1/32 Tamiya F4U-1a Corsair - Boyington 17740

[mostrich]

Oh look, a detail sandwich! So tasty.

[BlackSheep214]

Oh look, a detail sandwich! So tasty.

Yes it does look delicious.

[jkim]

The Corsair build is not dead! I'm switching gears after working on the K-4 cockpit and back on the Corsair.

I finally glued the wheel wells into place but with a twist. I glued the individual walls to each other but not to the wing.



Right now, the center spar and wheel wells are removable.



I thought it might be easier to work on the wheel wells without the slight overhang from the wing bottom.

[jkim]

Some detail painting on center wing components.


The parts are glued into place into the upper wings.


But once the wings are put together, the detail all but disappears.


There are lot of cases where the interior detail is rendered unseen by construction and I am trying to limit my painting efforts accordingly.



This area is right next to a clear window so you'd think it'd be better to paint this area, right?


But nope... it's not visible.


No one would know if you left the pieces out.


Thankfully, the cockpit WILL be visible. Not completely but a good majority of it will be seen.

[Duke Maddog]

I ahven't been replying here much but I have been following this. What tremendous work you've done with the painting so far. And gluing the wheel wells to the spar to make everything removable for working on; that is a stroke of genius! Way to go John, keep it coming. I'll go back to silently watching; totally overwhelmed by what I'm seeing.

[speedgraflex]

Perhaps you just needed a dollop of RLM 66 to revive your interest, John—certainly the ZCY looks absolutely satiny-gorgeous—and properly utilitarian to boot! I don’t know how you did that precisely, but you did that beautifully!! I am enjoying your narrative immensely! Thank you, sir!!!

[jkim]

Thank you Duke and Bruce! The Corsair is still a very interesting project to be working on and I'm definitely not shelving it to work only on the K-4. The Tamiya engineering is very interesting to experience first hand and I finally understand the heaps of praise that this kit has received. There's good, there's VERY good and then there is Tamiya.

[jkim]

I decided to paint the windscreen. I have a couple of masking options to choose from... the Montex mask set which has a full set of inside and outside canopy masks. And then the Tamiya kit comes with tape masks but you have to cut them out manually. I used a mixture... the Montex masks for the inside and the Tamiya masks for the outside.


The interior of the windscreen was painted first: satin black (actually very dark grey).


After the interior masks were removed, there was one cockpit part to be added. This was painted black and finished off with a decal from the Barracuda decal set.


Before the windscreen was glued into place, I attached the armor glass.



The windscreen is clicked into place and secured with Tamiya Extra Thin glue.



I ran into a hiccup while working on the center wing assembly. I lost one of the small exterior parts to the carpet monster. One of a pair of small fairings that go over the attachment point to the flaps. I've made two extensive searches for the missing part and even recruited my wife but the part remains missing. I'll have to scratch up a replacement but I find it really hard to sculpt such small pieces of plastic. <Sigh>

[Floki]

That armored glass assembly looks so good installed. If your luck is anything like mine you will find the part immediately after completing the replacement.

[LyleW]

I am continually amazed by your talent. I am guessing those are pre-cut masks. Please tell me they were. Still, placement is spot on. Someday, if I ever grow up....