Jules' Corsair - FINISHED

[Deanflyer]

Hi all, me again.

I received an email from my cousin Dominic in Australia the other day, saying that a work colleague of his was keen on aircraft and her all time favourite plane was the Vought Corsair. He asked if I'd build one for her as a birthday present, and of course I agreed. As it needs to be airmailed halfway round the world on completion, we agreed to do a model in flight, thereby removing the need for wheels and prop blades which could easily be broken by a careless postie. It was also agreed that it would be completely unweathered and very shiny as befits a presentation model, so look on the end result as being a warbird rather than any particular operational airframe.

I bought a suitable kit at Hinckley today, and thought I'd keep a sort of blog on how it was built so that when she finally receives it, she can look back on this thread and see how it was built. As a result, I'll be going back to basics a bit; experienced modellers please bear with me. So...

This is the kit as it arrived in my grubby little hands:

...and this is what the box contains:

Construction normally starts with the cockpit, no exception here:

I usually detail my cockpits and have the canopy open, but in this case the pilot had to be installed and the canopy closed, so I'll keep the detail basic as you won't see much of it.

After about an hour's work, a lot of the parts I'll be using had been removed from the sprue and the attachment points cleaned up. The cockpit parts and the engine parts had been sprayed with primer, a necessity as acrylic paint doesn't stick to plastic otherwise:

...and after a further hour's work the basic cockpit colours had been airbrushed on and the instrument panel had been drybrushed to bring up the moulded detail, with drops of gloss varnish in the instruments representing the glass faces:

So at the two hour mark, that's how far I've got. More to come as it happens...

Cheers,

Dean

Edited May 2, 2009 by Deanflyer

[Deanflyer]

Today's progress has been mainly taken up with detail painting on the cockpit, and painting the pilot. I'm not much of a figure painter as I don't get much practice, but he should look ok once he's under the canopy out of sight a bit:

As I'm doing the plane in flight, there won't be much of a propellor in the way of the fairly basic engine. As the engine will be on view a bit more as a result, I decided that the least I could do with it was wire it up with ignition leads. I used 0.2mm lead wire for the leads, painted a copper colour. The cylinder heads were painted metallic grey and given a wash with Tamiya Smoke paint to give the cooling vanes a bit more depth:

Needs a bit of touch up painting on a couple of the black magnetos, but once it's behind the engine cowling it looks ok in this scale:

So there we are at the five hour mark...the canopy parts have been prepared and dipped in Johnson's Klear to make them appear thinner and clearer, the radiators have been installed in the wings, and after a couple more improvements to things like the wingtip navigation lights we should be ready to start getting some of the main airframe components together.

More soon,

Dean

[Mike]

He's a very cheerful pilot

[Deanflyer]

If you were going to be trapped in a plastic tomb forever and shipped off to the other side of the world, I doubt if you'd be the life and soul of the party, either, Mike...

I duly installed Flyboy in his cockpit, and decided that the gunsight, being a block of shapeless plastic, could do with improvement:

So, a bit of detailing work later...

As this plane is going to be in flying mode, I drilled a hole under the wing, and installed a brass tube at a suitable angle. The underside is chamfered to be flush to the fuselage:

This will act as a socket into which another slightly smaller brass tube will slide, the latter being fixed to the base. The angle has been set to give a slight nose up attiitude with a left bank. Soaring, you might say.

The wingtip navigation lights were just moulded into the wings in grey plastic. Couldn't have that, so I cut them out, glued in a piece of clear plastic, and carved and sanded and polished it to the right shape. The green bulb was represented by a tiny hole drilled into the clear plastic, and filled with paint. There's a red one on the port wing to match:

After about half an hour's delicate work with masking tape, the cockpit transparencies are masked up ready for spraying, and installed onto the fuselage. I've also drilled out the exhaust pipe stubs to make them hollow, dealt with all the seams on the fuselage and wings, and painted the inside of the cowling zinc chromate yellow. So, after a total of nine and a half hours' work, here is where it stands:

Flyboy is now wondering why it's all gone dark.

Next up, attaching the wings and tailplane, converting the tailwheel to retracted, and it's on with the painting stage. Hopefully.

Cheers,

Dean

[AnonymousFO98]

If you were going to be trapped in a plastic tomb forever and shipped off to the other side of the world, I doubt if you'd be the life and soul of the party, either, Mike...

i think he's more concerned about that brass rod

[Deanflyer]

Well, I thought I'd dealt with all the seams, but a coat of primer showed differently! Back to filling and sanding, and eventually it was ready for bunging up the radiator and engine intakes and giving the final primer coat. I usually like to rub the primer coat smooth, but this plane has so many aerials and things moulded integral to the airframe that I didn't dare. The primer seemed smooth enough without, though:

Then I had a disaster with the paint. I'd bought some Xtracrylix paint of the correct FS number, and it refused to thin properly or spray. I ended up with a seriously clogged airbrush that had to be disassembled to clean it properly. I compared the colour to my bottle of Tamiya XF-17 and found they were identical - should have stuck with what I know best! On with the Tamiya Sea Blue, and then on with many many coats of Johnson's Klear to make it glossy:

The gloss went on a bit pebbly for some reason, so I had to keep adding extra coats to cover this over. It's ready for decals now, and after some sealing coats on top of those, the finish should be ok.

I also painted the prop, even though it might not be used:

Strange that there are no Hamilton Standard decals for the prop blades though...have to see what I can find in the spares box.

I've scratchbuilt a facsimile of a spinning hub, so Jules can choose which effect she likes best on the finished model - static prop or spinning invisibly.

The undercarriage was never designed to be raised on this kit, so some surgery of the kit parts was necessary, along with some very careful trimming and fitting of the gear doors. The tailwheel protrudes through the rear gear doors on the real thing though, which is rather strange, but I've managed to sort out a representation of that ok.

So, at just over 17 hours' work, it's on with decals next!

Cheers,

Dean

[Deanflyer]

Right, decals are on and the gloss coat is over the top of them to seal them in. Shiny shiny:

The clear wingtip lights are evident in the first two pics, and I think they're a great improvement over the kit offerings. Of course, I'm biased...

Decals were very thin and went on well, and with an application of decal softening fluid they settled down well over the raised panel lines.

I've installed the tailhook and pitot tube, and the tailwheel paint is drying as we speak. I also applied a black wash to the recesses of the control surfaces to give them some depth, but the gloss Sea Blue is so dark that it's virtually invisible.

Once the gloss coat has hardened off, it'll be time for unmasking the canopy and it'll be time to sort out what I'm going to do for a base.

Nearly there, after 19 hours.

Cheers,

Dean

[general melchett]

Nice Dean , I assume the tapes in the background are aviation and not for recreational use/abuse ..

I've had the same problem with Xtracrylics paints in the past, namely NATO black which turned into a pebble dashing exercise !! seems to be luck of the draw coz one works OK and another doesn't....very odd !!

[Vince Blackburn]

love the prop he chooses the right one

[Deanflyer]

So, masking is off, fiddly bits installed, and the prop hub is complete. Here's the choice for Jules then:

Prop static:

or prop blurred:

Prop static:

or prop blurred:

Wonder which she'll choose? (Ignore the red smudges on the underside of the wing, by the way - this thing is shiny and they were reflections of something red on the table underneath it.)

Just working on the base for it now...nearly there...

Cheers,

Dean

[Ant]

Another lovely build, well done. I think I'd go for the version with prop blades. The one without just isn't right to me. It's odd as I like the spit's I've seen inflight without blades. Maybe it's the addition of a spinner that makes it work in my eye. What the hell do I know though!!!

[Radar]

Right down my street, excellent build Dean, especially as I'm about to do a Tamiya Corsair myself can I asked what was the final coat of varnish was that you used was it Klear?

Ian S

[Deanflyer]

Hi Ian, yes it was just Klear. Lots and lots of it, mind you, applied wet...

As for the prop blades Ant, personally I think it looks better without. You could almost imagine you could see the blurred prop... :

More pics in Ready For Inspection. Nearly there with the base, now, too.

Cheers,

Dean

[Deanflyer]

Right, here it is on its base. There's to be an inscription on the base at some point, but my printer is playing up at the moment, but to all intents and purposes, it's finished...22 hours' work.

without prop:

with prop:

Shiny finish, as specified:

I've put some in-flight pics of it in RFI, and I'm going to give Julia the url for it. It's be nice if when she looks up HER model there, there were more than a few comments - it's her birthday present remember...so feel free to wish her happy birthday too!

Thanks for watching,

Dean

Edited May 2, 2009 by Deanflyer

[wyvern]

Beautiful work as usual Dean. One thing though, I reckon your grass needs mowing - is your gardener on his holidays or something?

[Alan P]

Looks good, but you should have gone for a lacquer finish to get it nice and proper glossy!