1/72 Chance Vought Corsair Mk.IV/FG-1D, 1841 Naval Air Squadron FAA, HMS Formidable FAA

[36feet10inches]

My latest "quick and dirty" build. This is an Airfix kit, the moulds for which I believe date from 1964 - people were knocking these together when the Beatles were having their early hits! Very basic but for all that great fun to build. The interior is about the crudest on any kit I've seen, more rivets than the Forth Bridge but it went together nicely. The decals were great, very forgiving. The canopy came out very scruffy, if anyone has any tips for removing a stray bit of acrylic paint I'd be grateful. This bullds "ah crap" mmoments include putting a crack in the canopy with excessive thumb pressure, realising I needed to clip the wings halfway through putting the decals on and one of the 1mm x 0.5mm prop decals coming adrift and falling to the carpet - 20 minutes on my hands and knees with a high powered torch!

This particular plane was flown by Canadian pilot Robert Hampton "Hammy" Grey, who was awarded a posthumous VC after sinking the Japanese ship Amakusa then being shot down. I don't get too hung up on authenticity, but I've seen this kite represented with a silver prop nose, a partly silver prop nose, a black prop nose and a blue prop nose; one or two radio masts; blue or silver wheels; and two different sizes of roundela. I did it per the instructions, except just one radio mast seems to be the consensus and added the silver prop nose, but it gave me an insight into the challenges that proper modellers deal with. I love the look of these late war all-blue lend-lease FAA machines, not least because spraying them all over with Humbrol acrylic 15 takes no time compared to the earlier camo-over-sky schemes!

Cheers

 

[Wurger]

 

[rochie]

Very nice, i went with black prop hub

 

[36feet10inches]

Very nice, i went with black prop hub

View attachment 581574

...and blue wheels! That's lovely. Which kit is it? The longer black stripes on the wings are another apparent question mark.

 

[rochie]

It was the Academy 1/48 kit.

Yes i was undecided about the black wing walkway stripes but put them on in the end to break up the blue a bit

 

[Airframes]

Nice one.
You can use toothpaste to remove the paint from the canopy, which will also polish it. A car body colour restorer, such as 'T Cut' can also be used, being more 'aggressive'. I use the latter for removing scratches, and to give a smooth, clear finish.
Pics below show it being used to polish out the remains of where a frame had been on a 1/32nd scale Beaufighter canopy, frames removed then polished smooth.

 

[36feet10inches]

Nice one.
You can use toothpaste to remove the paint from the canopy, which will also polish it. A car body colour restorer, such as 'T Cut' can also be used, being more 'aggressive'. I use the latter for removing scratches, and to give a smooth, clear finish.
Pics below show it being used to polish out the remains of where a frame had been on a 1/32nd scale Beaufighter canopy, frames removed then polished smooth.


View attachment 581582View attachment 581583View attachment 581584View attachment 581585

Thanks for the tip. It's just a little but that's got round the masking tape but it's front and centre so I want to try and get rid of it.

 

[Crimea_River]

Nice model.

Terry's tip is a good one but it may not be necessary to go to those lengths to remove acrylic paint. Simply carve the end of a toothpick (I think you Britischers call them "cocktail sticks") into a chisel shape and scrape the paint off. This method should leave the clear plastic undamaged but it will NOT work with enamels or lacquers.

 

[Gnomey]

Good work!