a deep breath. Awesome work there. Looking forward to that eventual birdcage. 

 

The Fine Molds seat belts are pretty cool. They aren't ideal—maybe a bit thick for scale—but pretty workable if you use a light touch and, in my mind, a step up from most PE. Especially color PE, which is awful. And a massive step up from fabric seat belts (e.g. Eduard) which are completely unusable. And in a whole other world from anything I could scratch at this stage in my development.

 

I feel like seat belts are something that haven't been completely solved, especially at 1/48 and below, and there has to be a better way. Molded on resin seats can look  pretty convincing, but I'm old school enough to feel like posing the seat belts is expressive enough to be something the modeler should take charge over. (At least for me.) I've got another set of the Fine Molds on the way, in case I continue to screw this up. Or maybe somehow decide I'm masochistic enough to make another model. Regardless, it's some sort of endorsement.

 

What I'm really curious about at the moment are these: http://hgwmodels.cz/en/13-148-scale. While working on this reply, I got itchy and ordered a set. $10 gets you two seats worth, so they're more expensive than Fine Molds, and a lot more per seat than a stand alone set from Eduard. But, if you model at the rate I do cost per unit isn't a prime consideration. If you can crank out a model every couple of weeks, then that would add up. 

 

Cheers

-J

[Squibby]

Have you tried the 'steel series' Eduard PE belts? apparently much thinner and easier to pose naturally. I'm going to use them on my P51, hopefully they work as advertised. If not I might lop the buckles off and use aluminium tape to construct the straps. I've also got some spare Eduard 'super fabric' belt material (Pro tip: the text and border on the backing card is printed using the belt material) which I actually found pretty decent looking if you can pair it up with some nice PE buckles and weather it a bit.

 

Those HGW ones look like they use a similar method, some sort of thin plastic film with PE buckles.

Edited December 13, 2017 by Squibby

[Thom216]

You shall recover! Meanwhile, that cockpit is looking awesome, and the engine is just something else! Very nice.

 

Don't know if it would help, but for the ignition ring on my build, I used a 7/16'' (in inches) external retaining ring. I used a dremel to grind off the square ends and it's a nice fit.

Here it is in place, with the wires just tucked behind it.