Tamiya F4U-1 Birdcage Corsair 1/48 Scale
When Tamiya came out with their excellent Corsair, I had to jump at the chance to build one. Of coarse this led to another and another, and so on. You know how that is !
Plenty has been said about the kit, over the last few years so I'll skip the review, but I will just say this is a great kit, I'm sure everybody that has built it will agree.
Although I built this kit around 10 years ago, I have cleaned it up twice since. The first minor rebuild was to correct a few minor errors, however like most of us when we are not quite satisfied we will eventually try to fix those nagging imperfections, or as I like to say " one last chance to wreck it"!
So a while back I'd finally had enough and took it off the shelf and went to work.
The first thing was to remove the cowl and wire the engine, I then touched up a seem dent, and painted the walkways on the upper wing surface. A little more paint chipping especially around the gun areas and the leading edge of the wings. I of course broke the antenna wire so that was replaced. A little pastel chalk to bring out that wonderful South Pacific sun baked look (especially on the canvas covered areas) and there your have it, one Birdcage Corsair representing VMF 124 on Guadalcanal in 1943.
This is a beautiful Corsair, Terry.
Nice painting and weathering!
Great looking Corsair.
Nicely done Terry, and as you mentioned it is a great kit.
You did perform a great job on this Corsair.
Well done.
Good looking build and the faded finish is very well done.
Love all the tonal variation you achieved with this - looks fantastic!
Thanks Greg, I find it a lot of fun playing with the shade variations on the different panels. The results can be really effective and gives some good life to your project, especially these blue/grey schemes. Like always, just have to be careful not to over do it.
The paintwork is wonderful - very realistic. You're right, the Tamiya Corsairs are among the best kits ever released.
Great work Terry and the refinements you mentioned only enhance an already fine Corsair model. Now if we could only get an F4U-4 out of Tamiya, we Corsair lovers would be in great shape.
A F4F-4 would be great, lots of options there !
Nicely done!
It gives new meaning to say that a kit is a work in progress,
What with more knowledge and experience in painting and weathering...one can do a better presentation too.
Two thumbs up on this classic Terry.
Thanks Stephen, This is a good example of my learning process, especially when it comes to paint technic, and having friends like Dave "Corsair" Hansen, and Jim Sullivan to show me everything Corsair !
Your model captures the image my brain shows me whenever I think if early Corsairs, a simple but neat model with a great paintwork
Thanks Pedro, for some reason I had a little trouble with my photography on this posting. I feel that the panel pre-shading is a little darker than it actually is in real life.
Terry, @shoobiz
This is a great looking Corsair. It's also my favorite plane. Your comments about building these Tamiya F4U's are spot on. They are the very best one on the market in my opinion if you want an early version. It really would be fantastic if Tamiya were to release a newer F4U-4 through the dash 7 series like Hobby Boss has done in 1/48. Prior to the HB releases you had the older Hasegawa kits. They looked OK and were very easy to build, but they lacked the details that the Tamiya kit has. The HB kits are nice, but they too have their own problems with the dash 5 and newer versions boxed with a fabric covered wing like the earlier birds had. These newer Corsairs had metal clad wings. I especially like how you have refinished your plane. You did a fine job of it. I have had the opportunity to be around several F4U's as their restorations were being done, and yours looks like a Corsair should.
Take care and stay safe.
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