Corsair build, some tips, and what a great fit
First, the beer. I am not in general fond of Pumpkin beers, especially ones from larger breweries. As often as not it is like they tried to stuff a pie in a bottle with some alcohol. But here in the Pacific Northwest I have found 3 I like. One is the one seen from Ninkasi Brewery on Eugene, slightly hoppy, some spice but not sweet. The other is Elysian Night owl, slightly less hoppy and more spice, but again not icky sweet. The last is one I have yet to find this year and that it Pike's Harlots' Harvest which is the best of the bunch in my opinion. Anyway on the the Corsair. As I detailed the inside of the aftermarket cowl flaps, added the exhausts to the engine etc. I found myself wondering how I was going to mask the area without damaging it. Also I was wondering how I would be able to sand the joints where the center wing assembly meets at the front of the firewall. I decided to try holding the pieces together and see if I could slip the exhaust in place and fit the engine/cowl assembly on afterwards, and I could! So I glued things together and sanded. My plan is to paint the fuselage, add the front section so I can mark the demarkation lines, the pull it off and paint it using a circular mask at the back. Then I will attach it and touch up/even out things and then weather the whole aircraft. I will say this is the best fitting model I have ever built, the last 3 pictures show the fit, and the only spots I have used filler on so far. The wing leading edge on the port side, was entirely my fault having gotten heavy handed sanding off the sprue attachment. On to the landing gear! On that note, the wheels and tires are not as great as the rest of the kit, so I have some smooth tread Barracuda resin replacements coming. Pictures show most VF-17 birds with smooth tread, so the diamond pattern is not correct anyway. Though my bet is they used what they had and you would be safe using either. Also no MG barrels in the kit, just holes in the wings. So I have some barrels coming as well, won't see them much, but I will know they are there!
Looking really good Rob, real good.Good to see that the beer is back.
Practically impossible to "screw the pooch" on that build...if it isn't that elusive 'perfect kit' out there, you'd be hard pressed to find one that is.
Rob, you're making me feel like I should go and attack one of my Tamiya 1/32 F4Us! I have two that keeping telling me they need to be built! You're making excellent progress. But you're also whetting my appetite for some of your local brew - which I'm sure is un-obtanium in Oz! Still, we have some pretty damn decent micro-breweries too, so I don't feel too bad!
Thanks guys, and Oz has some awesome beer, having visited your fair land several times whilst in the USN I can attest to that! One of my favorite watering holes un Sydney was the Lord Nelson, I believe there is a brew called Three Sheets there, that is quite good, as well as several others!
Looking good, Cheers 🙂
Mighty fine Rob and I look forward to more pics as she comes along. I'm hoping to start on one of those kits soon myself.
Coming along great.
Yes - coming along well - again, too bad so much of that work under the cowl will never be seen! But as you said - "I'll know it's there," and it's fun to put the detail work into these critters anyway!
Thanks again guys. I have narrowed down my markings to #3 Jim Streig, though his national indignia red, not red, some red, light blue? Has me a bit crazy, #17 Roger Hedrick, with his aircraft I can't seem to find a picture of the port side to see if as the decal makers have, he carried kill markins on both sides (some in VF-17 did others not) or #5 Tom Killefer which I have pretty good pictures of all sides of his aircraft. Ahhh first world problems 🙂
Pumpkin in a bottle! - halloween approaching? Fresh and healthy looking speciality. I feel almost thirsty ... what might be the optimal serving temperature?
And I like the Corsair details, too 😉
I just have it at whatever temperature the fridge is at so I am not really sure, too cold though and you will suppress the spiciness. When my garage is cold in the winter say in the 50s (we have a well insulated garage) that is a nice temperature for fall/winter beers
Thanks for the tip. Checked Ninkasi Brewery pages - interesting company & they have some nice labels. Hopefully after InternetOfThings we will get InternetOfDrinks which will allow us to ”pipe download” local brewers interesting products around the world 😉
Oooooooh, Baby!
Looks good. Nothing to fault here!
A word of caution: The landing gear strut installation is a VERY tight, almost a one-shot deal kind of fit. If you want to do fit testing, sand away any paint to have on the locator pins on the very top and maybe polish them a little bit. The tolerances are SO close, and the attachment point and the lower part of the strut at the upper part of the oleo section, are the weak points on the strut. Mal Belford sheared the strut on the lower end and it sidelined the project for over 6 months. You have been warned.
But other than that, nothin but love, man!
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Thanks David, yes the fit is tight, I gave them a test fit after assembly. The Baracudda wheels are amazing though, much better than the kiy ones.