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Vought F4U-4 Corsair - Revell 1/72nd


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Hi,

 

This is my latest build : F4U-4 Revell in 1/72 scale.

Livery is from a Superscale decal sheet for #304 from VF-193 operating from USS Princeton off of the coast of Korea in 1952.

All paints are from either the Gunze or Tamiya ranges. Overall blue are different mixes in order to obtain different hues or sheens and avoid a plain finish.

Windscreen and Canopy come from an old Hobby Boss boxing. Revell parts are well shaped but Canopy has strong lens effects I did not want on my model. 

 

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Although kit is not perfect (Revell F4U-4 uses severall parts of their F4U-1D boxes and it shows) I think this still is the best kit to build an F4U-4 in 1/72nd scale.

 

Below are some photographs taken during building. They show most of the correction I did to the Revell kit.

 

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·         Creating a new cockpit with a floor – kit provides a floorless F4U-1 cockpit – I started with an Aires F4U-7 cockpit and modified some parts including seat and rear cockpit bulkhead.

·         Engraving some specific panel lines

·         Creating the stall devices on the right wing leading edge

·         Creating the right inner flap built in step

·         Worst part was shaping the windscreen recess on front upper fuselage. Revell provides a late F4U-4 flat windscreen but did not change fuselage upper part that is shaped to receive F4U-1s round windscreen.

·         Adding small rocket pylons below wings

·         … and other details including some details inside engine fairing flaps.

·         But I failed to shorten exhaust tubes 2 mm. They should be more flush with rear of engine fairing flaps.

 

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Eric B.

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That's a really tasty Corsair, which looks great in those markings. 

 

I hope mines turns out a well as this.

 

Great job and excellent finish.

 

Cheers Greg 👍

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fantastic build and finish (and photography)!  According to the box a 'level 4' skill level is required -  I wondered why until I tried to build it. The nine-part wing and five-part cowl are hard work ! 

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Excellent! It's great to see a model built by someone who understands the 'hog' and its variants. Very well researched and executed.

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Hi, 

 

Thank you all dearly for your kind words, they are very motivating.

Thank you for your remarks about building and researchng. About researching this is - I think - a very interesting part in modelling. I am no Corsair - or any other aircraft - specialist but the more I research any type of aircraft the more I know there is always something to learn ... and I am pretty sure I will miss something. This time I missed the lengh of the exhaust stacks... 

 

As soon as I spotted the most obvious errors (cockpit area) my aim was to correct the Revell F4U-4 as much as I could.

In the end I am quite satisfied because after the original feeling of dissatisfaction, the kit being poorly converted by Revell from a -1 to a -4, Revell did not do their homework etc... I corrected my point of view. Convertion may not be perfect but we now have a fairly good kit (far better than the Italeri, Hobby Boss...)  to build an F4U-4, probably my favorite Corsair version.   

 

Eric B.

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15 hours ago, phat trev said:

A super build, the corrected details and paint finish really looks the part. That MASSIVE spinner 😍   How does the kit compare to the Revell F4U-1 which I think looks to share parts and Academy F4U-1? 

Hi Trev, 

 

I never know with Revell reboxings but the Revell F4U-1A I am comparing the Revell F4U-4 to is a Revell specific moulding. It is quite decent and recent kit - maybe 2 to 4 year old now I guess - and they share no part with the academy F4U-1 kit.

 

The Academy F4U-1 is widely based on the older Hasegawa F4U-1 kit of which it is just a copy with engraved panel lines, maybe with a few additional details. They are no so bad but they are quite basic kits. Main flaws are erroneous cockpit with floor and they mix details between -1A and -1D versions. With some work, they can be build as nice little models. 

 

To cover the F4U-1 series Cosairs in 1/72nd scale best are the Tamiya kits. I think they can be found at quite reasonable prices and subversions differences have been precisely documented by Tamiya.

 

I I had to provide an F4U-1 ranking for early Corsairs in 1/72nd scale Tamiya would a distant first, Revell a good second and Academy would come an acceptable third.

 

Eric B. 

Edited by Eric B.
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A perfect build from a kit that has some issues and obviously suffers from overengineering. I like how you added the rocket stubs that were omitted by Revell for inexplicable reasons. You achieved an excellent result. 👍

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