Good morning,
New project on the bench, the spectacular 1/32 Tamiya's F4U-1A. I chose to depict a late bird, BuNo50165, VMF-321, Guam August-November 1944, been flown by Lt R.S.T. Marsh and Cpt. G.T. Doster
This late bird, according to Dana Bell's book Vol.2, had some differences from the early ones...dead cowl flaps, ADI (Anti Detonation Injection), short forward antenna mast, VHF mast, cockpit flare pistol, no wing landing light, no fuselage observation window. I will also use kit parts H15 - H18 and H23 as those parts are necessery for the R-2800-8W, the water injection version of the engine!!!
The tamiya's kit is well known...
And some aftermarkets...
I had also bought the Yahu's instrument panel but finally i did not use it. I chose to use the tamiya's panel but with some modification. I had also Airscale's individual instrument faces at my disposal but strangely they did not fit...so i used mostly tamiya's decals. As tamiya had the instruments facing upside down, i watered the decal, turned upwards so that to punch, as accurate as i could, the instrument faces!!!
I sanded down the domed surfaces on the clear part, not al of it, so that they would fit inside the holes and placed the instrument dials in front. After everything was dry i put a blob of UV resin to immitate the glass, placed the appropriate stencils and washed it with a light oil filter.
Throttle modification...with my trusty JLC razor saw..
For the round heads on the controls i also used UV resin.
Next i dealt with the Vector resin cowl and cowl flaps, a tendious work but i think i managed it, we will judge the outcome when the assemply time will come...
....