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

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Beautiful weathering work Kirby! Be very vigilant about removing the excess salt as even cleaning can deposit the salt into unlikely places.

Thanks guys and I hear you John, little crusty deposits keep showing up in weird places even where they didn't seem to be before!
 
Thanks very much guys!

Well, I managed to finish her an hour before the entry deadline for the show! In the mad rush, these were the last photos I managed to take. The next pics will be the completed model when I get her back from the show.

The next phase of weathering was to go to work with the oils. The work to date was sealed with a light coat of Pledge before some oil dot filtering on the upper surfaces to introduce some subtle chromatic variation to the monotone camo. I took the opportunity to predominantly use dark colours along hinge and selected panel lines to introduce shadows, dirt and grime, and subtly differentiate panels.

oil dot fading web.jpg


The undersides were treated differently, with a mix of Lamp Black and Raw Umber and also some Ochre used to create stains and streaks. Again, shadows were created along selected panel lines to differentiate panels. I tried to keep it relatively subtle as it's easy to go overboard on a white base, and we also have exhaust staining to come.

underside weathered web.jpg


Sub-assemblies were treated in the same way, with some extra oil and grime staining built up on the bottom of the cowl. The prop was also subjected to salt fading, oil fading with Transparent White applied in subtle streaks across the blades, and finally sponge chipping with aluminium enamel. Everything was sealed with a light coat of Pledge and then the airframe and assembles given a light panel line and rivet oil wash with Raw Umber.

sub assemblies weathered web.jpg


Apologies for the crappy rushed pics but hopefully you can see more of this in the finished pics...
 
Thanks guys and no worries Andy, here we go...

All of the sub-assemblies were added to the model and a little more dirt and grime added to selected areas using oils. The model was then given a flat coat using Gunze Flat Clear and the masks removed from the canopies and various navigation and identification lights. Exhaust stains were then built up by airbrushing a very thin mix of Tamiya XF-1 Black and XF-64 Red Brown.

Mig Light European Earth pigment (which looks to be a decent approximation of crushed coral) was then applied to the tyres and landing gear with a dry brush, making sure to stipple it into the tyre treads. The pigment was then wetted with Tamiya enamel thinner, allowed to dry, and removed from the raised tread with my finger. Other parts of the tyre and landing gear were blended with a dry brush.

Stains from the gun ports and shell ejection chutes were built up using Soot from the Tamiya Weathering Master. Tape used to cover the gun ports to prevent coral dust and grit fouling the machine gun barrels was represented using Tamiya tape sprayed Insignia White.

underside finished web.jpg


The antenna was rigged with EZ-line and a small segment of brass micro tube used to represent the tensioner and rubber cylinder for the antenna and lead-in wire.

aerial web.jpg


You can see in this photo the raking pre-shading introduced in post #206 has persisted through and added some nice depth to the rudder ribs - I'll be using that technique again. Finally, some fine chipping of rivets and around the cockpit was introduced using a Prismacolor silver pencil.

And with that, I'm calling this DONE!! This has been the most challenging build I have undertaken to date and has taken me out of my comfort zone many times - but I like that and is the way one develops as a modeller. I can't speak highly enough of the engineering of this Tamiya kit, there have been virtually no fit issues which is amazing for a kit of this complexity. The only criticism I can make is that the decals are too thick and I would highly recommend buying a set of masks and painting the major markings.

So, a few pics of the finished bird. I will create a Finished thread when I have a moment in the next few days which will have the complete set of finished photos.

underside finished b web.jpg


nose close up web.jpg


port rear web.jpg


side close up web.jpg


cockpit finished b web.jpg


Thanks for following along this build guys, really appreciate it.
 
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