Revell 1/48 Corsair F4U-4, VMF-214 Black Sheep July, 1951
This time I present a model of which the sprues are even older than I am.
It is the Corsair F4U-4 (1/48) from Revell dated 1963.
The model represents a plane from VMF-214 Black Sheep squadron in July 1951.
Got this model from my daughter as a fathers day present.
This gave me extra drive to make it as nice as possible.
The kit itself is meant to have retractable gear and folding wings.
I decided to fix all these elements because having all these movable parts results in lots of gaps which I did not like.
It meant that I had to use quite a lot of putty and do the same amount of grinding.
Although there are still signs of the grinding, to me it turned out not that bad.
For the rest, the fitting is ok.
Because of the age of the model, it consisted of raised panel lines and lacks of details.
Still you are able to make a decent model out of it.
Decals came out pretty nice as well to my opinion.
To remember the age of the model, I left the copyright markings on the bottom of the fuselage.
At the end of the build I almost ruined the plane, I was at the point to bring on the varnish, so I filled up the airbrush and brought the system under pressure.
Just before pulling over the lever I noticed that I filled the cup with primer instead of varnish.
Lesson learned from this is that I will not put the primer and varnish next to each other anymore.
The model is build OOB, except for adding a lot of putty.
Exterior paint (Glossy Sea Blue 71300), primer (white) and varnish (satin) are all from Vallejo.
Very nice work on this old bird! There's always a soft spot for the models given by your kids...
Thanks Jaime,
For sure it helps if someone is looking over your shoulders.
Great vintage build! Your daughter must be proud 🙂
Thanks Rick,
She sure is, the building for her just didn't go fast enough.
This is an amazing job on this old model, John.
I can imagine the smile at your Daughter's face...
Thanks Spiros, @fiveten
For sure there was a smile, and it is not easy to get a teenager smiling.
Looks great!
Thanks Robert.
Hello John...Working with some of the old Monogram classics can surely be fun and brings back memories of our earlier years of modeling. You did a fine job with that Corsair build and the fact that it was a gift from your daughter makes it extra special. Well done Sir.
Thanks Jim.
It was definitely fun building this kit, not easy, but as you said, special.
Nice job. They must’ve modified those molds. The last time I built that kit was in the late ‘70s and it had no interior except a pilot on a peg to attach to a bulkhead. Monogram had you glue a paper instrument panel to a ledge molded to the fuselage halves.
Thanks John,
Then for sure there has been an improvement, but they can still improve more on this kit. Transparant parts for example.
Paper instruments, that sounds special.
My recollection is the original kit had the skinny little wheels that were heat-swagged onto the landing gear axles. I have this kit with the nicer wheels. Yours looks really nice! Well done, John.
Your Corsair came out great, John (@JohnB). It is hard to believe this is the Revell kit, which I have build and I can confirm you should never attempt this kit without a couple of tubes of putty. When the kit comes from your kids it makes all the work worthwhile.
🙂 … Greetings … 🙂 :
A MONOGRAM model always brings good memories, but this one … being a gift from your daughter, well, really sets it apart from the rest in your collection.
You did very well on the subtle weathering, very nice modeling John.
Thanks DE4EVER,
It surely has a special position amongst my other models.
Great job with that old kit! If I remember right, they updated the cockpit when they re-released it around '85 or so, but still used the dark blue & black colored styrene. Think I have an older one in the stash but like John Healy said, pretty sure it's a pilot glued to a bulkhead with a decal for a instrument panel.
Thanks, Doug,
This one had some minor details.
The pilot (which I left out) had a seat in this build.
Instrument panel on this one is a decal as well.
Good-looking build of that old kit! Well done.
Thanks, Greg.
One heck of a build...the old gal still looks good. There is something about a GSB paint job that cures all modelling flaws...
This Corsair turned out extremely nice John @johnb . I remember building one in the 1970s, when I was a kid , and being very happy with it. I’m sure mine wasn’t anywhere as nice as this one.
@ssgt, thanks a lot, Jay
One of the first kits I build after returning to this hobby. The kit has quite some fit issues so definitely not the best result.