Lt. Gerald Anderson RCNVR’s FG-1 Corsair. +++++ Finished +++++

[mark.au]

Edit; Instead of Gray, I’m going to do Gerald Anderson’s Corsair.  Anderson was the last Canadian killed in WW2, he lost his life crash landing his damaged Corsair on Formidable’s round down returning from the same action.

 

 I reckon I can squeeze this in before the end of the GB, and it appears no-one has chosen this topic yet.

 

I shall be learning into this thread for the choice of marking; at this point I know I won't be marking it 115...

 

Another useful thread (among lots of others, it should be noted) is this one...

 

I dug around the stash and found this - obviously I won't be using the decal sheet but there's a mask set and 3D decals for the cockpit (purchased before I cared where it came from).

 

 

As there's no time to waste, I made a start last night.  I followed my usual process of black base allowed by main colour and then clear gloss in preparation for the following treatments.

 

 

The engine is simply dry brushed with metallic paint.  I'm unlikely to do much more with that, not much can be seen anyway.

 

Next in the cockpit will be a highlight dry brush, a dark wash and the 3D decals.  Then I have to begin to think about the level of weathering; KD658 was less than 3 weeks old on 9 August 1945 so I'm guessing not a lot of weathering.

 

Cheers.

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by mark.au
Changed subject airframe

[zebra]

Nice choice and a good start. Those Quinta decals look very nice.

[81-er]

You're off to a good start, Mark 

 

James

[mark.au]

Thank you gents.  I managed to get the cockpit finished in tonight’s session.

 

The 3D decals were very easy to use and look quite effective.  I applied them after the dark wash but before the dry brushing.  I used my own dark goop mix for the wash (basically a bit of acrylic black paint, some water and a drop of Windex to break surface tension).  I used  dark grey with a green tinge for the dry brushing.  I added some dry brushed aluminium for some wear and tear and high lighting and then applied a flat coat which had a touch of Future/Klear added to give it a hint of a sheen as painted metal is rarely dead flat.

 

 

 

Next session I expect to be able to close the fuselage and work on the wings.

 

Cheers.

[Dunny]

Impressively speedy work Mark - look forward to seeing this one!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[mark.au]

2 minutes ago, Dunny said:

Impressively speedy work Mark - look forward to seeing this one!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

Cheers Roger, those decals sure make short work of cockpits.

[81-er]

That's a very nice looking cockpit, Mark, good work there

 

James

[bigbadbadge]

Crikey missed the start of this.  Sorry.  Great start and quick progress Mark, cockpit looking good . 

Great work

Chris

[phildagreek]

Looks good, nice work so far.

[mark.au]

On 9/27/2022 at 6:56 PM, 81-er said:

That's a very nice looking cockpit, Mark, good work there

 

James

 

16 hours ago, phildagreek said:

Looks good, nice work so far.

Thanks gents, I like how the 3D decals look and they make short work of the cockpit.  

 

18 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Crikey missed the start of this.  Sorry.  Great start and quick progress Mark, cockpit looking good . 

Great work

Chris

I started this one in the GB section Chris, but I came in so late that there’s not much traffic there so I asked the thread to be moved here.

 

I’ve been steadily making my way through construction and reached this point.

 

 
 

The flaps and engine cowling are dry fitted only.  I’m hedging on whether to have the wings folded or not, decision on that soon.  It’s coming up to decision point now on how to approach some other elements of this airframe.

 

I don’t know when KD456 was delivered to the squadron, so I don’t know how weathered it would be.  I would like to weather it like we see this one;

 

…and if I get no information to the contrary that’s how I’ll do it.

 

I also need some help please…

Interestingly, I know about the fuselage vents and will add them later but there as there is no ventral vent on KD431 I wonder if there would have been one on KD456?

 

I’m not sure if it would have had a whip antenna or a post behind the canopy as per KD431?

 

I don’t know if it would have mounted an auxiliary fuel tank on the centre line as well as a bomb either side?  

If so, what that arrangement actually looked like.  I did find this in a video…

 

 

…which I am sure I can mash up if this is how Anderson’s load out would have looked 9 August 1945.  Would this be right?

 

That’ll do for now, any help on those questions will be much appreciated.

 

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by mark.au
Typos and more info

[bigbadbadge]

Nice progress Mark,  the GB explains it  phew!!!

 

I can't help with your questions but I am sure others will be along to offer guidance.   Looking forward to seeing this develope. 

Chris

[noelh]

There was a thread here which discussed the issue. I  think the conclusion was that British bombs were carried along with the larger centreline fuel tank as seen in that screenshot. But there is a suggestion that US bombs were  carried.  But FAA didn't use the  smaller drop tanks used by the USN on their -1Ds.

 

Edit, here's the  thread.

 

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by noelh

[mark.au]

15 hours ago, noelh said:

There was a thread here which discussed the issue. I  think the conclusion was that British bombs were carried along with the larger centreline fuel tank as seen in that screenshot. But there is a suggestion that US bombs were  carried.  But FAA didn't use the  smaller drop tanks used by the USN on their -1Ds.

 

Edit, here's the  thread.

 

 

 

Thanks for that, interesting read.  I've chosen to use US bombs on mine as to me, it just seemed more likely that the RN would tap into the USN supply chain, especially as the bombs were, apparently, produced with mount lugs for US and British pylons.

 

I had a Saturday at the bench - the weather wasn't good for riding today so I cracked on with the airframe.  So far no info to suggest KD456 wasn't a bit weathered so once all was prepared for point I painted thus...

 

 

The plan is to use another property of these artist acrylic paints I use which is its fragility when newly applied (and without a clear gloss mixed in) to chip/rub through the GSB to an under coat of YZC as seen in the walk around linked above of KD431.  In preparation I sealed the YZC with a polyurethane clear gloss that is a bit tougher than Future so it withstands the coming abuse.  

 

The small light square on the fuselage side is the base for the fuselage vent.  I was able to find some PE that did the job for the vent itself, but as the vent sits in the roundels and I'm painting those, I'll attach the vents later the there's less chance of knocking them off and into the never never.

 

Another advantage of a glossy coat this early is that it's a great seam check and it appears all is good on this one.

 

This polyurethane clear gloss takes about 24hrs to cure properly so this is it for today on the airframe.  I might potter around on the bombs, wheels and the prop, or I might not.

 

Cheers.

[bigbadbadge]

Looking good Mark, looking forward to the paint and weathering effects now.  This is going together quickly.

Great work 

Chris

[Fritag]

Glad I spotted this before it was finished; albeit only just 

 

At least I’m in time to watch the painting and weathering unfold.

 

Looking forward to seeing how the chipping works out just exploiting the fragility of the top coat.  I was impressed with the results from the mig chipping fluid I used; albeit taken aback at first when it initially beaded on spraying, before thankfully self levelling.

 

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Fritag

[mark.au]

4 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

…looking forward to the paint and weathering effects now.

 

3 hours ago, Fritag said:

Glad I spotted this before it was finished; albeit only just 

 

At least I’m in time to watch the painting and weathering unfold.

 

Looking forward to seeing how the chipping works out just exploiting the fragility of the top coat.

Things will go slower from here on in as I start to obsess over minute details of markings and weathering…

 

I’m looking forward to trying the technique too, it’s a new one for me.  I’ll have to go slowly as the top coat will chip only for an hour or so after applying, then it will harden up too much.  I plan to work on the flaps first, that way there’s not much to fix if I bugger it up, or I’m just wrong in thinking this will work.  For areas where the wear has gone through to metal I’m going to use a silver pencil.  
 

My main concern is getting carried away and overdoing it.  I want to come somewhat less weathered than this…

 

 

…about half as much in fact.  
 

My logic for this is based on an admittedly tenuous supposition that KD341 (pictured above) was more weathered than KD456 (Anderson’s airframe) which would have been more weathered than KD658 (“Hammy” Gray’s Corsair lost the same day as Anderson) which was only issued to operations on 20 July, just under four weeks prior to the date I’m modelling KD456.

[bigbadbadge]

Looking forward to your legendary weathering work.   Hope it'll works out well.

Chris

[Grey Beema]

I think the scratching / eroding technique is the way to go and I have used it for sometime although I am just swapping back to enamels so this could change.. 

If you go to far you can always touch up with the original colour (just like they did on the real thing).

 

I think it is easier to execute on TSS..

 

 

But will work on GSB (don't look to hard at the model it is an older models that needs to be rebuilt)..

 

 

[Grey Beema]

Actually I'll bring this picture to your attention. 

 

 

Now I know its a Hellcat and TSS but look less at the wear and weathering and more at the mucky hand prints...  It might be a case of less wear and more oily hand prints.  

[mark.au]

17 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Looking forward to your legendary weathering work.   Hope it'll works out well.

Chris

Me too!

 

17 hours ago, Grey Beema said:

I think the scratching / eroding technique is the way to go and I have used it for sometime although I am just swapping back to enamels so this could change.. 

If you go to far you can always touch up with the original colour (just like they did on the real thing).

 

I think it is easier to execute on TSS..

 

 

But will work on GSB (don't look to hard at the model it is an older models that needs to be rebuilt)..

 

 

That’s a very nice pair of models Grey, I’ll be happy if mine turns out as well.  That’s a good observation on the mucky hand prints too, though on a GSB airframe I don’t think it would show as much.

[Scooby]

Any progress on this?

[Dunny]

Mark,

 

Will look forward to seeing how you execute this - should be a treat!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[mark.au]

7 hours ago, Scooby said:

Any progress on this?

As a matter of fact…

 

 

…yes.  I mixed up some GSB, but with out the G for now, and made my yellow Corsair a blue one.  The blue is a tad light at the moment but I tested with some clear gloss on a spare part and it comes good under the final finish.

 

 

As there’s a fair chance I’ll need to touch up, and I also need to add a little texture later, I mixed up a large batch so that I always have a baseline colour.  I don’t usually do this, but I thought it prudent in this case.

 

While I’m on the topic of texturing I should add that I’m not going to do much on this one.  Of all the major camouflage colours the allies used I see the least variation and texture on GSB so I’m not going to add much to the model.
 

I experimented with the scratches on one of the flaps (don’t pay any attention to the blue on the flap in the pic, it got contaminated with some silver pencil dust from my fingers).

 

 

I found something I wasn’t expecting.  I need to leave the paint to dry off properly before attempting any work on it.  I found that if I wet it once it was dry, it will scratch very easily without damaging the underlying YZC.  When I tried it without the wetting, even when newly applied, I needed more pressure with the toothpick which almost always broke through the under layer to plastic.  
 

Interestingly, when I did go through the yellow the light grey plastic in those tiny scratches bore more than a passing resemblance to dull aluminium… 

 

6 hours ago, Dunny said:

Mark,

 

Will look forward to seeing how you execute this - should be a treat!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

 

So far, so good, but I’m a bit nervous about the scratching so we’ll see how it goes from here on in!

 

Oh, and a question; what colour the auxiliary fuel tank? Grey, Sky? White? Other?

 

Cheers.

 

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by mark.au
Add the question at the end

[AliGauld]

Nice work so far.

I've got one of these in the stash and will be learning/purloining a lot of techniques.

 

 

Cheers,

Alistair

 

[bigbadbadge]

Looking very nice with the paint on Mark and the experiments in scratching looks very promising indeed, the flap part looks great.

Chris