F4U-4 Academy 1/48 Wrong carrier landing

[René Martínez]

It's time to present my next project: F4U-4 Academy 1/48 I am working on some custom decals to recreate this shameful aircraft that got what he deserved for landing on the wrong carrier 😜 I haven't seen one built on the internet yet, so this is the perfect opportunity to experiment and develop new skills.

 

 

 

 

[René Martínez]

I gotta start somewhere, creating custom decals it's harder than I thought, but it has been a great experience so far.
I bought thin decal paper for laser printer and prepared a document for printing with white ink at my nearest print shop, they were pretty cool, but only one guy knew how to make the laser printer work, it was some trial and error, but ended up looking good at the end.

 

 

 

[billn53]

That is very cool!

[René Martínez]

2 minutes ago, billn53 said:

That is very cool!

Thank you! there's a lot of work coming in the next couple of days, I will keep the thread informed 

[MattSimps74]

That’s mind-blowing Rene, it’s going to look fantastic. I’d love to be able to print in white. So many of my projects have needed white decals and I’ve got so many sets of white lettering, they never seem to be quite right though!  What software did you use to draw up the sheet? Great job, looking forward to seeing the result. Poor pilot, bet he never made that mistake again, probably had to scrub it all off himself! 

[René Martínez]

2 hours ago, MattSimps74 said:

That’s mind-blowing Rene, it’s going to look fantastic. I’d love to be able to print in white. So many of my projects have needed white decals and I’ve got so many sets of white lettering, they never seem to be quite right though!  What software did you use to draw up the sheet? Great job, looking forward to seeing the result. Poor pilot, bet he never made that mistake again, probably had to scrub it all off himself! 

Thank you!

Well, I usually do digital illustrations, so I have a drawing tablet which made the process a lot easier. I used photoshop with CMYK settings for printing to draw most part of the letters and paint speckles on the fuselage, I exported the document to adobe illustrator and set a color for the printer to read as white, the guy who controls the laser printer explained to me how to do it because I had no idea. After a few visits to the print shop, the guy told me my document was finally good for printing as I wanted.

But I'd recommend only using Illustrator as the main software for decal creation, it's a lot easier to work on there unless you have to print something with transparency and textures.

 

The only problem that I have come across is that they do not have a way to square the sheet to print a second time in color on the white base without it being moved or out of register, so for now I can only make a decal of two parts, white first and color on top, the carrier film is a little thicker, but it is so thin that it dissolves well anyway.

[MattSimps74]

Thank you Rene’ for spending the time to explain it to a novice! Ok, I’ll be looking at having a go with illustrator, the Mrs. has an Adobe subscription I think, then looking for a printer locally with the right sort of laser printer, hope the staff are as patient as yours! 
Great project and always good to try new techniques! Thanks,

Matt 

[Thom216]

Great idea! And those decals look nice.

[René Martínez]

44 minutes ago, MattSimps74 said:

Thank you Rene’ for spending the time to explain it to a novice! Ok, I’ll be looking at having a go with illustrator, the Mrs. has an Adobe subscription I think, then looking for a printer locally with the right sort of laser printer, hope the staff are as patient as yours! 
Great project and always good to try new techniques! Thanks,

Matt 

You're welcome! I hope it was useful.

Because of covid, they didn't have a lot of work, so they had kinda fun with my projects, they even saved a file for future printings in case I want to print again, I may sell the decal sheet in the future, who knows.

[René Martínez]

Well, a friend of mine gave to me a resin cockpit for a hasegawa F4U-5, I don't really care if it's not accurate, whatever is better than the oob cockpit.

I used plastic pieces from the kit and some others from the resin kit, I think it looks acceptable, a lot of dry-fitting and trimming to make them fall together nicely. Also, the shape of the clear parts and cockpit are a bit out of scale, so accuracy in this section is not my goal, whatever that looks acceptable is good for me.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by René Martínez

[René Martínez]

After calling the cockpit done, with a lot of CA glue and some plastic cement, those fuselage halves are being glued together.

 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

What a great idea!  This is fantastic.  It's funny to see what Navy "humor" looks like, too...!  It probably hasn't changed much in 70 years or so.

[René Martínez]

7 hours ago, Thom216 said:

Great idea! And those decals look nice.

Thank you! I had the kit in my stash for 2 years now, I got it pretty cheap and didn't know what to do with it, until I saw that corsair which really caught my eye, haven't seen another model like that yet, so I thought it would be a fun project.

[2lefthands]

I love it!

excellent work with the decals and illustrator :)

 

[Alan P]

This is a great project, really good work getting it up to standard. 

[VT Red Sox Fan]

I am now following—this will be fun—very cool subject—best, Erwin

[René Martínez]

I've spent the whole weekend working on the folded wings mechanism...

A friend of mine knew what I was working on, and wanted to help, originally I was going to build it from scratch, but he gifted me an old "Lone Star models" resin kit to fold the wings for the Hasegawa F4U-5, sadly the pieces were not compatible with the academy kit, and the wings were a bit different, so after a bit of surgery, I managed to glue together the pieces I needed from the resin kit.

 

 

 

 

Also, I decided to cut and lower the stabilizers as seen in the reference pictures.

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by René Martínez

[René Martínez]

finally finishing the cockpit, I carved the gunsight out of a styrene rod and the headrest from a 1mm thick styrene sheet

 

 

 

[René Martínez]

Ok, I think I can finally call the cockpit done. 
Worked the headrest with some burnt umber oils, I'm pleased with the result, for the gunsight I cut a piece of a cheese transparent plastic package.

 

 

[René Martínez]

Focusing on little details now, canopy glued in place (will be displayed open) hollowed the flaps and made the pylons from scratch.

 

 

[René Martínez]

All the seams sanded smooth, filled with Tamiya grey putty, ready for primer.

 

[René Martínez]

Primer applied to all pieces, as a wise man once said... "Great Success!"

 

 

[S. Uehlinger]

Really Imaginative!   Having served in the US Navy for many years, I would say that if the Flight Deck Crew "modified" his F4U so much, imagine the Flame Spraying the (likely) Ensign received from his fellow Aviators in the Wardroom once he got back to his Mother Ship!   Hey, at least he landed properly - if on the wrong ship...

[René Martínez]

3 hours ago, S. Uehlinger said:

Really Imaginative!   Having served in the US Navy for many years, I would say that if the Flight Deck Crew "modified" his F4U so much, imagine the Flame Spraying the (likely) Ensign received from his fellow Aviators in the Wardroom once he got back to his Mother Ship!   Hey, at least he landed properly - if on the wrong ship...

He wasn't a bad pilot, he just chose the wrong carrier to land on 😜

[René Martínez]

Engine Glued in place and painted some areas with aluminum to do some light hairspray chipping. I still need to adjust the front part of the cowling a bit, some sanding will be required.