Tamiya 1/48 Corsair
The Tamiya F4U-1D out of the box, which is precisely what I needed after the long slog through the Trumpeter Su-25. It's perfect. Follow the directions and use the time to hone your painting skills. Tom Cleaver's "Corsair 101" article is essential, and when I compared it to the MilViz FG-1D in MSFS, I found the simulated version to be dead-on accurate. Why more large collections of aircraft haven't invited flightsim developers to crawl over their planes and partner in releasing them so mere mortals can fly them is beyond me, but oh well.
Since this was entirely out of the box, I used this opportunity to look for solutions for some weathering problems.
I was puzzled how to accurately replicate the exposed bolt heads like you see here:
and it came to me quite unexpectedly: I was attempting to dab some vallejo metallic paint off the plane and realized that it wiped off cleanly from the panels, but settled into the engraved panel lines. Eureka! Just make sure you have a gloss coat for it to sit on, and the Vallejo Metallics will take care of the rest.
A number of photos show fuel stains from the main tank, so I put down a very light stripe of "darth blue" colorshift paint which gives that appropriate petrol sheen. Blotches of yellow chromate primer, blotches of alumnium, a nice and refreshing build. Now to throw caution, my temper, blood pressure, patience and good sense and take a serious look at this Kitty Hawk kit that's been glaring at me...
Wes - @avispa93 - this is a really nice take on Tamiya's Corsair, showing just how good it is OOB.
A couple things - none of which is a criticism or complaint about your nice work here: the wear on the Corsair you're looking at in the photo is with the tri-color scheme. That paint was very subject to wear, to the point that when a plane in that scheme returned from a six month tour in WestPac, the paint often looked like chalk on the skin of the plane. That's why they went with Glossy Sea Blue, which is about the toughest paint I've ever dealt with. When we stripped F4U-7 BuNo 133722, it took six months with industrial strength paint stripper to get through three layers of paint down to the bare aluminum. Thus, you're right to only show wear, and little of it, on screw heads. Anything more than that while aboard a carrier got touched up as quickly as possible, since salt air is deadly to bare aluminum in starting the corrosion process. That Corsair you're looking at in the photo is not only tri-color but land-based in the Central Pacific. Small atoll for an operating base, still lots of salt air, but less time by the crews to do corrosion maintenance, so you see more than you would if aboard ship.
The good old Tamiya Corsair is always a good way to take a break after something like the Su-25.
That makes sense, what with my not being aware of the durability of GSB paint. Would I then be correct to assume that any wear, ding or scuff that was sufficient enough to scrape away Gloss Sea Blue would also scrape away the primer and expose the bare aluminum without leaving any primer residue?
Not necessarily. Scuffs can be anywhere along the continuum from a scratch in the top coat, through to bare metal.
A very fine looking Corsair, Wes @avispa93
The weathering did turn out very well.
Did you thin the Vallejo metalic paint prior to applying it.
No, never, it's quite thin directly out of the bottle. In fact, the lighter shades are almost too thin to use with a brush. I just dip the bristles of my brush into the flip-top cap for the paint residue and that's enough for me to work with.
A fantastic result, Wes! Congratulations!
Great take on a classic kit.
Tamiya Corsairs are the comfort food for modelers. This kit is the one that aircraft modelers can treat like a tank.
You, can't dirty this kit up enough or you can hide things and still come up with a great model. Same holds true for the Douglas Sky Raider . The above photo show lots of oil and fuel stains. Can you imagine doing that to your daily ride.
Thank you, Wes for sharing. Your build is a inspiration for filling my bucket list and looking over my kit in the stash.
Hit the like button.
A well done Tamiya Corsair.
Nice build. Tamiya Corsairs and P-47s. like Stephen says, are comfort food for modelers who need to take a break from some of the limited run stuff out there!
Good looking Corsair! Nicely done.