Egilman

Yes, Pledge doesn't fog from CA... Especially the gel CA's.... I eventually went to canopy glues for all clear styrene... Looks to me like the paint pigments were carried under the friskit masks by the thinners.... Friskit masks work well for straight up paint, or mildly thinned paint, not so well on highly thinned paint.... The fact that you could just rub it off tells the tale.... Straight paint would have attached to the styrene... I would suggest a liquid masking solution like Microscale's Micro Mask or similar when using highly thinned paints... And always dip canopies into future (pledge) before masking and painting.... I've had those heart attack moments before I learned the lesson.... (once after a 4 month build on a glass nosed B-24 and a second on a glass nosed B-25) I had to strip the canopies and do it over....

There is always Model Builder Supply... https://modelbuilderssupply.com/elbow/ Looks like they have a complete selection....

Yeah they would, you only need the od size for the tubing.. It becomes a simple plumbing problem after that and solid as well... From what I can find the exhaust was made of thinwall stainless and had simple swage connections... they drop off the front 90deg straight down till they clear the fan arc then angle at 45deg towards a central collector mounted somewhere around the front cross member then another 45deg into the collector... From there the single exhaust pipe runs to the rear.... Very difficult to find pics of the real deal though... But I believe they didn't have a dual exhaust variant for these so it makes sense... Those plastruct elbows solves this problem perfectly.... Thanks Andy for the link.... One of the things I love about this site if there is a solution someone knows and is willing to share........

It's a common mistake seen on all too many builds.... I like it too, it's very well thought out and has a scale appearance.... Well done... It's more about the look to the eye and should disappear to the camera the farther you get away from it.... Weathering is artwork and requires a feel for the effect... it's very subtle... You've got the look down, very scale, stunningly beautiful in effect... A well used operational mud bird, the way they usually looked when flying from bombed up and patched dirt strips... Definitely a "Honey I shrunk the Corsair" build... Exquisitely well done brother and thank you for explaining and showing your technique... It's a lot of work to do a used finish on a live bird... You've got it down.... A well deserved WELL DONE!!! It's a shame we can't put it in the gallery.... (although it is a ship of sorts {chuckle})

Look at that stressed skin detail in the last picture.... the oil canning is phantaboulous.... I'll tell ya, injection molding has come a long long way from when we started... Gorgeous airplane brother.....

Yep stainless steel exhaust system that collects forward... Weird I know, but it worked... I'm surprised they used rubber hose to replicate it, seems a bit on the shortcut side to me... Your chassis looks the part, almost solid black, semi gloss, with shiny highlights.... Sure looks the part... RR back in that day was all about understated elegance, boring but elegant, and your replicating it well.... I hope the rubber hose takes paint well, it should be a shiny part.....

Excellent save....

Hey brother, that is all to common an occurrence with some manufacturers today... That one, the fix is easy though.... Slice the cowling in half and patch in an extension out of .015 or .010 plastic... I would do it in .015 and if there is any thickness variation then leave the edge to the outside for easier sanding off... (once it is all glued together) Thank god it's on a straight section of panel...

Very well done, light to moderate chipping... Looks real...

I do not know how I missed this one mike, I'm sorry.... More of your stunning PE work... I wouldn't, a 500 lb bomb wouldn't do that much seeable damage... Maybe, (probably) bulge the deck a bit, possibly split a few seams, if it was an armor piercing bomb it could easily have penetrated completely through the deck and hull to explode below the ship.. (happened to several ships at Pearl, there wouldn't be any serious stand out damage) In my opinion brother, I wouldn't enlarge it any and what you have is more than enough...

I haven't forgotten this one my friend, it has just been set aside while real life and other projects diverted my attention.... I will be getting back to it eventually... (yeah 2.5 years I know, that's a lot of sidetracking)

Beautiful job, harkens back to the day when machining was an art form itself... Today the art is being lost, everything is computer driven and is capable of some fantastic things, but still, seeing it done by hand with nothing automatic warms my heart in ways many wouldn't understand... Very well done....

Chuckle, I don't see the decal printers going out of business any time soon.... Not everyone has the skills to paint insignias and technical stenciling on everything.... Sometimes it is just easier to decal as opposed to painting... Few can tell the difference when done properly...

My first three months in machine school was learning how to cut metal and read and draw blueprints, the other 21 months was learning how to make the machine do what I want it to correctly and most efficiently... You can't do that without creating jigs and fixtures.... That is the real art to successful production machining...

Very nice sequence, I remember creating these masks when friskit film became widely available, it's an involved process and takes a bit of patience, but when done right, beats all decals hands down... Decals can come close but paint is much more real looking.... Well done....

Glen Curtis tried to patent the Aileron as a different method of control and failed.... The reason, the Wrights sued him for patent infringement and won... The Wrights patented the method of controlling an aircraft based upon the physical sciences involved, not the mechanical means of doing it.... Wing Warping was one mechanical way of effecting wing surface curve control, not the only way.... They patented a scientific discovery, not a mechanical device.... Ailerons do exactly the same thing as wing warping does, they increase the curve of the wing causing more lift on one side over the other.... A simple change in the mechanical application doesn't change what is physically happening... Curtis made the argument that it was completely different, problem is he couldn't get around all that wind tunnel testing and charting of the coefficients of lift for different curves and shapes at different AOT's the Wrights did to get an accurate table of pressures... Wing Warping and Ailerons do exactly the same thing they increase the curvature of the upper wing surface thereby increasing the lift on that side of the aircraft given the angle of attack... The same thing happened when they tried to patent flaps and flaperons.... Modern control surfaces are just a different mechanical way of accomplishing the increase in lift that the Wrights proved.... The whole issue of patents became moot in 1917 when war was declared and the government opened the patent office, suspended and declared a moratorium on patent claims for the duration due to war emergency... After that, everyone has access to the science....

Get yourselves well Brother.... I'll be prayin' for your Admiral and You...

They were the first.... (to successfully devise and use one in accurate aerodynamic research) That Tunnel at the AF Museum is their 1916 wind tunnel, they used it for airfoil and drag research at their Dayton lab during WWI.... (at the time, it was the most powerful wind tunnel on the planet, capable of 175 sustained MPH) Their original 1901 wind tunnel which they devised and used to rewrite (and correct) Otto Lilienthal's table of pressures, no longer exists... I believe there is a replica at the Smithsonian....

Dennis, the revolution that was the Fokker rudder was that it was almost a live tail, it had a full third of its surface area ahead of it's pivot point.... the small forward stabilizer and larger rudder surface split the airflow between live tail and rudder, the small lower end that provided the sideways lift was accentuated by the much larger live surface above it that applied airstream force to the lift function.... Kinda like a booster to the moment of force applied to the yaw... That's why they were so maneuverable, they could turn in their own wingspan... It's also what put the extra stress on the upper wings of the Dr.1 and the D.VIII.... The D.VII on the other hand didn't suffer from the stress issue because of the strut bracing design which imparted all the lateral twisting stress into the main lower box wing spar.... (which was capable of handling 7 G's laterally as tested by the Smithsonian after the war)

The Wright Bros figured out how to control an aircraft in the air... in 1903 the actual engineering of the best ways to do it were still to figure out... the first flight of an aircraft actually happened in Europe 3 years earlier, the problem was no one knew or understood how to control it once it got into the air... Everyone was thinking rudders like on a ship and inherent stability instead of actually controlling lift.... The wright flyer had huge control surfaces, about 4 times what was actually needed but they didn't know it at the time, and their control moments were way too fast... Wind tunnel testing done in the '90's confirmed that the wright flyer was all but uncontrollable.... But that is what Wilbur and Orville wanted, they wanted it all but uncontrollable... What better way to prove they succeeded than by flying an almost uncontrollable craft.... If you take a look at the Flyer II they decreased the control surface areas, (and reduce control moments) and tried to increase power, but the flyer II was barely able to get into the air much less fly.... The next year the flew the Flyer III which had a more advanced engine much smaller control surfaces and a huge reduction in control moments, and that is the plane they made their first full circles and figure eights with... That is the plane they took to Europe on tour to show everyone that they actually did it culminating in the Paris airshow.... No less than the great Santos Dumont was dumbstruck when they launched the Flyer III and went out over the field then banked into a smooth left turn and returned to where they launched... His exclamation was "We are BEATEN! they actually did it" Everyone else in the world was still working on inherent stability and steering rudders for everything... (but they knew that control was the thing they were seeking and hadn't reached yet) The first flyer had huge control surfaces simply cause they didn't know any better... They were still figuring the mechanics out.... Smaller control surfaces work much more efficiently in creating lift and drag cause that is how an airplane is controlled in flight.... (it has nothing to do with directing the airstream and everything to do with directed controlled lift)

It looks the part brother.. Well Done!

The chassis looks great brother.... The engine is nice, looks the part...

And very well done I might add.... Congratulations!

Very nice, a light to moderate chipping would be appropriate for a marine land based bird....

It depends, in real life, Green went over the Brown, in the modeling world either way works.... And I agree he's doing a fantastic job of it.... the Black sides will set it off perfectly...