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PK-14 Vought F4U-4 Corsair ++Complete++


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I'm thrilled to also have Matchbox's F4U-4 represented here. I've always liked the way Matchbox often produced slightly different versions of some mainstream subjects. Whilst everyone else came out with the more popular F4U-1, Matchbox chose to enter the Corsair market with the mainly Post War F4U-4 version. Who hasn't struggled to apply those Green and White bands on this model in the past?? This is another kit I would like to add to my "Adult' Matchbox collection. 

 

Cheers and best of luck.. Dave 

  

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It's a funny thing. There are days when I couldn't tell you what I had for my tea the night before but I can clearly remember where I got all three of the kits I'm building in this GB the first time round. 

The Hellcat - I didn't buy that myself, my dad did. I had found myself in hospital for a couple of weeks at the beginning of 1981 and the Hellcat was waiting for me when I got home. I think it was as much an attempt to get me to stay in the house by giving me something to do. I could hardly walk for the first few days so it was probably not necessary, but I enjoyed building it just the same. Much easier to get a good looking finished product than with the Airfix kit. 

The Provost - we had a big department store up the town called Youngs. A much loved Falkirk institution, not least for its huge toy department. It was one of these old fashioned places where you paid your money at the counter and the staff toddled off to the office to get your change. Idiosyncratic, even in my youth. They were a dependable source for Matchbox kits. 

The Corsair  - came from the paper shop at the end of our street. Jimmy Scott's, made Arkwrights look like the latest fad of retail modernity. Not a reliable source of kits but had the occasional FROG or Matchbox. I even got a Fouga Magister in a bag from there once. I've subsequently worked out that it must have been a Heller Cadet kit but I don't think the logo on the package was Heller's. Jimmy also had the basic, Woolworths style Humbrol paint rack.

I gather that small traders like Jimmy Scott could pick up Matchbox kits via their normal cash and carry suppliers, unlike Airfix which were ordered through a rep. That's why they popped up in such an eclectic range of outlets. In the 1970s and 80s we had a huge outdoor market in Falkirk and a few of the stalls always had a smattering of Matchbox kits. It was the same when FROG went out of business, for a few months you couldn't chuck a stone in the market without hitting one of their kits. 

John 

 

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Nice story John and I do say that apart from the great camaraderie and reminiscing of old times on here, hearing all these great back stories is certainly something I enjoy reading about. We are all 10 year olds at heart so being able to play co-host to Classic kit GB’s like this is always an honour for me. I’d just wish I had the foresight back in the day to buy up and stash all these great kits that are now either so expensive or all so hard to find. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 
 

 

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10 hours ago, John said:

It's a funny thing. There are days when I couldn't tell you what I had for my tea the night before but I can clearly remember where I got all three of the kits I'm building in this GB the first time round. 

 

I can imagine lots of people myself included first laughing then nodding in agreement with this, its so true 👍 😄 

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11 hours ago, John said:

The Corsair  - came from the paper shop at the end of our street.

Familiar story John,growing up in what was then a small town Airfix was the domain of old Mr Gray's hardware shop which was a real

old fashioned affair(he always had the brown overall's on) one corner devoted to Airfix with shelves for the boxed kits and hooks for

the bagged kits which some he needed a pole to get down for you,rare these days but whenever I smell a Parrafin heater it takes me

right back.Revell was exclusive to the Newsagents I delivered for so many a pay went straight back to the owners for a kit on a 

Saturday morning.When Matchbox arrived a newly opened Newsagent's sold them so after that it was a hard choice who's kit would

be the next purchase and for a while among our "gang" Matchbox was king till we'd built the first batch of releases.

                                                                                            50 year's on(is it really?) only one shop is still there but not a single outlet for

model kits to be found luckily we have one of the best Model shops in the country on the doorstep but I think the loss of these small

outlets has been a loss to the modelling world,thus endeth the lesson.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the sprue photos, which do take me back to another early era of my life. I quite like this kit and it’s still hard to believe that despite Italeri’s still not quite right effort of the early 90’s, the -4 version has never been properly kitted in 1/72 scale. Good luck with this one John. 

Cheers.. Dave 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Corsair6

 

Corsair5

 

Corsair4

 

A bit of progress. Airframe more or less complete and the fuselage has been given a thin coat of Humbrol 23 to start to even out the colours a bit. The insides of the undercarriage wells are 181 Gloss Sea Blue and the cockpit is 151 Interior Green.

 

John

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Nice start. 

 

I build this when I was a kid and made a total hash of it. 

 

I think I have one in the “stash” but never really look for it as the trauma of stuffing it up still lives within me. 

 

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On 1/3/2022 at 10:00 AM, John said:

It's a funny thing. There are days when I couldn't tell you what I had for my tea the night before but I can clearly remember where I got all three of the kits I'm building in this GB the first time round. 

 

 

I believe that’s called early onset Alzheimers. 

 

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21 hours ago, Rob S said:

I build this when I was a kid and made a total hash of it. 

I think I have one in the “stash” but never really look for it as the trauma of stuffing it up still lives within me. 

 

Me too, however I was rather fond of mine, the green and white band decals went ok, but I'm pretty sure I didn't line them up as well as I could have. Should you ever find 'another' in that vast stash.... we could do a mini group build? 

Nice progress @John, Matchbox's Corsair aint a half bad kit IMO

Cheers.. Dave 

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Somewhere, either on BM or more likely the Sovereign Hobbies website, I seem to recall Jamie discussing Sea Blue and saying there were a number of versions, both WWII and post war. and they were not all the same shade. I see he currently sells 3 WWII - Glossy, semi glossy and non specular versions and one post-war glossy and from what he said just changing the finish of the WWII colour with varnish does not give quite the right colour, so most of my models in that colour are no doubt wrong! John seems to have got the right finish for late war anyway. Earlier, they had a mix of gloss/semi gloss and flat - all to do with light reflection I believe.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Who's a silly boy then?

 

Having got the lovely Sovereign Hobbies Sea Blue I couldn't wait to get the first coat on the model. I also completely overlooked the fact that the cowling should be white. Oh well...

 

Corsair9

 

Never mind. A coat of Hu10 36622 on the nose to act as an undercoat for the final colour:

 

Corsair10

 

John

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Don’t worry John, we’ve all done this before. In the last Matchbox GB I carefully applied a nice undercoat of white before applying the Blue to my ‘Blue Diamonds’ Hunter. Like you I was so excited to get to this stage that I forgot to mask off the white wingtips before I smeared it all with blue paint!Another recovery session and all was restored, but I was as bit embarrassed by my lack of attention. Your Corsair is looking really lovely in Sea Blue (and white)! 

Cheers.. Dave. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

It's been a busy week and I haven't had a lot of time for kitbashing but I've been able to at least make a start on getting the transfers onto the Corsair:

 

Corsair11

 

In keeping with my general SFTB philosophy with these kits I'm using the decals from the box. There's a lot of Decal Cote on there to try to get it to conform to the panel lines.

 

I hate painting white, particularly gloss white but in this case I went back to first principles. I used an old pot of Humbrol 22 Gloss White and stirred it until my arm hurt - then I stirred it a bit more. I brushed it out unthinned. Perfect - that's why old Humbrol paints are worth having.

 

John

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Super work on that one and a good save on the cowling. Gloss white still brings back vivid memories of gritty paint that wouldn’t dry for a ten year old me. Maybe I should have stirred it more…

 

Regards,

Adrian

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This kit has one of two parts I've never yet managed to work out how to fit - the radiators. As I remember them the was a bit that stuck forward on the inboard end that didn't mate up with anything so if I lined it up with the leading edge, the radiators were somewhere about the tail plane and if I put the radiators somewhere reasonable the tab stuck out the front. Can't remember what I did in the end but half the decal sheet with the green stripes is still in my stash so I must have finished it somehow :) Yours is looking good.

 

The other Matchbox thing I never worked out was Mosquito mudguards. Built mine wheels up and hung it from the ceiling which solved that one.

 

Andy

Edited by Foxbat
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