Mycapt65

Absolutely gorgeous. I love how you interpreted the camouflage.

ETA on my other -5 fuselage half is Friday. Until then I guess I'll work on adding fabric panels to the wings. Any suggestions?

Here's another visual of the cuts.

Thank you. That guy is insane when it comes to getting things right. He amazes me. Thanks again

I'm going to take a different tack then originally planned. I think I'm going to use the bulk -5 kit. I'll use the -4 turtle deck, fuselage forward of the firewall. The -5 windscreen mates well with the -4 hood This will help me avoid making a zigzag cut with a long horizontal cut. This way helps retain the better shape and size of the -5 fuselage. I'm still waiting on my other -5 fuselage half to arrive from FleaBay before I further cut up the -4.

Thanks. I absolutely love your website. I've used it several times for several types of aircraft. I was pretty aware of the basic differences. I'm looking for overall profile information. I'm trying to determine things like wing incident and fuselage heights. I've got a pile of chopped up plastic that I'd like to get together close to correct. Keep up the great work Ron

I'm trying to kit bash a Hasegawa F4U-5N and F4U-4 to make a F4U-4B. It'd be really helpful to have scale drawings for at least the fuselage of a F4U-4. I've tried searching the internet and everything I've found is either for the wrong version or for R/C Planes. Thanks Ron

You're right. I read his post again and I misunderstood it the first time. My apologies

Apologies

I don't have the Hobbyboss F4U-4 but have seen several builds of it, with and without aftermarket. It looks ok when the cowling is addressed. There's a few other things I forget about it that look odd or are problematic. I don't like the open wing bays because they're always hard to close up nicely. The wing fold is poorly detailed IIRC and definitely at the wrong angle. The angle is so wrong it's noticeable from across the street. After your input I decided to compare the F4U-4 fuselage to the F4U-5N fuselage. The -4 is deeper and measurable but I'm guessing it's closer to 1mm than 2mm. I was looking for a way to use the -5 fuselage. Unfortunately my -5 donor kit is missing the port fuselage so I would have to donate a complete late model Hasegawa F4U kit. I'd be willing to cut up my F4U-7 if I thought it was possible without much strife. It would involve using the -4 forward fuselage, cowling and spine and sourcing the rest from the -7 kit. Unfortunately the -4 cowling is still slightly too deep and to shorten it would be difficult without throwing off the circular opening and or the grin. I'm still considering this option, but I'm leaning towards ignoring the millimeter, millimeter and half of extra depth. The contours of the Hasegawa -4 belly don't look too squared off to me enough to cut off and fix. It's a lot of work to fix something that doesn't really jump out at me. I'd really like to find some scale drawing to see what the actual dimensions and contours are. I don't necessarily trust either Tamiya or Hasegawa to be correct. Both companies are not beyond reproach and have made dimensional accuracy errors in the era these kits were produced.

Thanks for the information. I'm not really building this to be completely accurate in every dimension and contour. I'm building it to make a reasonable representation of an airplane I really like. I'm more a casual hobbyist. I do this for fun. General fit and finish is most important to me. If it looks good from a few feet away, I'm happy. Thanks again for taking the time to inform me of the corrections. Be well Ron

I added aluminum tubing to maintain the dihedral and rigidity before I cut back the front section of the fuselage underside on the wing. I don't mess around when it comes to strength and geometry. Test fitting the -5 engine in the -4B looks good in all aspects. There may be minor visible differences between the two, but this looks light years better than the original kit engine. So far so good.

Ok I'm tired of waiting for someone to come up with a nice dash 4 Corsair. And no the Hobbyboss isn't a nice dash 4. I'm starting with sadly the best looking (IMO) dash 4. The Hasegawa rebox of the ancient Mania kit. I was initially was going to build OOB except for the True Details cockpit set. Then I bought a set of Minicraft wings from their clone kit to gain scribed lines and flaps that weren't split with a difficult seam to fix. Then I remembered, hey I can poach some parts from a Hasegawa F4U-5N kit. My initial inclination was to use the the engine, wing pylons and some other details. Then I started to think I can have dropped flaps and better details if I can add the appropriate fabric panels. The dash 5 wings were too long in front and short in the rear. Not nearly the drop fit of the Minicraft wings. After eyeballing it a while I decided to try adding the dash -5 wings. First I had to find a piece of plastic to fill the giant open space between the rear edge of the lower wing and fuselage. I found a P-47 engine cowling with close contours in the spares box. Cut that in half and dry fit it approximately to the fuselage. Next was to cut off the F4U-4B kit cowling and check the fit of the wing again before I cut back the lower fuselage extension. It's bad enough that I might have ruined one kit. I didn't want to cut up the wing and ruin a second kit if I didn't have to. So I'm at the point of no return. Normally I have a hard time finishing simple kits (like a Tamiya P-51B ) without a lot of drama, so this should be interesting. Stay tuned and wish me luck. Cheers Ron

I lost the original lens to the carpet monster. Made two others out of thin heat form packaging and lost them in the carpet on final shaping. Tried extra lenses from my Accurate Miniatures Mustangs as well as an ICM copy someone was nice enough to send me. Only the ICM was close but was damaged in the mail. Eventually I contacted Tamiya's American website and they sent me a new lens in a few days. I should have contacted them first but I felt guilty for loosing it. I had similar problems finding proper exhaust after I damaged the kit exhaust drilling them out.. And similar problems with aftermarket metal landing gear trying to replace kit plastic that was damaged by a mineral spirits wash. The metal gear was bent and didn't fit. Threw those away and bought a loose sprue from ebay. I spent way too much money and time fixing boo boos. This was a long slog. Most of which was self inflicted Be well Ron

Thanks. That means a lot to me. Especially coming from you. Your builds are inspiring.

Thanks all for the kind words. It's 1/48th.

There was a lot hiccups along the way with this one. It started off as "Berlin Express" and ended up this. Lots of lost and broken pieces along the way. Several sets of decals, exhausts, landing gear and landing light lenses later, I'm finally calling it done. I've spent enough in basic aftermarket stuff to buy three of these kits. Half I didn't use or threw out. In the end I used AMG Decals, Ultracast seat, Quickboost exhaust and Eduard's wheels. I scratch built the gun tubes and guns. The landing light is the Tamiya part glued in with not yet cured white glue. It doesn't fit well. It's a placeholder until I can scratch build a better lens. Here it is number one for 2023

Found this photo anyone know anything about this plane.

Love it. Beautiful job.

Holy Schmoly! That's unbelievably gorgeous! I'm gonna have to quit modeling now

Merry Christmas to all of you! Ron Stearns

You're a better man than I. I can't brush future or anything else for that matter that's bigger than a pea on a model. Plus you have the patience to wait overnight. I can't do that either. The Mr.Color stuff you can handle it five minutes later and decal five minutes after that. That's beautiful Mustang too! Have a Merry Christmas

Ohhh. Thin the Gunze stuff with Mr.Color Leveling thinner. It has a retarder in it. I use it to thin Mr.Color paints as well. People call it unicorn tears because it's so amazing.

See my edited post

I gave up on floor polish a year ago when I discovered Mr.Color clear laquers. They're a thousand times better than future or any of its rebrands. It sprays ridiculously smooth both the gloss and the flats and it's impervious to every decal solvent I've tested and mineral (white) spirits. The aggravation with dealing with future just wasn't worth it when the Mr.Color stuff works a thousand times better and is infinitely easier to use. Gx100 Gx114 Fwiw I had the best luck spraying the floor polish neat at low pressure The Gunze stuff you thin at least 4:1 and spray at 15psi (1 bar)