Big ol' F4U-1A by Revell

[rob Lyttle]

I've kind of ambled into this build, and got rather hooked on the thing, and it's been a great motivation to work up my scratch-building by way of trying to make some improvements on the 1970 tooling. 

A coupled of years ago I tackled the Revell Red Arrows Hawk in 1.32 and had an excellent time dealing with the plastic at this scale. 

I'm not a stickler for any particular scale.... some people see it as some kind of "doctrine" thing. 

I like a good "handy-sized" project, and a Corsair in 1.32 is in the same zone as, say, my Curtiss C46 in 1.72! 

 

Now, obviously the modern way to go for a F4U-1A at this size is to get the Tamiya product. Maybe one day I will when I'm rich and famous. 

I'm using a couple of builds on line of the Tamiya kit as significant reference material, and if I can get SOME of the details and corrections added to this old box of fun, then that's the mission accomplished! 

And I'm already £100 in pocket... 😁

 

So, no after-Market products - it's a bit like buying somebody else's skills because you can't be bothered.... 

The plan so far, is with the flaps down, wings out, control surfaces moved, and I quite fancy a well-used, dusty, coral Island based workhorse. 

 

So there's a long way to go! 

I'll take you back to the start and gradually bring you up to speed with where I've got to so far, which isn't that far! 

Might be a bit stopstart as this is a sort of holiday break from doing a bunch of Lockheed's Twins, but that's OK because the F4U has a P&W R2800 Double Wasp fitted, which is quite a tidy beast - - 

And the PV1 Ventura has TWO THEM!!! 

Now that's the kinda plane I'M talkin' about 🤩

So this is all research for what I'm supposed to be doing 🤓

You're welcome along, of course..... 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Looking forward to this one Rob

[Biggles87]

Me too

 

John

 

[Antb]

Just picked one up myself so will tag along for inspiration if I may. 

[P.1127]

I'll follow along as well, if I may! These 1/32 kits seem to be very reasonably priced and I'll be interested to see how this one goes together. Good luck.

[clive_t]

I'll follow along too if I may. Sadly I had to offload one of the newer boxings of this kit from my stash recently, as I worked out that it wouldn't fit in my display cabinet even if I did finish it!

[Biggles87]

Is there a date on the kit somewhere Rob? I built a Revell 1/32 Corsair back in the ‘70s ( I think ) I wonder if it’s from the same moulds.

 

John

[rob Lyttle]

4 hours ago, clive_t said:

I worked out that it wouldn't fit in

Yes Clive, the Royal Navy encountered the same problem..... So they clipped the wing tips a bit to get the plane to fit in the hangers below. 

Would that work....? 😊

 

Well, I set about making something of the cockpit area. The kit solution is very rudimentary 

 

I got the seat out of the bulkhead to start with, 

And the side consoles off the floor pan piece. 

A couple of hours messing around with strips of styrene and I had the seat mounted on a framework and a headrest, and an open plan floor and front bulkhead for the pedals. 

 

 

The cockpit sides got some ribs and a few fittings. These are mostly leftover radio parts from the MPM Hudson 1.72 kit. 

Oops sorry.... Can't get rid of it now! 

 

So that was a bit of fun. 

Not museum grade, but a step up from the kit parts. 

[rob Lyttle]

18 minutes ago, Biggles87 said:

Is there a date on the kit somewhere Rob?

Haven't found anything marked on the plastic except Revell Inc. but Scalemates gives it at 1970 I think. 

Lucky boy! That must have been a Christmas present...!! 

[clive_t]

4 minutes ago, rob Lyttle said:

Yes Clive, the Royal Navy encountered the same problem..... So they clipped the wing tips a bit to get the plane to fit in the hangers below. 

Would that work....? 😊

 

Not unless they also shortened it by 2 feet nose to tail!

 

[rob Lyttle]

6 hours ago, clive_t said:

Not unless they also shortened it by 2 feet nose to tail!

What, you mean like THIS....? 

 

'Ere pass me the saw a minute....... 

[woody37]

Your key words are 'Out of the box' and 'Scratch Mods', this could go anywhere 😂

 

Watching with keen interest either way

[rob Lyttle]

A few more niceties around the seating area before closing up... 

 

A pair of rudder pedals fastened on the front bulkhead, and a new joystick long enough to attach to a mechanism down below. 

There's a big handle like a handbrake on the left side and I had a go at a yellow oxygen bottle at the rear of the righthand console. It needs improving! 

The other item that needs to be sorted before the close up is the tailwheel. 

It rotates on a bar in the fuselage and can be pushed up out of the way until needed. 

This ⬆️disc is the kit wheel....!! 

Apparently the first F4U s had a solid rubber tyre and that may be what they were doing here?? 

Anyway, the 1A got a pneumatic tyre smaller in diameter and a longer leg to get the tail up and improve the pilot's view. 

So that's a main wheel off a dodgy little Beech Expeditor in 1.72. 

The leg and wheel is now off and will be fitted later with a brass wire or something. 

And after a few practice goes the halves are joined 

 

Oh yeah, the rudder is removed first! 

 

Here's the tailwheel assembly so far, and the doors went on too. 

That's ready drilled for a wire leg, and pushes up inside for now. No hook yet either. 

[imp999]

Rob, I spent 18 months doing the same as you with this kit!

Really loved it.

I love the big old Revells.

Anyway, you seem to be cracking on.  Good luck!

 

Mark.

[rob Lyttle]

@imp999 thanks for the encouragement.! 

I'm not building at this rate.....  there's a couple of weeks tinkering that I need to do catch-up on to get this updated. 

18 months, eh?!?... 😮

[rob Lyttle]

Now, the cowling is all one piece including the cooling flaps, and it has a good overall shape but there are a couple of glaring errors that need to be worked on. 

The flaps are all one size, right around. 

They should be intermittent big, small, big etc. 

They're in need of thinning towards the edge, and the wedges glued in the gaps. 

Then the new divisions can be scribed on. Not cut all the way through.... They link together. 

I'm redefining mine with Ali foil sections. 

 

The front panel line is too far forward, half way round the curve. 

That would mean the side engine covers would be a fancy beaten compound curve! 

Being a raised panel line it's easy to remove and once the new position is established, it can be scribed on like this. 

Best to use an appropriate book 😇⚠️

Just establish the height of the blade between the pages, press on the book and turn the cowling against the blade. 

Several light passes will be better and safer than trying to gouge the thing. 

I then foiled the front ring in 3 sections, again to give some definition, and ultimately some metal may be exposed through the paintwork as weathering developes later on.

And a bit of emphasis on the joint strips between the panels 

Referring to other builds, I made some actuator pieces on the inside of the cowling flaps, and a ring of stretched sprue to indicate the opening pulley system. 

These need trimming back and bevelling, and then the line attached around. 

Also the very bottom section has been filled with a flap as required and it needs a bit of fancy trimming and adjusting as that is where the cowling attaches to the fuselage. 

In retrospect it might be better to do the assembly to the fuselage brackets and then make the final flap to fit on. 

Anyway I'll take a picture of the finished gubbins inside so you can see what I'm doing! 

Better than what I started with! 😁

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

3 minutes ago, rob Lyttle said:

Best to use an appropriate book 😇⚠️

Just establish the height of the blade between the pages, press on the book and turn the cowling against the blade. 

Several light passes will be better and safer than trying to gouge the thing. 

Now thats a good idea to get a straight line. 

[rob Lyttle]

Here it is in all it's glory..... 

 

[spitfire]

Go for it, the old Revell kits are fun (challenging) builds, I built two, one FAA and one USN in the nineties and refurbished them around 2007 and enjoyed the builds both times.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[rob Lyttle]

Tell me this @spitfire

did you make use of the folding mechanism on the wings?? 

I can't visualise it being a successful outcome for the look of the plane, but I'd like to know if it can be done 

[rob Lyttle]

The thing about this kit (and many others....!) is that it is basically a hollow plastic box in the shape of a Corsair. 

There's no internal structure or content. 

So when you cut or remove anything, it leaves a gaping hole! 

So where the wing joins the fuselage, where the flaps have been removed and will be put back in the dropped position, there is now a wide open gap on each side. 

I've fitted 2 pieces of thin yogurt pot to act as a barrier, like a curtain inside the fuselage. 

When I fit the fuselage bottom section, I should be able to get some glue on these to fix them - they're bendy enough to take up position. 

And that will give me something to work on with fillers etc to make good the fuselage sides. 

Here's a dry run... Upside down! 

 

Right way up.... 

 

You can see that the main wing-top to fuselage joint is.... what shall I say?...... Vague! 🙄

 

The best current advice for building the wings "out" seems to be to join the top pieces, inner and outer, with Reinforcement pieces as reqd, to make sure the joint is decently aligned. 

Some say do the same thing with the bottom panels, and then put the tops and bottoms together and do what's needed to make the leading and trailing edges work..

I'm going partly along this line. Outer wing panels joined top and bottom after all the structural additions needed with the ailerons and flaps removed. 

And then the inner top panels fitted while the top hinge lines can be got at and Reinforcement applied on the inside. 

The fuselage will have the bottom fitted, complete with the underside inner wing panels, and sooner or later there will be a mahoosive joining up ceremony as they're all married up together! 

 

IT'S GONNA BE GOOD! 

IT'S GONNA BE GREAT....!! 

😇

[rob Lyttle]

I'm in need of information.... 

In question is the big mast on the front right of the fuselage 

The kit has an indent moulded in, and the part is on the sprues but marked in the instructions as "do not use" 

Do I fill the mounting point and forget the mast? 

At what point were they deleted? 

Was there a field mod where they were removed as a better radio was fitted or something? 

I'm not seeing many models built with the aerial, and looking through pictures, they do seem to disappear quite early on in the plane's career . 

To be date-specific, I'm planning on using the redborder insignia which was used for a fairly short time 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Most likely its off Rob, i believe they were very early U.S. and RN equipment fit thru some later production. Replaced with better equipment. 

Edited November 29, 2019 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[Biggles87]

Imaginative use of the yoghurt pot,  unfortunately SWMBO gets hers in little ceramic pots, which would be too heavy!

Good luck with the wing/fuselage joints.

 

John

[rob Lyttle]

@Biggles87 hard luck with the yogurt pots, John, but I'm sure they are useful for something!!

Cast your net wider, there must be someone who eats 'em!! 

I've just been using mine again.... 

It's jumping forward a little on the construction timeline but it's something worth pointing out. 

 

I'd already removed the elevators from the Tailplane parts and made them up to be fitted in a lowered position. 

 

So the fixed planes were assembled and glued on the fuselage. 

Only later I started thinking This ain't looking right..... 

The parts are a great fit OK, but they produce dihedral! 

That's not right on a F4U, is it? 

Every thing I look at says "dead straight horizontal Tailplanes". 

The joints were so good and neat, I had half a mind to leave them in and put up with it, but this evening I realised it had to be dealt with. 

Cuts along the top of the joints as far as the tabs allowed me to bend the joints open a little, and with a dry run I slipped 2 strips of yogurt pot side wall* into the gaps that opened, and Bingo..... Straight Tailplanes!! 

So I did a "wet" run next, letting thin cement into the opening and sliding the strip in, and let the joint close and trap the shim 

 

You can't do THAT with a ceramic yogurt pot..... 😊⚠️😉

I'll let them dry properly and then trim all the surplus off around the joints. 

Now I'm glad I got stuck in and sorted them! 😇

 

*the side walls of the vac. formed pot gives the thinnest styrene sections 

Edited November 30, 2019 by rob Lyttle
Clarity