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Goofers Delight! Corsair IV BPF 1945


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Allllllrighty then! My recent conversion from the dark side (Armour),  and ensuing Mojo restoration and reinvigoration has resulted in my actually finishing something, albeit two builds belonging to my teenage son, who incidentally still has not noticed that my S.O.D. has nudged his to one side, but that is a horse of a different colour, the upshot of all this is that like a convert to anything, not smoking, not drinking, bdsm, I find myself compelled to "spread the good news"! So for you good people here tonight I will begin the hopefully short WIP of my first build for ME since the early 90`s when I had a go at a Hasegawa Blackhawk and a Hind!

 

The "Leg Iron" has gone to France for a couple of weeks during the interminable summer break that teachers get, so I reasoned that a brief trip to the local model shop (Waterlooville model shop, although it`s actually in Portsmouth) would not be spotted, the juices were bubbling and I needed a fix and I found two kits that got me revving, I read a lot, and two of my recent reads will resonate with a lot of people on here, " Carrier Pilot" by norman Hanson and "On and off the flight deck" by Hank Adlam, so when I saw this I thought this is a go!

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Now I`m not going to detail all the arguments regarding the accuracy of this kit, either way there are pluses and minuses but at less than seven quid I`m happy! I had a search on the site for builds of this kit, there is one currently going on although putting a link in and so forth is currently beyond me, I`ll not insult your intelligence by pretending I've not had a cider or two, but it` s saturday night!

 

Now, the main issues as far as I could make out were broad chord prop and for want of a better name "drop tanks", on the other build the broad chord prop was brought in later than the serial number of the kits serial number, so I need a later serial number,

39454155_2088838681127220_36953096314893 So we`ll go with the FAA Corsair decals from Eaglecals, nice late serial number there! (can you guess the next build?)

"Drop tanks"? bin em..............

Along with the decals I got a "Big Ed" set of seat belts/harnesses for allsorts, so I read that Corsair IV`s were fitted with Q type harnesses , that's dealt with,

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Ok, it`s sideways but it`s a canopy mask set, but it was well cheap! Job jobbed!

So I just thought I would have a quick look at the various bits and bobs.............................

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All washed and gleaming, whats not to like?

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Yeah these fell off, but they're ok! And then BOOM! the thing built it`s self..........................almost

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 The wings went together without issue, there was a bit of fettling with the coolers, but seriously, five minutes............

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 a swipe of filler and these will be good to go..................

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engine and cockpit were quick and easy, nice detail and in the booth quicker than you could say knife!

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And finally for today a shot of stynylrez before painting tomorrow.................

So that's me done for today, minimum aftermarket and half the kit built in an afternoon............just like being 12 again!

 

Granto

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pI am just at the gloss varnishing stage of my Corsair and I would highlight a couple of points before you go much further. 

1) I found (and it might just be me) that you need to be careful in making sure that the instrument panel assembly will not foul the upper fuselage decking (part A39). The location for the panel assembly allows for movement in the vertical plane and although I thought I had it in the right place, it was still fractionally too high. 

2)If you are making an aircraft as a MkIV, which looking at the decals you may be, the canopy changed to one a one piece affair without side struts found on the kit canopy. Not sure if it is blown or not, but I just sanded the raised detail off and re-polished the canopy. 

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Thanks for the warning mr T! I might fit a vac form canopy yet, haven't decided, although the artwork on the decal set does have the  two bars on the top of the canopy, from what I have read various mods appear in the production run but I couldn't pin down blown canopies, I`m sure I`ll get corrected!

 

Here is this afternoons progress though...............

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Wing tip joins filled, ailerons rescribed, flaps as well, the original lines were very fine and were as restrained as the panel detail 

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The underside received the same treatment for ailerons and flaps, cooling vents were filled on the inboard edge.

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I detailed the tailwheel as well, it was pretty basic as standard, so I carved the bottom plates centre out to form a V shaped brace, the one above was drilled twice to produce the holes and a third plate was fabricated with three holes to go on the top.

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Probably not 100% accurate, but close enough for government work!

Might even get some interior green sprayed before bed, who knows!

 

Granto

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, I`ve been away from the bench for a week or more, sorting out them pesky Reb`s, but after a thoroughly good weekend doing that it`s back to the daily grind! Mind you, the grind enables the "other" hobby, so here tiz`! 

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The inside has now been finished off, consoles detailed and fitted, I sprayed the IP and consoles nato black and gave them a wash of Flory grey which brought out some of the highlights, various knobs were picked out with red, and the bottle/ tank on the starboard side was picked out in bronze green.

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The kit cockpit is in my opinion quite well detailed but the details were not visible so I re washed with Flory white..........

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And this is the result............Swabbed back with a damp Qtip it pops now! happy with that!

-PAXP-deijE.gif-PAXP-deijE.gifNext up was the pilots seat...........I had already primed and sprayed it interior green, I tried the hairspray method to wear away the paint in the seat pan, a bit of a pain in 1:72 but it worked, then it was time to fit the Eduard seat harness.........I've used etch before but not in this scale.....Sweet Baby Moses, ten individual pieces to make up the harness! I read that the Corsairs were modified straight from Goodyear with Q type harnesses so that`s what I went with.......... 

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I think it worked..............

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Yeah.............happy with that!

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So with that all done I buttoned her up..............Looks alright in there!

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I slid the forward cockpit bulkhead in from the top, and having been previously warned about a possible fit issue I dry fitted the top of the fuselage in place to get everything the right height, there is a bit of filling on the fin to do and there will be an amount of fettling to the dry fitted panel in front of the cockpit, but there is a "ring" that goes on the front of the fuselage that the engine mounts onto that should tie everything together nicely. I did a trial fit of the wing although I didnt photograph it and that looks trouble free. the only other potential issue is the cowling which is very snug so I built it up and tomorrow I`ll ream it out so the lump fits properly. So that was my afternoon, well two hours of it!

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

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Another fine day outside, so I decided to spend it in my shed plugging away at my Corsair!

 

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I used some channel to fabricate the FAA specific fuselage vents, the two intake vents will be finished off with either some half round rod  or a blob of filler at the back and then gently sanded to shape.

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After looking at this image I had to go back and make sure they were level....they are...............

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The wings went on without any issues, the fit was good everywhere apart from the join in the fuselage beneath the cockpit, so that got a smear of filler. I also made a stall vane for the starboard wing from some triangular section, and just to make a tidy finish I ran some Mr Surfacer dissolved putty into the joins around the wing roots.

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You can just make out the filler across the fuselage between the trailing edge, I have been gently rescribing panel lines during the sanding back so I don't loose any since they are quite restrained on the kit. 

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I reamed out the cowling and scribed in some missing lines, I had to remove quite a bit of material inside before I got a trouble free fit for the engine, but once I had done that I fitted the front and I will prime it tomorrow before painting the inside.

 

All that and Hamilton beat the Ferrari`s as well! Today goes in the win column!

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

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Aahhh, I love it when the schools go back............"the Leg Iron" got up at god knows when this morning for the first of three inset days before the year 7`s come in on thursday, which left me a leisurely morning in which to work out, have breakfast and spend an hour or so in the shed, the Mustang and Tiffy are officially finished (already in RFI) and airworthy and will soon be "flown" complete with suitable sound effects and "radio chatter" to their new home in my Sons room, I also got a bit more done on the Corsair, I drilled a small hole in the intake fuselage vents and glued in a short length of rod, this will form the basis of the rounded rear of the external vent, I`ll file and sand it to shape tomorrow, I also attached the tailplane and the rudder and then secured everything to the only clear space in the shed! Job jobbed!

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Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

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I got to the point of priming yesterday, I`ve used stynylrez plenty of times before with out issue, but yesterday it just didnt want to go on smoothly, the gun kept blocking and it left a pretty nasty finish, however I left it overnight to settle and although it wasn't as bad as I imagined I still had to polish it back and sand off a few pin head sized flecks, so after a good clean down, sonic clean of the gun and damp  wipe of the assembly I shot it again....... 

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Much better.................

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So I think I`ll leave that to go off for an hour and then try a bit of preshade, not that it will make a lot of difference with a gloss dark blue finish!

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto 

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Probably a waste of time pre shading, but never mind,  anyhoo it`ll all have to wait until the weekend when I can get to the LMS and get the paint to spray her up!

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Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

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On ‎8‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 11:43 AM, Mr T said:

2)If you are making an aircraft as a MkIV, which looking at the decals you may be, the canopy changed to one a one piece affair without side struts found on the kit canopy. Not sure if it is blown or not, but I just sanded the raised detail off and re-polished the canopy. 

Only partly true: the frameless canopy came in from KD662 onward so there would be a fair number of earlier Mk IVs that did have canopies as per the kit.  The wider prop as provided in the kit came in from KD571 onward and aircraft from KD833 ought to have stubs for 3 HVAR rockets under each outer wing.

 

Nice to see the effort being put into the little details that Revell omitted like the CO intake/outlets and the wing spoiler.  You seem to have sorted out that cowling in double quick time: I found the endless file-and-check routine to get the cowling to fit round the engine quite mojo-sapping. 

 

For me this kit came so near to being a serious rival to the Tamiya kit but at half the price but it was let down by poor research and an unnecessarily complex construction.  I expect its existence means we won't now see a new F4U from Airfix but IMHO the door for a decent 1/72 low-cost kit is still ajar rather than having been slammed firmly shut by this one.

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Looking at the picture on Post #12 I think that the cutouts either side of the headrest should be filled.  These were if I'm not mistaken for the earlier version with the rear windows..

 

Coming on nicely though..

 

Like the CO vents..  Pain in the derrier in 1/48 let alone 1/72nd

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Hi! Really nice work on that Corsair. Nice to see one in FAA colours. 

I like your improvement on the tail gear. I would like to point that most Corsair kits have a short tail gear, and it should be a bit longer. 

Short ones were only present on birdcage Corsairs and it was changed in order to improve visibility when taxiyng. It´s an easy modification and adds a lot if you do it.

 

Looking forward on this build!

Best regards.

 

Ignacio 

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3 hours ago, Seahawk said:

Only partly true: the frameless canopy came in from KD662 onward so there would be a fair number of earlier Mk IVs that did have canopies as per the kit.  The wider prop as provided in the kit came in from KD571 onward and aircraft from KD833 ought to have stubs for 3 HVAR rockets under each outer wing.

 

Nice to see the effort being put into the little details that Revell omitted like the CO intake/outlets and the wing spoiler.  You seem to have sorted out that cowling in double quick time: I found the endless file-and-check routine to get the cowling to fit round the engine quite mojo-sapping. 

 

For me this kit came so near to being a serious rival to the Tamiya kit but at half the price but it was let down by poor research and an unnecessarily complex construction.  I expect its existence means we won't now see a new F4U from Airfix but IMHO the door for a decent 1/72 low-cost kit is still ajar rather than having been slammed firmly shut by this one.

You are quite right of course and I realised I omitted part of the sentence about the hood. When building mine I spent a lot of time looking at photos to see which hood was being used. I hope I have not caused too much confusion. You are right the construction, mine went together alright, but there seemed to be a lot more parts than were needed and it all needed careful fettling to get parts to fit.

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19 hours ago, Seahawk said:

Only partly true: the frameless canopy came in from KD662 onward so there would be a fair number of earlier Mk IVs that did have canopies as per the kit.  The wider prop as provided in the kit came in from KD571 onward and aircraft from KD833 ought to have stubs for 3 HVAR rockets under each outer wing.

 

Nice to see the effort being put into the little details that Revell omitted like the CO intake/outlets and the wing spoiler.  You seem to have sorted out that cowling in double quick time: I found the endless file-and-check routine to get the cowling to fit round the engine quite mojo-sapping. 

 

For me this kit came so near to being a serious rival to the Tamiya kit but at half the price but it was let down by poor research and an unnecessarily complex construction.  I expect its existence means we won't now see a new F4U from Airfix but IMHO the door for a decent 1/72 low-cost kit is still ajar rather than having been slammed firmly shut by this one.

Thanks for the positive comments Seahawk, I saw a build of this kit a few weeks back was it yours? The last I saw of it was a broken canopy? Most of the questions I was looking for answers to seemed to be answered in the comments on there, the aftermarket decals I have are for KD578, so I`m good with the prop and good with the canopy! I agree with your comments on the kit to a degree, it would have been so simple to have the vents and so forth added to the additional sprue with the new wingtips, and the correct center line fuel tank, but as you say, poor research, and only one option with the decals? However, I've always considered myself a modeler rather than an assembler, and I like a challenge, not a big one, thats what has killed my armour mojo, but I`ll be happy to get this one right, and at less than seven quid......well, I`ve got two more decal options on the aftermarket sheet, I ought to use em before they go off!

 

Granto

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Some weekend progress! 

The kit comes with a choice of cooling gills, open and closed..........I really like the open ones, but when I looked through images of Corsairs on the internet very few had their gills open and of those even fewer were fully open like this...........so I decided in the end to go with the closed ones

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Cooling gills pre choice....................I also fitted the main undercarriage legs, they are very sturdy, so I`m not concerned about knocking them off...............

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Engine fitted into the cowling

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Cowling and gill ring fitted to the fuselage. I have laid down some aluminium and gloss coated it, I think I will attempt some restrained chipping on the wings and cowling..............

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First time with a vinyl mask....................

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I have been searching for the correct colour of paint, I've searched the forum for articles/threads/reviews. It seems everyone has a different opinion, I decided to try the xtracrylix gloss sea blue since the prevailing view on here was that that was the go to colour, it was also the only colour out of stock at my LMS! The upshot was that I decided to go with this, MIG 227, it`s in the mig US navy WW2 set, so I parted with my pennies and hurried home, I shot some onto paper last night to see how it came out..............Looks ok to me although I`m sure there will be other views..................

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I punched some circles from clear plastic packaging to liven up the reflector gunsight.....................

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And brushed some nato black on the coaming, after dinner today I might attempt to fit the canopy which will leave the door open to any opportunity that may present it`self to get the airbrush fired up in the week but to attempt any chipping I`ll need several hours so It might have to wait until next week............

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

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This kit has a VERY fragile canopy! I was experimenting with the fit and heard a snap.............................Its not gone all the way across, so I quickly and very gently cemented it in place............41673910_2119872091357212_84608552168440

I ran a tiny amount of extra thin into the crack and later on shot some black on it, I`ll have a peek tomorrow under the mask on the top of the canopy, If I can save it I will, I`ve also dabbed some Mr Surfacer dissolved putty into the crack, if it`s beyond salvage I`ll have to go for a vac form canopy, In which case I`ll leave it open.................And today was going so well!!!

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

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Had a slight change of tack on this Girl, generally progress has been trouble free but I know I can do better, but the gun sight is wrong I have found out, and there`s some detail I missed in the cockpit and after the incident with the canopy earlier in the week I decided to order a pair of these on line along with with vacform canopies, so not wanting to waste this one I have decided to use the kit decals and save my aftermarket set for the pair on the way which I intend to make up as a mk II and a mk IV, so in keeping with that I modified the prop to an earlier pattern so it is in keeping with the serial number in the kit decals, everything else stays the same! 

 

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Here is the new standard chord prop!

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And here she is with a couple of coats of blue..........sprayed over some hairspray decanted for the airbrush. I took some reference shots before the paint went on so I know where the aluminium is for when i start the chipping! 

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

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Hairspray chipping..........................................For a first attempt at the exterior of an aeroplane I`ll take that.................more like a war weary MK II though!

 

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I`ll leave it to dry overnight and then seal it.................bit of a steep learning curve though, goes from nowt to bare metal in a second, but I think with some wash and so forth she`ll look ok! Either that or she can get pushed overboard into Moreton bay!

 

Ta for lookin` no "G"

 

Granto

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