1/32 Tamiya F4U-1 Corsair "Tojo Eats S***!" - COMPLETED

[doogsatx/]

We got another three inches of rain last night, so I had to postpone flatcoating the Scooter. Instead, I wrapped up main construction on the Corsair. Still have to place the aerial masts, but will do that after cleanup, and have to build out the main landing gear. But it should be in a good condition to paint in the near future. Too bad I'm heading out of town Saturday for a weeklong marathon of a business trip...







This is still, hands down, the nicest kit I've ever had the pleasure to work on. Just fantastic in every regard.

[wbill76]

Looks like you're getting the rain a day or so after us there Doogs! We've had 4 inches of rain the last couple of days as the remnants of Hurricane Odile move on...it's made life interesting here in the desert to say the least. Nice progress on the Corsair!

[doogsatx/]

Sept 19, 2014 13:10:33 GMT -5 wbill76 said:

Looks like you're getting the rain a day or so after us there Doogs! We've had 4 inches of rain the last couple of days as the remnants of Hurricane Odile move on...it's made life interesting here in the desert to say the least. Nice progress on the Corsair!

Yeah between Wednesday and Thursday we've had something like 8 inches...it's been awesome - I love a good, epic Texas thunderstorm - but it's been a bit rough for bench activities!

[Rick]

Keeps getting better and better Doogs. Lovin' it man! You keep getting rain down there you might have to slap some floats on it to keep it above water. Looking forward to some gear down time next time around. Picking up one of these is pretty tempting after watching you put your magic on it. Rick

[bbrowniii]

Doogs
I've been building the Trumpy Corsair (the -D), and I have to tell you, yours puts it to shame. The level of detail and the quality of engineering in that kit is stupendous. Then you add your work... WOW! Just WOW!!!

[doogsatx/]

Bit of work on the Corsair last night - sorting the landing gear. The test-fit revealed a pretty good fit, and the Barracuda wheels? Bee's knees, those things.

[imatanker]

Nice looking Gams Doogs. You're right Man, those tires and wheels look fantastic.

[wbill76]

Impressive detail on those wheels. You could almost read the inflation settings on them.

[doogsatx/]

More work on the gear. The legs basically need to be installed before paint, because of a few bits that fit around them. No big deal, because it's all light gray, but it means I need to paint them up first.

Also - these legs are impressive. They literally click into place. A less I wish other manufacturers would learn.





Paint is Gunze C11, with AMMO Rubber & Tires for the tires.

[doogsatx/]

So I'm not a paint nazi by any means, but I've never been particularly happy with the existing options for US Navy Blue Grey. They're often far too light and too blue (it was darker and greyer) than Intermediate Blue, or they're just way off base in some crazy land. Or not offered at all.

With all the weathering I want to do to the Corsair, I REALLY want to work with Tamiya paints, and it just so happens I have scanned paint chips of most of Tamiya's colors. Using Photoshop, layers and and opacity settings, I think I've got a pretty good mix for the blue grey. I don't need - or want - it to be exact, not with all the fading and dirtying in I have in mind, but I'd like to at least start from a similar place.

Not too bad, if I do say so...

[wbill76]

Looks like a good match from here Doogs, run with it! As you say, the weathering process will alter it anyhow so getting it that close to start with should leave you with plenty of room to work with.

[Leon]

Looks like a perfect color match Doogs.The resin wheels look great.

[doogsatx/]

Last night was finally time to stop procrastinating and put some masks on.

Imagine my happiness, then, to discover that the canopy mask set I got from Radu had shrunk, and did not fit at all.

Fortunately, Tamiya provides a canopy mask sheet with the Corsair. Unfortunately, they require that you cut the masks you yourself. With some of the various curves, especially on the windscreen and port windows, this is tedious and annoying. But...the Tamiya masks fit extremely well (as I remember them doing with the Spitfire's Malcolm hood).

[TRM]

Nice work on the masking Doogs! Looks like it would have been a PITA to do! Bring on the color!!

[bbrowniii]

You had to cut the masks yourself?? OH MY! Great job on that!

[doogsatx/]

Got the Corsair prepped for paint and started throwing primer last night.

Masking this thing was shockingly frustrating. The cockpit doesn't really lend itself to easy masking with the delicate PE armor plating and the front armored glass butting up against the windscreen.

The wingtip nav lights were also frustrating. Tamiya went the way of putting the light framing on the clear parts, necessitating a tiresome micro-masking job.



After that, time for primer! Got most of the stuff down before I realized it was so friggin' late.



Still have a long way to go before the blue starts flying. I'm planning to do some extensive pre-painting and hairspray chipping on the upper surfaces, so those will get underway next.

[imatanker]

That's looikn' the biz now Bud. Great work.

[doogsatx/]

Initial primer coat is down. Now the fun begins...slowly. Need to test a few of my painting approaches on some scrap before I commit to them. Stay tuned!

[doogsatx/]

Last night was given over to some experimentation.

I'm planning an extremely battered birdcage, and part of that will involve worn and chipped paint. Instead of just chipping down to bare metal, though, I wanted to show primer peeking through in places. Multilayer chipping, in other words.

This left me with some questions to resolve. Would going back over the chipped bare metal/primer with black and then with blue be too much for chipping to work? How necessary would it be to seal the chipped primer before putting stuff on top of it? What about "thinning" the paint on top with a water/windex solution to create a worn look?

Here's the fruit of my labors:



From aft forward, I conducted three tests. All of them began with alclad, followed by hairspray, followed by Tamiya XF-4 than was then chipped.

• Aft: No clear coat. Additional layer of hairspray over XF-4, followed by X-18 Semi-Gloss Black and XF-18 Medium Blue
• Mid: Clear coat of Gunze Semi-Gloss. Then hairspray, then X-18 and XF-18
• Very front: Clear coat of Gunze Semi-Gloss. No hairspray. X-18 and XF-18 and attempted thinning with Windex/water solution

The results were very clear - the middle approach far and away worked best. Without sealing, I was still chipping all the way down to the Alclad on the aft section, even after the black and blue had gone down. And up front, the Windex/water did nothing, until it did everything and bored right down to the Alclad.

All of this paves the way for me to begin painting the Corsair very soon. Can't wait!

[dupes]

Doogs - looks like there were some copy/paste issues in your last post here detailing the steps you took in the chipping tests.

[doogsatx/]

Not copy paste but formatting. Stupid bullets. Will fix shortly.

[dupes]

Roger roger.

[wbill76]

Looks like the experimental approach paid off Doogs, that middle section looks like just the right combination for what you're wanting to achieve.

[doogsatx/]

Started throwing paint at the Corsair last night! We'll see how far I can get with the painting before rain and/or next week's work travel grind things to a halt once again...

First, some Gunze Super Fine Silver as a base for chipping work.



Then, hairspray topped with Tamiya XF-4, serving the role as zinc chromate yellow. I also added a few bits of faint USN Blue Grey using my XF-18/XF-12 mix.



More to come...

[Rick]

Great progress Doogs. Appreciate the detail regarding the steps you're taking in the chipping process. I really like the dark to light finishing process. Looking forward to the next steps. Rick

[doogsatx/]

Last night was all about chipping. Since most of this will end up being covered over, I'm not going for anything pretty, more a random distribution with more areas of bare metal than primer. In retrospect I could have laid down a lot less XF-4 and been fine.

[doogsatx/]

Also, I put together a blog post walking through the chipping experiments, if anybody is interested:



doogsmodels.com/2014/10/09/technique-multi-layer-chipping/

[doogsatx/]

Started work on the light grey underside last night while the Gunze Semi-Gloss cured up top.

[TRM]

Superb work there Doogs!! The chipping and shading is adding so much to the depth of this one!! Keep it going!!

[doogsatx/]

Much work tonight!

Wrapped up the light gray, except for a small area up just aft of the cowl that I want to get to later, then did the chipping fluid, black, followed by my USN blue gray mix lightened with some white. Still a ways to go, but I did some chipping on the starboard wing just to make sure it'd work. I'd say so!