Flying Leathernecks...1/48 Vought F4U-1 Corsair, VMF-213 "Hell Hawks", USMC

26/2021

Here´s my dad´s newest model. Tamiya kit, Eduard seatbelts, EZ line for brake lines and antenna wires, painted with a blue-gray selfmix /Tamiya XF-18 + XF-2) and Gunze H51 Light Gull Grey.
Wanted to use HGW wet transfers. My dad tried them out for the first time. It´s a 50/50 chance to get them off the carrier paper intact, onto the model and the carrier film off again form the model without damaging the ink. In the end my dad only applied some stencils and half of the lady. The girl comes as two part transfer, a white background and the coloured body. Sadly only the background went on well, so my dad painted the lady. The rest of the stencils and the stars are from the kit, The dices, elevens and the kill marks are decals from the Kagero Monographs Corsair Vol.I.
Usually my dad is no fan of heavy weathering. But these Marines Corsairs were flown until they almost fell apart. So my dad decided to do a worn, beaten and corroded aircraft, playing around a bit with paint shading, oilpaints and chipping. For the latter he initially tried the salt method but got no satisfying result, washed it off again, did some repainting and chose the hairspray method. Regarding the cockpit paint, we read too late, that the early Corsairs had a Dark Dull Green or Bronze Green cockpit colour.

Build thread here
https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235100054-flying-leathernecks148-vought-f4u-1-corsair-vmf-213-usmc/

Aircraft of 1st Lt George C. Defabio, VMF-213 "Hell Hawks", Guadalcanal 1943

20 additional images. Click to enlarge.