F4U-1A Corsair by DocRob - FINISHED - Tamiya - 1/32

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, Egilman said:

On a production corsair nothing was cloth..... All aluminum.....

Thank you Egilman, I thought so, but was not sure. I saw a picture once where a battle damaged Corsair looked like cloth covered in the destoyed flap area, but that might not have been a -1A. I'm free to chip the hell out of the bird .

 

Cheers Rob 

[DocRob]

37 minutes ago, Landlubber Mike said:

That looks great Rob!  I haven't yet tried the hairspray chipping method yet.  How does the water end up stripping/chipping off the layer on top of the hairspray?  Is it because the paint doesnt have a chance to fully cure on top of the hairspray so it flakes off?

 

Also, if you don't mind, does it matter what paints you use for the bottom coat and chipping coat?  I saw one modeler building a Japanese aircraft who used Tamiya enamels for the base aluminum coat, then applied a chipping medium and a follow on coat of something other than enamel.  I think he said something about the enamel being a stronger paint for the chipping effect, but could be mistaken.

 

Thanks Mike, I used the hairspray technique several times now and like the effect a lot. Using the flat brush for abrasion was the key this time, helping emphasize the panel borders.
In this case the base coat is AK's Extreme Metal matte aluminum. The hairspray is normal stock and smells horrible, used directly from it's can. It's only one liberal coat, which dries very fast and the slight tendency to pool evaporates soon, in the words meaning .
The second layer is AK's Real Color interior green, an enamel color, I guess.
I have used acrylic colors as well on other projects and never had any issues. There are producers of dedicated chipping fluids around, but I started with hairspray and liked working with it, except for the smell. 

The second color dries onto a transparent film, which is water soluble. The dampening passes through the second layer and reacts with said film of hairspray and loosens it's adherence. After a short soaking period, the top color lifts easily and you have to try out the appropriate tools to chip. Tooth picks, tweezers, brushes of all sizes and states of stiffness, cotton swabs, whatever comes in handy. Try these tools carefully for the desired effect. Areas with a better hairspray coverage, peel easier, so poco a poco, step by step is the way. 
After finishing the chipping, I dry the area with a sheet of kitchen paper and let it thoroughly dry for some more hours. The area then will be sealed with a clear coat, as I don't want to have paint liftings in later stages, while masking or applying of other weathering effects.

 

With the Corsair, this is double important, as I will apply pre shading onto the chipped and sealed areas, followed by hairspray and the top color coat, again from AK's Real colors.

 

I hope that helps

 

Cheers Rob

[popeye the sailor]

that's one sweet looking Corsair your working on there    I love those gull winged planes........working on a couple stukas at the moment........nowhere at the level your at though.  very nice work indeed!  

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Rob - I didn't realize the dampening actually passes through the paint, that's very interesting.  I wouldn't have thought that possible, but it's clear that must be going on to get to the hairspray layer.  Looking forward to your progress on this one!

[DocRob]

On 11/24/2022 at 5:19 PM, popeye the sailor said:

that's one sweet looking Corsair your working on there    I love those gull winged planes........working on a couple stukas at the moment........nowhere at the level your at though.  very nice work indeed!  

 

Thank you Popeye, Corsairs are indeed good looking planes, one of my favorite prop plane, actually. The Stukas are a different breed, bent wings they have too, but they lack the elegance. I like them as well, but never built one since my teens, I guess. I will have a look into your builds.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

On 11/24/2022 at 5:21 PM, Landlubber Mike said:

Thanks Rob - I didn't realize the dampening actually passes through the paint, that's very interesting.  I wouldn't have thought that possible, but it's clear that must be going on to get to the hairspray layer.  Looking forward to your progress on this one!

 

De nada Mike, writing about the hairspray technique made me thinking about my approach to come. aluminum, topped with hairspray and primer color are chipped and sealed, but now comes te second phase. If I pre shade and afterwards apply hairspray under the camo layer, maybe chipping is revealing too much of the pre shading. It may be better to apply hairspray before pre shading, as it wears with the camo then.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Pre shading time or how do I let my plane look silly . I have used a multiple color pre shading approach on different builds and always liked the effect. Black shading looks mostly too stark to me and using blue and brown in this case compliments the camo colors. To let the effect work, it's absolutely essential, to work in very translucent layers onto the pre shading until you reach the desired effect. I hope, I can achieve this, never used AK's Real Colors before on wings and a fuselage.

 

Panel lines got airbrushed in blue for harsh contrasts.

 

 

Followed by red brown for other panels and structural lines and some panel accentuation.

 

 

At last some red brown splatter, applied with a splatter mask, to break the monotony in the larger panels.

 

 

Funky, isn't it ?

 

Cheers Rob

[Edwardkenway]

I am watching this stage with interest, as I'm going to attempt doing it on my mossie. Never done it before.

PS, if you were going for a steam punk look it could be left like that😉

[DocRob]

14 hours ago, Edwardkenway said:

I am watching this stage with interest, as I'm going to attempt doing it on my mossie. Never done it before.

PS, if you were going for a steam punk look it could be left like that😉

 

10 hours ago, AJohnson said:

Ah, pre-shading, you do it right almost “nobody” notices (except us Nerds on MSW 😀 ) do it wrong “everybody” notices!  The force is strong in you Rob, you are going to smash it!

 

Thank you Edward and Andrew.
I'm expectant too and it will not be easy to have the pre shading showing through equally with a tri tone camo free handed or with Panzer putty for soft transitions, which need some overspray in the meeting areas. This technique, I used on monochrome or hard edged paintjobs, where it is easier to perform.

 

Edward, you are giving me ideas with that steam punk story line. A Corsair kit, bashed with some stuff from other kits, lots of oversized rivets and a patinaed paint job of copper and brass. Sounds interesting and wouldn't be my firs venture into steam punk.

 

Andrew, I didn't know about the right and wrongs in pre shading, as it doesn't exist in reality . Honestly, I try to achieve a tonal balance in my paintjobs and blue and brown complements the insignia white and blue tones best. Whatever it takes .

 

Cheers Rob

 

[DocRob]

First colors are on, at least preliminary. First I sprayed Insignia White heavily thinned in very translucent layers until i got something like a 3/4 coverage. I decided to airbrush the camo free handed, therefore, I wanted the borders between colors not entirely finished, as the color may be too dense there to let the pre shading shine through equally.

 

 

After masking off the inner wing sections it was time for Intermediate Blue, which I sprayed a tin little bit closer to the desired density, specially, where it borders the white. I don't want to perform too many corrections in this area later.

The AK Real Colors spray exceptionably well, with good coverage and a nice flow in the airbrush, when thinned with Mr. Leveling Thinner. The white was sputtering tiny drops on some occasions and I don't understand why. The mixing ratio was the same like with the blue. Of course, I started and stopped spraying off the model, but I have two or three tiny dots, which will be addressed later.
Interestingly, the Intermedite Blue looks greyer in the jar, than sprayed, where it has the right blueish tint to my eye. 

 

Here you can clearly see the effect of the multi colored pre shading, especially on the wing ends.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The third color is applied. Again, no issues with AK's Sea Blue. It sprays perfectly and I was able to build up the color out of many translucent layers until it had the desired effect. Interestingly the sea blue dried relatively glossy, compared with the other two colors, but that's no issue for me, as I will flat coat my work in the end.

The sea blue rendered sometimes very bluish, sometimes very brownish on my pictures, so I chose one, which looks halfway correct to my eye.

 

While building the Corsair, I considered leaving the outer wings and tail wings unmounted until after the painting stage. It would have made painting a lot easier and I would recommend it to everyone building a tri color Corsair.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I reworked all the camo colors, until I liked the effect and color rendition, starting with the intermediate blue, then white and then sea blue. I enhanced some panel contrasts, using some drops of white in the mix. Plane 883 has a distinctive streak on the front side area of the fuselage, which I slightly painted on. I also modulated the sea blue, to let it look a bit sun bleached on the top areas. This is all preliminary and will be enhanced in the weathering stage.
 

The first walkway markings where masked and airbrushed, using Nato black.
 

The propeller was also sprayed with Nato black, after receiving a dose of hairspray over an aluminum base coat, which will allow some chipping, later.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[Egilman]

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

[DocRob]

8 hours ago, Egilman said:

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

Please be patient Egilman, there is hairspray dozing under the paint on the upper wings, only waiting to be activated.

 

Cheers Rob

[popeye the sailor]

looks really nice  

[DocRob]

My Corsair got the mad stenciling disease . I applied fitted strips of tape for the wing walk areas and then added all the black stencil masks, which are not covered in these areas. The OneManArmy masks are very sharply cut into Kabuki tape and the manual shows very well, where to place them. There are differences to the decal placing suggested by Tamiya, but I decided to ignore these. 
I gave some thought, about how to spray the stencils, without having to mask the entire plane. I will try to use a template cut into 40mm wide de tacked Kabuki tape for masking off every single stencil, one after the other, lets see, how this works.
I used a rubber brush, to push down the masks around the letters properly and will use NATO black for the stenciling.

 

 

 

 

Cheers Rob

[Javlin]

That will be a Nice touch Rob never heard/knew stencils could be done this way.Neat!

[DocRob]

9 hours ago, Javlin said:

That will be a Nice touch Rob never heard/knew stencils could be done this way.Neat!

OneManArmy is a relatively new company from Belgium, if I'm not mistaken. They cover different planes with their stencils and the sets include the basic markings, like in my case the stars and bars. Obviously they only make masks for 1/32 kits. The manuals are very thoroughly made and really help during placement and application.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The walking areas got sprayed along with the black stencils on the top side of the wings and the fuselage. I used Tamiya NATO black acrylic mixed with Mr. Leveling thinner and carefully applied the very thin mix with low pressure and in thin layers onto the masks. The manual suggest not to use pure black, which I never considered and spray the layers until you can't see the yellow of the masks anymore. That was exactly what I did and I was fearless enough, to make the first try directly on the tail wing. I have to say, I'm really amazed, how the results look. The masking is tedious and consumes lots of Kabuki tape, but the stencils look like tattooed into the surface color. I still cannot believe, how fine they are cut.

 

That's the Corsair with the walkways and stencils, which are hard to spot in this view.

 

 

This is the area from the previous post after spraying, even heavier macroed.

 

 

Some more on the tail

 

 

I didn't want to mask all of the stencils completely and cut some templates from 40mm wide Tesa Professional (much cheaper than Tamiya Kabuki tape and nearly as good)
onto my cutting template with differently sized cutoffs. I de tacked the template, because I didn't want them to lift the masks when removing them.

 

 

I'm very pleased with the outcome and the results make the tedious masking work nearly forgotten. Hasta la vista silvering .

 

Cheers Rob

[Canute]

Those painted on stencils are slick. They beat water slide decals.

 

You say only 1/32? Someday they might show up in 1/48 (I hope).

[Edwardkenway]

Those stencils look amazing!

I agree with Ken, so much better than waterslide decals 

[CDW]

Outstanding! Very authentic and life-like.

[CDW]

Is this the Tesa tape you are using instead of Tamiya? Is the tape low tack, or mostly similar to Tamiya tackiness? Some commercial tape available here in the USA is good, but way too tacky for our scale models and must be places to a flat smooth surface (such as glass) first, then removed over and over again to help remove some of the glue. Otherwise, it can pull the paint off the model. 

 

tesa 4334 Precision Mask Painters Tape: 2 in x 55 yds. (Yellow) 4042448816139 | eBay

Edited December 6, 2022 by CDW

[DocRob]

17 hours ago, Canute said:

Those painted on stencils are slick. They beat water slide decals.

 

You say only 1/32? Someday they might show up in 1/48 (I hope).

 

11 hours ago, Edwardkenway said:

Those stencils look amazing!

I agree with Ken, so much better than waterslide decals 

Thank you Ken and Edward, these masks are easily the best thing, I had for stencils. Better than decals for different reasons, better than the HGW transfers, which look equally good, but are a bit of hit and miss, no matter how good the surface is prepared, some of them don't adhere.
Unfortunately only 1/32 for planes and some generic sets for 1/35 armor. I don't think, it's technically possible to cut them finer than that.
As much as I like them, the process is exhausting and you have to be very careful, to avoid mistakes. I will use them on other builds, but will use decals, when I want quicker results.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

4 hours ago, CDW said:

Outstanding! Very authentic and life-like.

Thank you, CDW, it looks indeed very real, as it's the same process like in reality. You can't beat the real thing .

 

 

3 hours ago, CDW said:

Is this the Tesa tape you are using instead of Tamiya? Is the tape low tack, or mostly similar to Tamiya tackiness? Some commercial tape available here in the USA is good, but way too tacky for our scale models and must be places to a flat smooth surface (such as glass) first, then removed over and over again to help remove some of the glue. Otherwise, it can pull the paint off the model. 

 

tesa 4334 Precision Mask Painters Tape: 2 in x 55 yds. (Yellow) 4042448816139 | eBay

This is the stuff. I have the narrower variants and they are similar to Tamiya Kabuki tape. A bit thinner, but also with minimal stretch and a bit more tackiness, which I found not too much, except for areas, where I applied hairspray for chipping. On these places, I underarm de tacked the tape a bit.
I can't claim the idea as mine, as I read it first in a Vanguard manual, where @James H James recommended it.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today, I managed to airbrush all the stencils on the underside and started with the stars and bars. 1ManArmy supplies these as masks in their set. They recommend to apply them with the help of transparent low tack frisk foil, to make placement easier. I didn't have this type of foil at hand, so I placed the outside masks by hand and hope the star and bar masks fit, after the white color has dried. I used Insignia white, which is a bit off white and sprayed it a tiny bit translucent, to not look too uniform.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I sprayed the insignia on, not without issues. As said in the last post, I applied the outline masks first and then covered all the surrounding areas properly. I did this without first to put some transparent adhesive foil onto the masks, like the manual suggests. An idea, I should have followed, as the masks on the fuselage sides stretched a bit, which was not noticeable to my blind eye. After spraying, I had two bad spots, which need to be corrected, because of this.
I tried to place the stars by hand and found it nearly impossible, so I took out my transparent Tesa film (Scotch tape) and applied strips over the masks to fill into the outline mask. Now placement was a lot easier, means not only RTFM, but also follow it .

Scotch tape on inner masks.

 

Applied onto the plane into the outside masks.

 

 

After removing the unnecessary ones.

 

The background color was AK's Real Color Insignia White and for the blue, I used Vallejo's Model Air Insignia Blue, which I luckily found in my stash. The blue seems to be very fragile, so I will save the markings with a clear coat, before I mask of the corrections and some stencils, which go onto the insignia.

 

 

 

Cheers Rob

 

 

[CDW]

I like this much better than insignia decals. Very nice touch.

[Egilman]

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....

[Javlin]

Liking it Rob!