Tamiya 1:32 Corsair F4U-1A Build

Nice work. I don't know what those tubes do either.

Great work so far!

Thank you!

One of my pictures yesterday was not an image of the Fine Arts Models r-2800. Instead, it is an image from a company that produces super-realistic 3D computer images. That firm is TurboSquib, an Internet-based company that offers very fine 3D models to the trade by various artists world-wide.

Today I almost finished installing the ignition wiring. I erred in not drilling the spark plug holes in the forward face of the back set of cylinders, since I now had to do it with the engine assembled.

I used the Molotow Chrome pen to pick out some bolt heads and the upper and lower clamps on the push rod tubes.

I assembled the engine starting with assembling the inter-connecting intake and exhaust pipes to the back of the forward bank. These are two-part affairs that are glued together and then you need to touch up the semi-gloss black of the intake tubes if you do what I did and airbrush the exhaust parts when they were on the sprue. Part of that piece is a section of the intake tube.

The rear cylinder bank went together very easily. Tamiya has been doing something that Trumpeter ought to learn. They connect the sprue gate to the rear of the part, not the side. There is no nub on the side that, when removed, can damage the part. Instead, the nub is on the rear gluing surface and is very easy to remove. To this rear bank I first installed the rear pushrod tubes, and then the rear engine case that has the intake tubes that exit from the supercharger housing. The rear engages with the front bank with a keyed inner ring and engages with the intake tubes that are coming from the front bank. When they do, the whole deal just pops together.

With the engine assembled I needed to prepare the ignition harness ring. This part is smaller and more frail than I would have liked. In fact, before I got it fully removed from the sprue it broke in half. I repaired this break by carefully drilling 0.021" to both ends of the break and CA'd it back together with a piece of same-sized phosphor bronze wire. I then had to drill the very small connection points (16) with the same sized drilled. Two wires eminate from each connection point. It was very dicey since the top of the connection point was wider than the little tube that connected it to the ring. Some of the holes went down the center, but a couple broke out of the side. I was almost going to plan B, by using and actual piece of copper wire to make this part, but I persisted with it.

For the wires, I chose 0.010" brass netting that was on the top of some Italian Montepulciano D'Abruzzi Tuscan wire. It was a twisted net with all the wires intertwined with each other. The two wires twisted together were 0.021" which is the same size as the holes I drilled and I actually wanted to use the twisted part too.



To keep the twisted part from unraveling I soldered the twist just before it separates into the individual wiring. I was able to use the twisted part to anchor the wires into the holes in the ring and then captivate them using thin and medium CA plus a bit of accelerator.

I planned ahead with the cylinder head baffles by drilling the ignition wire pass-through holes before painting and separating them from their sprues. I then airbrushed them semi-gloss black and, when dry, glued them in place.

The rear wire for the front bank goes through the hole and then bends down out of sight. The front wire for the rear bank goes straight back to the plug since it's right in the middle of the cylinder facing you... although it's tricky to get the wire into the hole. The rear wire for the rear bank goes through its hole and drops down behind the cylinder. It could be belayed into the spark plug area in those cylinders if your inclined to insanity since it will be completely hidden by the cowl. Even if you use the transparent cowls included in the the US version of this kit you probably won't be able to resolve where these wires are ending up. Although if I have a cowl in an open position you might see this termination, so I may terminate those that would be seen.

Here are the first four wires in place.



I got all but two wires in place before my session ended today. The paint is not touched up!



What still needs to be done is touching up the ring, the junction of the wires and the ring, the baffles (where the sprue connection was) and anything else that got worn. I'm also going to specifically paint the rocker covers a shinier metallic finish to differentiate them from the rest of the cylinders.

Sweet

Excellent detail work !

That engine looks brilliant.

Well.. thank you! It looked good yesterday, it even looks better today since it's actually finished.

Got in the shop late today but got that last ignition lead installed, touch up painted the whole deal and added the last parts. The engine is complete and ready to go into the air frame. On the Trumpeter Avenger, not only was the engine detailed, but they included all the behing-the-firewall gear case stuff and engine mounts. These were then buried behind the skin. In order to show it all off I had to cut open the skin complicating the build considerably.

For some reason, the distributors didn't fit over the ignition ring properly and I had to doctor them a bit some they nestled in. I also added the magneto, the prop governor and the little part at the bottom which has something to with the oil sump.

These parts were supposed to be light gray, but I left the distributors semi-gloss black as I've seen in my pictures. Theoretically, there is some wiring that goes to an from the magneto, but enough it enough. This engine is done.

I painted the valve bodies Tamiya chrome silver, and touched up the rest. Interesting about Tamiya paint... unlike normal acrylics, which when dry can really be reconstituted, Tamiya when dry can be sort of brought back to life with isopropyl alcohol. It's not perfect, but it let me re-use a little bit of the light gray I mixed that had totally dried in the little epoxy cup I used as my mixing bowl. I was able to use it to touch up the gear case and paint the few added pieces.







And lastly, I stuck the engine onto the airframe to see how it looks. There are some cowl pieces that need to go on before gluing it in place, and these parts have to be painted dark gray in their interiors (although I have no idea why since they won't be seen). I am contemplating either using a clear cowl piece to show off the hardware, or put one of the pieces in an open/upward position to do the same thing. There are some of the front bank exhaust pipes that are not aligning perfectly with the pipe extension leading to the outlet.



Hard to believe that a power package that little put out 2,000 hp or more. By the end of the era for the 2,800, they were getting 2,800 hp out of it. That's 1 hp per cubic inch. Now to put that in perspective, top fuel dragsters are now getting almost 10,000 hp out of a basically 400 cu. in. engine, but they last for about 1 minute of running time. The 2,800 was running thousands of hours putting out that energy. If you don't want something to last more than a few minutes, you can get a heck of lot of HP out it.

Once the cowl pieces are fit, I'll be moving on to the flight control surfaces.

Very nice. That engine is a model in itself.

Beauty !

Excellent work so far!

Thank you! Yup! It could be sitting on a maintenance stand and look great. Unfortunately, it's going into the airplane.

After studying more images of the R-2800 I noticed two other prominent pipes that could easily be inculded since they're right in the front bottom of the engine and could be seen through the wide open cowl. These are oil scavenge lines that lead from the oil scavenge pump that sits at the bottom of the gear case and goes to the oil receiver at the bottom onf the front cylinder bank and the other goes back through the engine and ends up probably at the imaginary oil tank. The smaller lines is copper colored phosphor bronze and the larger a piece of 0.032" brass, both of which were made chrome by the Molotow Chrome pen. Now the engine's done! Whoops I just noticed that I didn't put on the PE builder's plate. I can do that through the open cowl.



With the engine complete it was time to install the forward cowl leading edge and the open cowl flap ring. You can have it will the cowl flaps open or closed. I chose open since it shows off more of the exhaust spaghetti. As usual the engineering was excellent in locating the cowls to the engine, but becuase I had painted the lugs that tie the valve covers on selected cylinders to the rings. So the glue was having trouble getting a good grip. I ended up helping it along with CA.

The remaining two exhaust collectors were put in place and then the entire engine was joined to the fuselage by using tube cement just on the center ring which has the heft to provide a good joint. The cowls varied depending on whether you're doing version A, B or C. The "Big Dog's" Corsair was the earlier B version. This plane had opening cowl flaps at the 11 to 1 o'clock posirtions. These were eventually closed off permanently when the airplane had the habit of fouling the windsceen with leakage from the engine. The B model also had the original shorter tailwheel. It was raised in subsequent models to give the pilot of better view forward over the huge nose for carrier use. The long nose was the reuslt of having the fuel tank in front of the cockpit. A couple of tiny PE pieces help hold in the opened top flaps.



I liked how the new exhaust pipes nested into the others that were already in place.



This was set aside to dry. While the cowls were setting up, I started on the horizontal stabilizer. Both stabs are the same. It was clear that Vought chose to do this to simplify construction. One side has a series of circular access panels. So one the right side they're on top, and the left they're on the bottom. The trim tabs separate parts as is the linkage that operates them. You can have the elevators in neutral or dropped position using a different hinge part. I chose to have them dropped.



When I glued the horizontal stabs in place, again I marveled at the fit. No filler needed. I used tube cement here to give a little more coverage and dwell time. I just put it on the middle of the mounting stub and let the stab push it further towards the junction.



Next up was the tailstrut and wheel. It's a lovely affair with lots of parts, great detail and good engineering. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have glued it in yet since it complicates masking the interior from the white bottom color, BUT... it is held in tightly held by a sandwhich with part M2 that's also a body part. I could have put that part in without glue, painted the bottom, removed it and then glued in the tail gear. But that plane has left the runway and the tail gear is glued in.



I airbrushed flat white, painted the hydralic ram with the Chrome pen and then installed it, and glued in place M2. That ring just behind the wheel caster hole is the attachment point for the catapult. It's a tail dragger so I guess they have to link up at the back. The diagonal link ending at the tail is the arresting hook operating lever.



I ended the day putting on the tail wheel doors. These too have two version depending on whether you're using the short of long tail wheel. So much of this model is detailed in plastic that you'd have to do with after market or scratch build. I will, however upgrade the wing fold area since I found some good reference materials for some added piping.

Work begins again on Monday. Have a great weekend.

Very nice engine work.

That's nice too! What's that from?

Can't find a source for it I'm afraid but its 1:32

Nice work, On the real aircraft, there's quite a bit of detail under the cowl flaps associated with their mechanism that would be visible with the flaps open. I won't spoil your party by showing you pics unless you want to go down that slippery slope. Happy to post if you want.

Yeah… I know that stuff is there, but don't think I'm going to put it in since the engine is glued into the plane and access is not very limited. I just like looking at all the exhaust pipes.