AREA 88 : "Shin Kazama" (F4U-1 Corsair)

Dave Flitton
I like the build so far!!!

John Thomas
Nice work on the Corsair. I just built several of these Corsairs for my VF-17 Jolly Rogers Project and kit bashed one to make an F4U-4. hope tp be up on the site soon.

Greg Baker
I'm really loving building a Corsair... There's just something about those bent wings. Hopefully the added detailing will pay off. I'd love to see some pics from your VF-17 project. I could use some hints!

John Thomas
Greg, I will post some in a few days of the start of my Jolly Rogers Project

Bryn Crandell
Liking what you have done so far. Looking forward to the next installment.

Greg Baker
Thanks for the support! The cockpit is starting to come together, but now John's given me some new ideas to swipe from his Jolly Rogers Project so we'll see if I can replicate it a bit.

John Thomas
Greg, your cockpit look nice. I dont like PE myself but you have done a good job with it. Greg I dont know anything about "Area 88" what is it?

Greg Baker
I'll admit, after I saw what you did with your cockpit... I was thinking I shouldn't have bothered with the PE. 🙂 Area 88 is a Japanese manga series about mercenary fighter pilots. Check it out here - mangahome.com/manga/area_88/v01/c001/1.html - and a quick look on YouTube will find you the Anime version. If you want to know more about my overall WHIF project, I've been talking a lot about it here - whatifmodellers.com/..p/topic,42817.0.html

John Thomas
Greg, Very cool thanks

Patrick Waks
Looking really, really good!

Greg Baker
Thanks~!

Greg Baker
I got a couple of extra Corsair kits in order to use the engines/cowlings to kitbash a F7F Tigercat, so I decided to have another crack at the undercarriage after stealing all of John's good ideas.

John Thomas
Greg, Good luck with our kit bash F7F Tigercat. I still need to finish mine.

Christian Keller
I got the same kit in my stash, so i will follow you 😉

John Thomas
Hey guys, I will take Greg lead and I will finish mine. I do have some photos of what I have done to date and will post them soon.

Greg Baker
That's great news! Besides the engines/cowlings, I also plan to rescribe the raised panel lines, use the cockpit tub from the Academy corsair kit as well as scratchbuild the wheel wells a bit. However, I'd love to steal any of your good ideas along the way. Looking forward to what you will/have do(ne).

John Thomas
Greg, I will post some photos today. I am not going to rescribe mine aircraft, however I am going to use the Academy Corsair cockpit as well and scratch build the wheel wells and use the Academy's Corsair engines and redo the wing guns. I will be doing an F7F-3 day fighter post WWII around 1947, so it will be a clean bird.

Greg Baker
Hey John, do you know what colour the engine casings are? They look like a light sea blue/grey in some pictures, but I'd like to know if that's accurate for an F4U-1 Corsair or not.

John Thomas
I paint all mine engines Medium Gray. Also there are some photos showing a darker Gray called Engine Gray on some aircraft. I think the Corsair engine is more a Medium Gray. Light Sea Gray could work.

gorby
Excellent result with the engine Greg. A1!

Greg Baker
Took a bit of a forced time out from my Caudron C.714 project while I wait for various bits to dry and cure and came back to my Corsair engine. Following John's lead, I painted little half round caps and glued all 18 of them around the engine, then added a bit of copper wire and an accent wash. I surprised myself and... just as I was reaching back to pat myself on my back, I realized the cowling wouldn't fit over my additions. So I bit my lip, pulled each one off and carefully trimmed 1mm off the base and then glued them back in place before any of them had a chance to get in trouble. Luckily you can't really tell (after a tiny bit of touch ups and hiding them back in thecoeling. Whew!

Greg Baker
Thanks gorbygould! I was quite happy with the end result... which is unusual for me.😉

John Thomas
Greg, our engine turned out real nice along with the rest of our Corsair. I have not been doing much modeling the pass thew weeks. I have been plagued with Carpal Tunnel in my left hand, witch makes it hard to work on projects as my left hand goes mummmm after a few moments of work. May need to see a Doctor in the New Year. BTW have a good Holiday and great New Year. Hope to be back at it real soon.

Greg Baker
Sorry to hear about your hand. Hoping you make a speedy recovery and get back at it soon. Even if you're not active, I'm always interested in suggestions and/or advice. The Corsair is coming along slowly, I'm happy with the engine, but when I pulled out the tissue paper I had stuffed in the cockpit, it seems to have eaten the control stick. It's the strangest thing. Between four boxes, I only seem to have one stick... I have no idea where the others have gone. Sigh...

John Thomas
Greg, that is all ways a problem when masking a cockpit the joy stick can break off. You can only do our best when masking, or leave it out and try to install it after painting. I have done it both ways. I have lost countless joy sticks over the years. All you can do is replace it or make a new one. I have used copper wire bent to match the kit joy stick, not the best solution but it works.

Greg Baker
Now that my C.714 is done, I'm back focused on this project again. I reallly hate painting with white. It's a pain to get good coverage with and I always seem to screw it up some how.

John Thomas
Greg, You are so right. White and the light colors are hard to do. Nice work on you C.714. My hand is doing a little better and I have started work on Academy's P-40N and I am still working on the F7F Tigercat, having problems with the wing roots seams.

Greg Baker
Great to hear the hand is getting better! I didn't take any pics yet, but I managed to mask both the F-8E and F4U canopies. The Corsair is pretty straightforward, but I'm a little intimidated by the Crusader... not sure how/when to paint it. I'm also trying to clear a few backlogged projects off my bench. I ended up successfully washing the panel lines on my Dh. Chipmunk before screwing up the decals and then dropping it and breaking off the landing gear for the third time. Sigh... some projects just seem doomed. I also screwed up the gluing of the struts in my Spad XIII biplane and wrecking the paint job around the engine but I decided to soldier on to try my hand at rigging... another exercise in frustration.😉

John Thomas
Greg, good luck with rigging, I have done only one biplane because of rigging, mine came out OK but could have been alot better

Greg Baker
I put the first coat of blue on, but the masking tape marks are very visible. Not sure the best way to handle this. I'm thinking about going over it in grey (which will be the fuselage side colour anyway) to try and even it out before putting another coat of blue. Any suggestions?

John Thomas
Greg, it's looks like a hard edge line. Is this what you want? It does not look bad if you want a hard edge. Sometimes you do get a little ragged edge at the tape line. You could try very lightly wet sanding the edge and the dark blue paint. I wet sand all of my paint work using 4000 grit sanding pad before clear coating and decals. Masking can be trying as I will be doing the same when I paint my Jolly Rogers Corsair in Tri Color Scheme soon as I am back to work on my Jolly Rogers Project for 2017

Bart Goesaert
what effect do you want to achieve? If you want to replicate the 3-colorsheme from the boxart, then it is better to start with the pales color. Then apply a "sausage" from blutack, pritt-buddy or the like on the separation line: [img1] . Don't mind to mask the upper side, just spray far enough that the third colour overlaps. then spray the second color: [img2] (you'll see that you have a nice subtle and controlled overspray. Keep in mind to not to spray towards the "sausage", but vertical on it and away from it.

Greg Baker
Thanks both of you for the suggestions. I wasn't really clear what I was talking about. The blue paint was very translucent, so the hard black edges of the black undercoat that was masked previously was showing through. It's visible on the tail where I put a piece of tape earlier to protect the surface from the alligator clips I was using. What I'm trying to achieve is a blue stripe along the top of the fuselage, so I carefully masked it along the panel lines for a hard edge transition to the grey sides and wing tops. However I'm looking for a soft edge between the grey sides and the white undercarriage - so that blutack tip will come in handy. I ended up trying to create the soft edged using loosely stuck Tamiya tape, but it didn't really work. So the transition between the grey/white will have be redone. I basically lightly painted a coat of light gull grey over the blue coat I'd already set down (no masking) to lighten up the tape ghosting and I'll end up re-masking and re-applying the hard blue edge. I'm curious about the 4000 grit wet sand on the paint. What exactly does that achieve?

John Thomas
Greg, the 4000 grit wet sanding will help smooth out the paint if any dust falls on to the paint or any ridge or paint build up between paint and masking or rough texture from airbrushing. A lot of the car guys use even higher grits for there glass like finish.

Dave Flitton
Before putting on masking tape, put the tape on your arm to reduce the stickiness. This way it will not leave as much adhesive

Greg Baker
Now that the Tintin Shark Sub is done, I'm back working on my Corsair. I'm not sure I've got the hang of this "sanding the paint" business. Used 3000 grit and wet sanded as lightly as possible andit stil looks like I'm just rubbing it off. More practice necessary I guess.

John Thomas
Greg, If you can get a nice smooth paint work you may not need to wet sand it. Just any rough paint or paint build up. Most of the time I find some spot that needs some kind of wet sanding on my paint work.

Greg Baker
This build has started down into some rough terrain. First the wings started to separate on me and I was only mildly successful at plugging the gap with some white glue. I probably should have just bit the bullet and reglued/sanded/primed/painted, but at first it was such a little gap... now I've got a bit of a patch instead. Sigh. Now, after applying a coat of Future, I attempted to use Tamiya's panel wash and basically made a mess of the wings. I tried to wipe off the little "dots" left from where the brush touched down and just ended up smearing black wash all over the place. Then, assuming the coat of Future would protect the paint underneath, I lightly dabbed a cotten swab in laquer thinner to help with the clean up... and ended up chewing right through the paint and almost all the way through the primer too. Not sure what I did wrong, and a quick coat of grey paint seems to have more or less fixed it back up... but very frustrating nonetheless. Not sure what I did wrong. Was the coat of Future too thin? I've been trying to find the right amount of coverage, so I held back a bit more than normal. I was pleased with the result... looked a lot better than my previous builds... right up until the panel liner disaster. Aargh...

Bart Goesaert
Mhh ... a black wash on such a pale surface as the wings.. the contrast will be to much. If you look at my Tu-160, there i used a light grey wash for the panels, and a mix of very light grey and white to accent some panels too...

Greg Baker
Thanks for the tip Dale. A couple paint/glue "do-overs" and the final completed build can be seen here - Area 88 - Shin Kazama F4U-1 Corsair - Completed | Album by strobez (1:72)