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Corsair MK1 JT190 1837 NAS - Jackie Sewell


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Good day all, hope you are all safe and sound where ever you are. I'm just setting up my page for this GB. Really looking forward to this build and I have chosen Tamiya's epic 1:32 kit of the Birdcage Corsair. I came across the kit just after Christmas and was really looking forward to a later mark as I wanted to do a MkII but due the stock having a great price this was the last remaining and I couldn't turn it down, it worked out at around 60 quid! Now I prefer to model Fleet Air Arm aircraft and they did operate this type of aircraft as a MK I, it never really saw much operational action as it was mainly used as a trainer and was stationed mainly stateside and Canada. This particular build will be of JT190 which was flown by the late Lt Cdr Jack Sewell a FAA Fighter Ace, based at NAS Brunswick in Maine.

 

I still have much to learn about the pilot and aircraft and will hopefully share that over the course of this build. The kit is quite huge and there is a lot of detail in there. Its the first time I've really tackled something in 1:32 so I hope that I can do it justice. I'm building straight out of the box with the exception of a fabric harness (I am assuming that the Mk I's still retained their American harnesses as they were based in US and hadn't really been British-ised yet), I also ordered a set of cockpit label decals to add a bit more depth to the cockpit, they haven't arrived yet so hoping they are not far off. As for the decals, well I haven't had any luck in getting a set in 1:32 so another first for me is painting the markings as opposed to sticking them on, we shall see how that goes! I do have a 1:48 'Royal Navy' and serial letters that work out to roughly the correct size so the serials wont be a problem. Just need to find some colour matching for the roundels. This aircraft was also marked up as '7M' and that will be slightly easier to mask and paint as opposed to any other number/letter combo.

 

Here is the obligatory box top

 

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I wont go into every sprue shot as there are a lot of them and this kit has been well reviewed elsewhere on the web so I will save my Flickr size but heres a little selection of parts post washing, there are a fair few to count!

 

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It all looks a little daunting at the moment, I just hope I can complete it in time and do it justice, but we shall see. 

Until later, stay safe!

Bob

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Welcome aboard... A bit deceiving at first, I saw the pile of sprues and didn't realize until I saw the box that its a 1/32 kit. Finishing the build is nice but not required, its all about the fun and enjoyment from the build here. 
 

Dennis

Edited by Corsairfoxfouruncle
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22 hours ago, Dansk said:

Looks like me and you are both losing our 1/32 virginity on a tam corsair Bob 😁 good luck with yours!

I saw that, we shall pile in blindly together! Nice progress on the cockpit, the bar has been set highly! My next 1:32 will be a Kitty Hawk Kingfisher, I reckon this beast will be a lot more forgiving than the Kingfisher!

Bob

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I’m looking forward to this.  

 

I have a Fulmar in the stash which is going to be one that Jackie Sewell scored an Air to air victory in.  Unfortunately the aircraft he flew with 806 NAS in late ‘40 / early ‘41 are poorly documented, but I have one.  If you need info on Sewell give me a shout as I do have some bits..

 

Unfortunately Sewell, whilst in command of 1837 NAS was killed whilst formation flying, colliding with his wingman.  Vought Corsair II JT190

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1 hour ago, moaning dolphin said:

I saw that, we shall pile in blindly together! Nice progress on the cockpit, the bar has been set highly! My next 1:32 will be a Kitty Hawk Kingfisher, I reckon this beast will be a lot more forgiving than the Kingfisher!

Bob

Cool Bob and thanks. I’ll let you know of any pitfalls if my build is running ahead of yours. So far its been a dream (if a little detailed).

My plan is to do cockpit closed, wheels down, engine shrouding closed. I think it looks prettiest that way.

 

 

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On 5/25/2020 at 2:09 PM, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Finishing the build is nice but not required, its all about the fun and enjoyment from the build here.

 

Well that's a relief! 

 

Brunswick, eh?  A couple hours down the road, and in fact the last place I saw a Corsair flying!

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45 minutes ago, gingerbob said:

 

Well that's a relief! 

 

Brunswick, eh?  A couple hours down the road, and in fact the last place I saw a Corsair flying!

For me its just over the water (I'm in Nova scotia) and relatively speaking I could loosely class it as local :D, looks like Brunswick was a busy place for Fleet Air Arm flying back in the day. Would love to visit that area one day, as the kids are on the verge of going their own way and hoping this Covid malarkey will be over soon so it wont be too far off!

Bob

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Well its Friday 29th May, 7.18pm local, so I am off! Underway and commencing! All I wanted to do first was finish this bugger

 

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Its got far enough for it to be classed as finished as opposed to lingering on the shelf of disappointment then time to move on. I opened up the box and thought "where the bleeding heck do I start" lol. There is ALOT to this kit. Unfortunately my cockpit placards from Hannants haven't arrived yet so I don't want to really get too deep into that until I have them. Now having read a lot of reviews they say this kit is not complicated …. as long as you follow the instructions closely ….. so the best thing to do? Skip the first 22 (yes 22!) stages and start with stage 23. So off I go starting with the engine, ive studied the intructions and I cant see any pitfalls ahead so I think I am good.

 

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Instead of doing a whole bunch of sprue shots at the start Ill do them as I go. First up is the engine sprue

 

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I'm going for a nice gentle start and doing the front engine only at the moment, snipped off all the parts and did a bit of cleaning up and gluing including the crank case and assemblies and threw down my first coat of primer

 

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A veritable array of weird looking bits and bobs, one thing I have noticed though is the Tamiya plastic is almost the exact shade of grey as my Mig One shot primer, so that's going to make things tricky for my poor weary eyes, I'll have to judge it by moistness lol. And here is a close up of the engine, nice and finely detailed

 

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First splash of colour goes on tomorrow, from small acorns grow mighty errr Corsairs.

 

Take it easy all!

Laters

Bob

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On 5/29/2020 at 11:43 PM, moaning dolphin said:

Now having read a lot of reviews they say this kit is not complicated …. as long as you follow the instructions closely ….. so the best thing to do? Skip the first 22 (yes 22!) stages and start with stage 23. So off I go starting with the engine, ive studied the intructions and I cant see any pitfalls ahead so I think I am good.

Instructions - for the guidance of wise men and blind obedience by fools. My problem is I'm a fool who thinks he's wise :doh:

That looks like a lot of kit for the money it should be interesting.

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Thanks for the encouragement! Welcome along all.

On 5/30/2020 at 4:42 AM, modelling minion said:

Nice looking Hawkeye too.

Thanks, I got this at my local museum shop (best stocked model shop in Nova Scotia!) thinking it would be of Hasegawa like quality, but alas it wasn't, more of a Frog like quality! Still I battled on through, turned out alright in the end!

 

The engine that comes with the kit is very nicely molded but there are still a couple of things missing that can be added. The first are pipes on the top of each cylinder, I think these are oil pipelines but not sure, they are however quite thick and prominent. The kit does provide an indication of there these go so its easy enough to drill out the areas. Next, I used some copper wire to represent the pipe but to get everything all looking the same, I knocked myself up a jig that I could easily bend the wire round to give me a consistent shape. Job Done! Think I was a bit premature with the primer though!

 

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The other enhancement I could do is the ignition harness, I was surprised Tamiya didn’t provide one on their etch fret. A little disappointed but not to worry, it’s a big enough scale to get by. So, I drilled out the spark plug areas on the cylinder to take the wire, not too bad only broke one drill on this one!

 

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Tamiya also supply the ignition ring, nicely detailed but there isn’t a lot of meat there!

 

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I thought about gluing the wire to the back of the ring or finding another way to attach it but nothing would like quite right so with my thinnest drill I carefully tried to drill out a little recess to take the wire end. This process cost me a couple more drills and a few unintentional 0.3mm holes in my thumb! But after an hour or so of eye straining and patience I got her done! Not a great photo but best I could do but you should be able to make out the holes!

 

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It was then off to the paint shop, the crank case was given a coat of Vallejo Air EDSG, this was against the guidelines of Tamiya (who say light grey) but during research they were a myriad of colours. The EDSG looked good and was quite similar to other Fleet Air Arm colours, The engine was sprayed in Vallejo Aluminium and the propshaft was sprayed in the same but with a touch of orange to try and shake up the monotony of the ally.

 

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Next up for the cylinders I gave it a run of Tamiya panel line enhancer to try and accentuate the cooling vanes. That seemed to come out really well.

 

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I then gave it a very LIGHT coat of exhaust colour to dull the ally, it was barely noticeable and then topped it off with a matte coat. I’m not going to make this a battle worn aircraft, it will be depicted with very light weathering and a matt engine looks a lot better than a nice shiny one. I highlighted the crank case bolts and assembled that (at last a bit of assembly!), and then built up the front engine.

 

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After a break to allow my eyesight to recover I looked at the first round of wiring. Most references show a gold coloured ignition harness, but I have seen a couple with silver and as that would have been easiest to replicate I decided to go for that. I’m using .4mm wire which is a little stiffer than I would like but my next thinner option wouldn’t work very well, but then again it looks pretty good!

 

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So, to carry on with more wiring, I need to fit the back engine, but to do that I first need to sort out the exhaust pipes from the front engine, there is a lot of carefully following the instructions! The pipes were removed and assembled in 9 pairs and primed, I need to work on a good exhaust colour for these. I’ve seen a lot done in normal matt paint as a rusty type colour. I like to have a bit of metallic effect so I am going to experiment a bit on these, but here is the lineup ready to go

 

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So that’s all from this week end, quite productive one if I don’t mind saying so. The engine feels like a complete kit in itself! Hopefully get a couple of hours on it before the week is out.

Until next time stay safe!

Bob

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Thanks for the continued encouragement! Its very much appreciated! 

I have continued with the engine for an hour or so yesterday, but I also broke my cardinal sin for this particular build. I wired up the rear engine bank, glued it on and then plugged in the front of the rear cylinders to the ignitor ring (you following me! :frantic:) and then looked at the cylinder covers that sit on top of the cylinders, these need holes drilled through them so that the wires from the back of the rear bank can thread through them. It was only when I was running through a dry fit and just by chance checking the instructions that I forgot about my exhaust bits from above! RTFI! The exhaust pipes should slot nicely into the rear of the front bank BEFORE the rear bank was installed, but I cant remove the rear bank as its plugged in to the igniter ring at the front of the engine! Thankfully Tamiyas engineering allows me to cut back the locator plugs a bit and slip it in nicely. Anyhoo a picture paints a thousand words so this is what it looks like.

 

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I opted for a rusty metallic colour for this section of exhaust, half of these will be hidden by the cylinder covers anyway. I will try and add a bit more tone to the ones that are visible. Also just noticed in this pick a small scratch that I hadn't noticed previously in the crank case :angry:. So once I had recovered the first slight faux pas, I then moved onto installing the covers which proved more taxing than I thought! Building straight from the box these covers just slot in but I had decided to complicate matters with some electrical harnesses which being a Mechanic has always been the bane of my aviation career! Again pictures are better so this is where I am at with it so far.

 

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At this point I decided to give it a rest with wire flopping all over the place. The holes in the cover don't go straight through so I cant thread wire through after installation so having a couple of loose bits of wire while trying to loop existing wire was a step too far. So I superglued the wire into the covers and left it so I can install tonight. I got to that pint where I just had to walk away of trouble would have ensued! I'll take another phot tonight so you can see what I am on about. Hopefully tonights evolution will be easier now, I may even get this engine wrapped …. ish!

 

Until later, stay safe!

Bob 

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55 minutes ago, Dansk said:

are you going to use the clear cowling that comes in that kit?

Thanks! I'll either use the clear one, depending how good it polishes up and fits, or ill just leave the plastic one off, we'll see how it goes :) after all this effort I'm not going to cover it up lol

Bob

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So last night I made a concerted effort to get this engine done! From my description of the build up before, this is a shot part way through putting the covers on.

 

2020-06-02_07-45-26

 

 

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You can see there are wires from the engine going through it and then the wire from the rear of the rear cylinder going over the top and into the ignition ring. It did prove quite fiddly getting it in place but once the cover was on it was nice and easy to route the wires, snip to length and then insert into the relevant part. After a pretty good session I got all the sections in and wired up like so

 

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It was quite tricky and laborious but worked out nicely in the end, I think. I've also added in an oil (I think) pipe from the bottom of the crank case to a reservoir at the under the bottom cylinder …… and that I do believe is as far as I can take this engine for now so it is going into a safe box for storage and protection until its finally ready for installation much later into the build.

 

I still haven't received my 'special package' yet but I am going to start work on that cockpit, the only thing I managed last night was to look at the fuselage halves and I noticed there is a multitude of ejector pin marks in the side. They are very shallow but I am not sure whether they would get highlighted under some paint. I did try and fill them with PPP but they were just too shallow so I hit them with a thin piece of 500 wet and dry to smooth them out.

 

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You can see the ones around the tail wheel well which look very prominent due to the fact I tried to fill them but the ones around the cockpit disappeared with a little rub down. The next course of action over the next couple of days is to prepare the cockpit and get some paint down. We are getting on!

 

Until next time, Laters!

Bob

 

Edited by moaning dolphin
Added extra phot
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