timmah Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 Hi All Its been a while since I have done any modelling with life and work generally getting in the way. I saw the Under a tenner group build and I was going to enter this kit for that but again time slipped by and I never got my act together; Hopefully I can use the kit I chose for that in this group build? I purchased this kit from eBay last year. I stumbled over the listing late one evening after a bottle of wine and the auction had less than 5 minutes to run with no bids so I thought I was onto a winner with getting a 1:48 Hasegawa kit for £ 4.70 plus postage. I could not believe no one had placed any bids and waited till then end of the auction to see the one and only bid (mine!) win it. I felt rather smug as I went to bed thinking how did other people not see a 1:48 Haswegawa kit going for less than a fiver on eBay??!! Oh how I laughed as I slumbered off to sleep.......... With a little more time the next morning I started to research the kit I had just won; It may be a 1:48 Hasegawa kit for under a tenner (with postage) but reading the reviews it is as old as the hills with plenty of inaccuracies and very far away from more modern Hasegawa kits, feeling a lot less smug I waited for the post man and slid the kit quietly into the stash for another time. When I saw this group build I thought it was reason enough to give myself a kick up the modelling backside and so the time has come to start building it. The second decal option provided in the kit is for a VMF-323 "Death Rattlers" machine and I like the snake on the cowling so that is the option I will be doing. I managed to find quite a few photos of the actual aircraft on this web site link: http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=499044 The following pictures are taken from the above link. (All credits to Mark Allen M on the Warbird information exchange website) The above picture is of 1st Lt. Bud Yount from VMF-323 standing in front of the actual aircraft (His?) aboard the USS Sicily (CVE-118) in 1951. The instructions show and all blue airframe yet as you can see the picture of the actual aircraft shows a reddish brown cowl colour with grey engine flaps so I would like to replicate that if I can. If anyone has an idea of the colours involved on the cowl and flaps it would be much appreciated? The pictures I found on the net also show that this particular aircraft came to a sorry end with a bad deck landing that ended up in the lift shaft of the carrier. I did a quick search for more information to see if the pilot got out ok but didn't find a great deal? Hopefully I will do the kit justice and will present it before it was involved in the deck incident. Thanks for looking and hope to show more progress very soon. Time to crack on with the building. Best regards Tim. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehnz Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 I'll be watching this, keen to do this in 1/72, maybe with the Hobby Boss example, not enough time for this build though so a bit down the track. Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Kelley Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 I actually don't think it is a bad kit- just in need of a rescribe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mungo1974 Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 Still arguably the best F4U-4 in 1/48 outthere. Rescribing a Corsair is fairly straight forward if you feel you want to. Always good to see a F4U on BM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timmah Posted May 25, 2014 Author Share Posted May 25, 2014 Hi All I actually don't think it is a bad kit- just in need of a rescribe. Still arguably the best F4U-4 in 1/48 outthere. Rescribing a Corsair is fairly straight forward if you feel you want to. Always good to see a F4U on BM Thanks Alan and Mungo, Good to know! Having started to put the kit together and despite the raised panel lines and reported inaccuracies' the fit is very good and the plastic has a really nice "feel" to it. I'm not going to get involved in re-scribing the kit but I will be re-instating the lost panel lines when I clean up all the seams. Some progress from yesterday........ The tail wheel bay is blocked off on the kit so...... Leaving enough to give support to the tail wheel I cut out the area to give a better representation of the real thing, I'm not going to go into adding all the rib detail as once it's painted dark blue I don't think a great deal will be seen but I think it looks better. Gun ejection ports were cut out in the wings and so were the formation(?) lights, I will punch out some clear lenses to fill these once they are painted. The wing halves were then joined together, the rear seam line runs straight through the middle of the flaps (not 5mm from the natural flap joint???) which is going to provide an interesting time in cleaning up but at least the fit is good so won't require too much filler. The cockpit is all painted and so is the engine and I will get the pictures up later. Thanks for looking Best regards Tim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mozzy19 Posted May 25, 2014 Share Posted May 25, 2014 Nice choice Tim, and good work on that wheel bay. Sean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timmah Posted May 28, 2014 Author Share Posted May 28, 2014 Hi All Some progress to report...... Cockpit all painted, as it's a bit sparse I will be adding the pilot figure so I'm not going to weather it too much. And whilst I had interior green colour in the airbrush I added some yellow to give a zinc chromate colour and painted up the wheel bays. In the natural light there is a difference between the cockpit and wheel bay colour but it is not quite as noticeable in these pictures. Engine quickly painted and added to the fuselage half. Fuselage all closed up. Then, whilst I had the glue in my hand, the wings were attached! The wing to fuselage joint was quite good and solid but in order to get the best fit all round there is a slight gap on the left side which will need to be filled. I just need to start cleaning up the seams and then I can get some primer on to check all the joints before starting the outer painting process. I'll be back with more progress soon....... Thanks for looking Best regards Tim. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mungo1974 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Good job....starting to look like a F4U already! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timmah Posted May 31, 2014 Author Share Posted May 31, 2014 Hi all The seam clean up is well underway and I should be ready for primer very soon. I have started to reinstate the lost panel lines but there was one panel line I was happy to remove and that was the one for the fuel tank cover; as moulded the line for the cover when the fuselage halves were together was oval when it should be round, this presented a problem as my scribing set did not have a round hole of big enough diameter to do the re-scribe. I measured the diameter of the cover on a Tamiya kit and found my larger punch and die set had a perfect size punch to produce a template but what to use as the material to punch?? I thought about using plastic sheet but was concerned it would not be sturdy enough to scribe against and if it was tough enough it probably would be difficult to bend around the fuselage without cracking so what else could I use that was round already? Looking around the house I thought of using a drinks can but could not find anything and then looking in the fridge I came across the perfect item! Around the top of a bottle of unopened wine was a metal sheath, this was sturdier than the foil type but getting to use it would cause several problems, these being: 1. In order to get to the material below the cap, I had to open the bottle. 2. Trying to tip the bottle to get a good grip on the metal meant that some liquid would leak out..... 3. Pouring some of the liquid into a glass helped but just filling the one glass I had was not enough . 4. After the glass was emptied and refilled enough times the bottle was empty but I could no longer see straight! 5. Using sharp knives when ones eyes are very blurred is not a good idea! I eventually triumphed over adversity and here is what I came up with........ The black finish allowed me to mark up the position against the panel lines so I had the right position. Here it is placed near to its correct position. And the final result. The tail planes have also been added so I just have a couple of places left to sand down and it's off into the paint booth for this one. Thanks for looking. Best regards Tim. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Neu- Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Awesome ingenuity... its great to see how little problems like this get resolved, rather than calling it unbuildable. A friend of mine built this kit and she loved it, despite being older than its contemporaries. Looks like you're doing a great job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mungo1974 Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Soon be ready to slap some paint on that beauty... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timmah Posted July 10, 2014 Author Share Posted July 10, 2014 Hi All Well time is marching on the end date is looming large! I haven't had a great deal of time at my modelling bench over the past few weeks but I have at least managed to get something done. All the seams were smoothed and polished, the gap in the wing joint was filled using Mr Surfacer and lost panel lines were re-instated. I was happy with all the joints so the whole thing was then primered with Mr surface 1200 to give a good base for the top coat. This was then given a going over with a rough cloth to remove imperfections. Hopefully, I should get a chance to start the top colours over the next few days so will report back with more pictures soon. Thanks for looking Best regards Tim. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timmah Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 Hi All Well some slow but steady progress........... White Cowling ring all painted. Cowling ring masked and cowl flaps painted, trying to find the correct colour was a bit of an issue; the information I found seemed to be different the more I looked at it. One builder used Dark Gull Grey which seemed too dark, another used Light Gull Grey which looked too light so in the end I used a mix of Light Gull Grey and Neutral Grey which seems about right in day light and when not lightened by the camera flash. I started to paint the main colour based on what others had done, I like Gunze paints so started with H55 Midnight Blue but this seemed way too dark so I used that to darken certain panels and used H54 Navy Blue for the main colour. Main painting all finished, I will leave to harden and carry on over the next few nights. I'm determined to finish this by the deadline..... Thanks for looking Best regards Tim. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehnz Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 What did you use for the red cowl colour Tim? It sure looks about right compared to colour photos of the Death Rattlers aircraft. Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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