DocRob

Thank you Ken, I will dirty the whole plane during the weathering stage of the paintjob. Everything should blend in perfectly, therefore, I want to have the complete picture. These Tamiya kits are amazing. When I started the Corsair, I bought their P-51D, although I have one from ZM in my stash. With my experiences concerning ZM's TA-152 in mind, there should be a quantum leap to the Tamiya level. Oh, there is a Mosquito snoring in it's box, along a lot of extra goodies. Cheers Rob

You should do yourself the favor, it's an amazing kit and gives you the feeling, there is not a lot of headroom for improvement, at least in plastic. I think no other company would it made so easy to build such a complicated airframe with all the included details. Cockpit and engine are kits in their own. There is a reason, it's my second one albeit with nearly 15 years between the builds. That from me I really hate redundance . Cheers Rob

With the Covid and it's side effects more or less gone, it's time to get back on track and do some sports. Boy was I missing that. I'm still a bit weak, but today I thrashed my powerless bones into the Atlantic and had a good swim. A bit uncomforting were the Barracudas in huge quantity and different sizes. I don't mind the small ones, but don't like the cold stare of the larger ones. Back to the Corsair. There will not be too many updates until something interesting happens. I have to admit, building and painting of the inner and outer sections of the wings bore me a bit. I have to take care to not make mistakes, where there are so many options considering flaps up or down, wings folded or not,... @Egilman luckily pointed out, that the wings of a Corsair only fold simultaneously, so gone was the one wing up option. The wings will not be folded, as my plane is land based. I finished all the assemblies for the wheel wells and inner wing parts, after painting tons of parts. ...and glued the wing roots and fuselage bottom to the rest of the fuselage. I think only Tamiya can produce so many strangely shaped parts to fit and lock into place with a tiny little snap. On my last Tamiya build, I used Microscale's Micro Mask for the exhausts and it took hours to peel that off, horrible stuff. This time, I inserted a small piece of Kabuki tape to the inside of the fuselage to cover the exhaust opening. This can be pulled off with tweezers after painting. The wheel wells itself are very beautiful rendered oob. Cheers Rob @Egilman

Your build log is as exceptional, as your finished HMS Sphinx is. The look and decoration of your Sphinx is somewhat different from other builds and a pleasure to look at. I will store your build log for when I start my Sphinx build. It's such a great reference, well documented and the pictures are very helpful and of high quality. Thanks for that. Cheers Rob

The engine got assembled, got some touch ups and was installed into the fuselage mounts. The assembly with all the cowling rings and myriads of exhaust tubes need careful alignment to get it right. Following the manual is advised here. This is what remains visible (looks better in real life, but the picture needed to be badly exposed) Luckily the only loosely fitted side cowlings sat in their places with only minimal gaps Cheers Rob

You built a wonderful ship ECK, the detailing and finish is exceptional. I will store the link to your build in my Sphinx index, as m ine is still in the box and waits for the Duchess of Kington to be finished. Good luck with the DoK, it's a superb kit of a very beautiful ship. Cheers Rob

You will love the kit. I recently built their Kai Phantom and it was a pure pleasure build. Fit and engineering of the kit are very much Tamiya like and so much better than their 32 scale TA-152 kit, which was quirky designed in parts and had many areas where detail was very soft, almost toyish. I even used the decals for the IP and panels, which worked well and looked good for the scale. There are no seat belts in the kit. I used some from KitsWorld, but didn't like them too much. The belts itself were mediocre, but protruding parts like pull rings and levers are too soft to look right. Cheers Rob

Thank you Mark, I'm blushing. There could be done a lot more to detail the engine, but today, I added the cowlings and only little will remain to be seen of the engine, so it's sufficient for the purpose. One of my main goals and driving forces into modelling is replicate materials, being it metals, wood, cloth, leather or plastic. To me it's absolutely satisfying to let plastic look like something else and I try to hone my skills for that with every build. Cheers Rob

On a live aircraft your never going to see it, I'm sorry I brought it up. Your work is exquisite, better than I could do.... Thank you again Egilman, very interesting informations you are sharing here. I read a lot about the Corsair, but I still learn new facts through your input. The plane I depict was written off, so apparently no photos exist, which show the primer color. The photos I've seen, all black and white, doesn't reveal anything which means for me, I will build my plane without salmon primer showing. No need to feel sorry, it's always better to now facts for sure and then decide if you follow this way or if you knowingly make an interpretation. Cheers Rob

This is the stuff, I bought from Amazon some years ago. Prym 977770, it looks rectangular under a magnifier, but it has to be painted or tinted, as it's white. The material is elastic and I believe, I can thread it through micro tubes as a turnbuckle substitute. Cheers Rob

I still have to do my first flat rigging, so no experiences to share. I will go easy with that and perform it onto my soon to build Gladiator in 32 scale. I planned to use Prym elastic flat thread for the task. I read a lot about PE-wiring to be more than a bit afraid about using it. There seems to be a considerable amount of expansion with temperature changes and it will be difficult to get all the lines taught. All second hand information, surely, but I have bought the Prym thread already for my build, which will be followed by a Sopwith Camel and then a Fe2b - Cheers Rob

This looks very promising. I don't want to spoil your party, but I can't wait to see you tackle the rigging. These British birds doesn't make it too easy for the modeler, with their flat rigging. I haven't found the bravery in me to build a 48 scale British WWI plane, but built several German ones in different scales, where rigging is a bit simpler. Cheers Rob

I'm still not decided about the wheel wells, I will try to find some more reference about my plane. As far as I know, not all the -A1 Corsairs had the salmon color applied. Cheers Rob

Thank you Dan, the raadial engine is like a kit in the kit, you can go overboard detailing it, but I kept it to my desired minimum, as the cowlings will be closed and there is only the frontside to see. Meanwhile, I finalized the wiring . I used 0,3 mm lead wire from PlusModel for the job. The braided Anyz thread just didn't look right. There were four different length of cables, from which I cut nine each. I started to wire the front plugs and the backside of the front cylinders and last the wires for the second row. I used CA glue to attach the wire. By the time, I decided to use lead wire instead of the Anyz stuff, I already glued the ignition harness to the engine. That made the assembly a bit more difficult and led to the decision to not paint the lead wires. I've seen so many pictures with different colored cables, brown, grey, black,..., so I think I can get away with it. Some touch ups here and there and the engine can be called done. On the Eduard.com page you can find PDF manuals for all their products, in this case, I used the manual for the F4U-1A engine set. It proved to be very helpful. Cheers Rob

I continued with engine painting and assembly. All metallic tones are from AK's Extreme Metallic range, matte aluminum for the cylinders, polished aluminum for the ignition ring, stainless steel for the propeller shaft. The only exception is Alclads Exhaust manifold, which was used exactly for these parts. It's my go to base for prop plane exhausts. The black fairings were sprayed with Tamiya's semi-gloss lacquer black and then rubbed with steel pigments from Uschi van der Rosten by hand. The same treatment received the gear casing, which was sprayed gray and then got some pigments rubbed in, which enhances the casting appearance. Details like nuts and bolts and spark plugs were picked up by brush, using different LP metallic colors, black and racing white. The first pic shows the usefulness of panel liner, left side with, right side without. And this is where I am now. I'm still undecided, whether I use the braided line, which on top of the size issues darkens through sucking the CA up. Maybe I switch to lead wire. Cheers Rob

Thank you Egilman, as a long time member at Large Scale Modeler, I really like both sides. Lots of expertise and friendly members around here and there. Uh oh, the Revell kit. The good thing about it, if you manage to build a masterpiece out of this one everybody is applauding. Working on the great Tamiya kit makes success inevitable . Thanks for mentioning the salmon thing, I feared it . I have to dig a little deeper into that, but I'm willing to conclude with a non-salmon result at all cost. In fact, the rear inside of the fuselage was painted interior green by me and I will not change that. It's not too late for the wheel wells though. I will read the mentioned thread by Edwardkenway, right? Cheers Rob

Thank you Ken, it's a lot of fun detailing these Corsair kits. no shaky resin and unfitting PE needed. There are some areas which profit from a bit extra effort, but oob you can achieve a great result. Cheers Rob

Thank you Dan, meanwhile I finalized the last preparations, before painting the engine. I glued on the spark plugs, cut flush from the resin sprue and added the oil? tubing on the top front of each cylinder. These are made from folded pe, which were left from my Corsair build 15 years ago. To let them appear more tube like, I applied CA glue with a toothpick to the folded front sides, to prevent a visible gap. Cheers Rob

I like the weathered white on the capsule, Greg. It makes a nice contrast to the cockpit and if I remember correctly the glazing of the cockpit is tinted. Cheers Rob

Thank you Ken, I start to notice the expertise of EG, which is very welcome. The Corsair is one of my favorites too, one of the reasons, it's the second I build, albeit I normally detest redundance. Cheers Rob

Thank you for your detailed informations Egilman, luckily I'm only quarter mad as I plan to apply the nine spark plugs for the front cylinders front and the wiring for the back side. The plane will be build with closed cowlings, so only the front of the engine will remain visible. When I built the Birdcage Corsair almost 15 years ago, I used the very detailed Brassin engine with added wiring and planned to have removable cowlings. I tried three different versions of cowlings, the kit ones , resin ones from the Brassin set and some made from Eduard PE, soldered together. All three attempts failed with easy and secure dismountability. A lot of time and effort were wasted and finally I glued the cowlings on. I did not know, that the wings couldn't be folded separately. I may not be a rivet counter, but that information puts my plans on a stop. I considered folded up for a moment, but yes, these birds mainly operated from land bases, so it will be wings in flying position. I may have to build another Corsair, maybe a 1D version with folded wings and overall gloss sea blue, which will be a challenge to weather. I knew, that the British were the first to develop a more or less save procedure to land early Corsairs on carriers. These Birdcage Corsairs had long Landing gear struts, which tended to hop while touching ground and the cockpit position was low and way back in the fuselage. They were approaching the carrier in a tight curve, to maintain eyesight as long as possible. The F4U-1A was modified in different aspects to make carrier landings easier. Most prominent is the raising of the pilots position by 8 inches. Cheers Rob

Still in checking mode . I like to be prepared, when it comes to detailing, so I made a test with the Anyz spark plug and Anyz braided line. The thread is a bit on the thick side and the plugs seem a bit oversized too, but I may use them anyway, as many pictures of the real thing show the braided ignition wiring in rust color. The butt ends of the resin spark plugs have a diameter of 1mm, too big to drill into the spots onto the cylinders, so I cut it flush and glued it on with CA. Cheers Rob

I cleaned all the engine and exhaust parts and try to figure how to paint them best. there will be a lot of masking necessary. I built the Brassin engine many moons ago and there were single cylinders to add to the core. I would have preferred that from the Tamiya kit too. I also noticed, that Tamiya skipped the black metal fairings around the cylinders, which can be seen on the pic of the real thing. The Brassin engine had the fairings present. I'm planning to add ignition wiring and spark plugs from Anyz. Generally, I tend to build the Corsair with one wing folded and the other in flight position, what do you think about that? Cheers Rob All is unglued, it's only a mockup picture. Level of detail is great for a non-resin engine. Here is the real thing with the black fairings visible.

I closed the fuselage, after inserting the finalized cockpit and rear framing. For better alignment of the front structural parts, I glued them to one side of the fuselage and dry fitted the other half and let the glue cure over night, perfect alignment. I know, the headrest should be black, but I preferred brown, at least for the moment. Cheers Rob

I finished the other side of the tub. The HGW belts were a bit fiddly, but nowhere near the Luftwaffe seat belts. Like always, I assembled the parts with the buckles still on the PE fret. The decal silvered and there was nothing I could do about it. Luckily I use masks for the stencils . Cheers Rob