<> **** DONE: 1/32 Corsair F4U-1A - WW1 / WW2 over Water.

[turbo]

Thanks for checking in guys.

Finished the basecoat on the undersides by painting the fabric areas a lighter shade of Intermediate Blue to represent some fading.

You can see the mottling and panel line effects left over the pre-shade a bit better in these pics.

Her indoors is asking questions about where her hairspray has gone so better get on with chipping of the wings. You'll recall from earlier posts that the first stage of 2-layer chipping was carried out by hairspray chipping of ZCY primer over the airframe aluminium. This was sealed with satin varnish (my 15:1 mix of Pledge:Tamiya Flat Base) and left to dry before receiving another couple of coats of hairspray. This was left to dry for about 30 min and then a rudimentary pre-shade was quickly sprayed with an acrylic scale black mix.

This was quickly followed by application of the Sea Blue camo (Gunze H54 lightened with a bit of white) using the same mottling technique as was used on the undersides.

After another 30 min to dry, it was time to go to work with the water and stiff brush. References show that wear on Corsair wings was predominantly on the front inner parts as ground crew often used to mount the wing by climbing up from the wheel onto the low part of the leading edge and then stand on the forward area to access the engine cartridge starter, oil filler port, hydraulic access door, and fuel filler port. Several of these hatches were on the starboard side (which is also the side the pilot generally boarded), so chipping will be more pronounced on this side. Crew would then often dismount by sliding down in between the lowered flaps at the low point of the wing, so this area will also receive chipping, as well as along the leading edges of the wing. References show chipping often along rivet lines as these raised areas would be more susceptible to wear from foot traffic.

I'm quite pleased with how the 2-layer chipping has worked here, with a nice combination of primer and bare metal showing through. I've only done the port side at this stage as drying times for both the hairspray and paint are important so I prefer to work in sections. Unfortunately, hairspray chipping is not something you can start and walk away from then finish later and it can be tough for me to find the 2-3 hr uninterrupted session needed. Could be a struggle to the deadline for this as I've still got a fair bit of weathering and other odds and ends to do but we'll battle on...

 

[Crimea_River]

That's looking fantastic Kirby. You're a real artisan with paints.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

Excellent work man....

 

[T Bolt]

Totally agree!

 

[rochie]

That does look very impressive Kirby

 

[Robert Porter]

Very nicely done!

 

[Airframes]

Agree with all - very nice work there Kirby.

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far!

 

[JKim]

I really like the way the chipping came out. And the modulation that you achieved with your under whites is looking really good. Excellent work here!

 

[fubar57]

Great weathering

 

[turbo]

Thanks for the encouragement guys and thanks for the complement Andy - I'm pushing myself out of my comfort zone with the painting on this one!

The Intermediate Blue/Sea Blue camo basecoat was completed on the upper side using the same method of slowly building up a mottled faded pattern over the pre-shade with well-thinned paint. Lightened shades of the base colours were then used to selectively accentuate fading further and represent repaired rivet lines, etc. Like the undersides, the fabric areas on the wings were painted a lighter shade as paint there faded faster than on the aluminium parts of the airframe.

If you're wondering what the heavily faded areas forward of the cockpit are, Corsairs of this era were notorious for profusely leaking fuel from the filler port forward of the windscreen, which is why you would see many of them wearing sealing tape over the panel lines in this area. The fuel leaks would cause significant fading and staining of the paint, which you can see in this picture of the kite which is the subject of this build. You can also see how faded and dirty these land-based Corsairs were in the Pacific theatre.

The faded areas will serve as the base for building up these fuel stains. The cowl is dry-fitted for now and the scratch-built pulley system for the cowl flaps is nicely visible, so I didn't waste my time and sanity there!

I masked and painted one of the machine gun access panels an unlightened shade to represent a new replacement panel for a bit of visual interest.

The fabric elevators were also painted a lightened faded shade. The starboard aileron was also painted a more solid unlightened colour to represent a new replacement part.

Thanks for stopping by guys, appreciate it

 

[fubar57]

Nice detailed painting Kirby. Enjoying this.

 

[Wurger]

Bravo !

 

[Airframes]

Very nicely done Kirby, especially that tricky fuel flow stain. The coral dust of the islands certainly played hell with the paint finish, and I'd guess caused a lot of mechanical wear too !

 

[Robert Porter]

Fuel expansion was a noted issue in the heat of the Pacific. Enough so that there was some experimentation with different types of fuel caps to prevent blow off and safely relieve pressure. I remember in particular it was an issue with B-29's which were usually packed full of fuel, as I assume most fighters would be.

 

[Crimea_River]

Wonderful paint work again Kirby.

 

[turbo]

Thanks very much Geo, Wojtek, Terry, Robert, and Andy!

Fuel expansion was a noted issue in the heat of the Pacific. Enough so that there was some experimentation with different types of fuel caps to prevent blow off and safely relieve pressure.

Thanks Robert, I was wondering what caused this copious amount of leakage, whether it was fuel expansion, bad design, or a combination of both...

The coral dust of the islands certainly played hell with the paint finish, and I'd guess caused a lot of mechanical wear too !

Sure did Terry, a lot of the airstrips were made from crushed coral which could cause various issues. For example, they often taped the machine gun ports with white tape to keep coral dust thrown up by the prop out of the gun barrels (I'll be representing this on this build).

 

[Wayne Little]

Scrubbing up real nice Kirby.

 

[turbo]

Thanks a lot Wayne.

Moved on to painting the national insignia to find some of the Montex masks had slightly contracted or become disfigured. Maybe this was due to storing them in a hot room during the summer?? In any event, it meant a lot more prodding and measuring and making sure everything was straight and aligned which added considerable time to the exercise

Started with the wings to make sure I could get everything working properly. Ordinarily I wouldn't do it this way, but needed to adjust to deal with the out of shape masks. Reverse masked the star and bars taking care to ensure everything was aligned, then placed the outer mask around this. I've also masked and sprayed the non-slip walkways.

After everything was burnished down, the star and bars were sprayed insignia white, with some slight mottling.

The template for the star and bars was then removed and they were masked.

Then Gunze FS15044 Insignia Blue lightened 10% with Tamiya XF-2 white was sprayed and the outer mask removed. You can only just see it because the Gunze paint is a gloss, but a faded mottled pattern has been sprayed. Ignore the fibre sitting on the insignia, it's not stuck there!

Remove the star and bar masks and it's done

Well, that was a real pain in the @rse and I still haven't tackled the fuselage markings yet. It's well worth the effort though I think, as the decals on a model this scale are massive and would obscure much of the beautiful fine surface detail present on this kit. I also find some weathering techniques, particularly oils, problematic over decals even after varnish coats.

On to the fuselage insignia if my sanity prevails...