As we all saw in the excellent project earlier this year from group founder Louis Gardner - @lgardner - one can indeed get two nice-looking models from the currently-available F4U-4 models. However, getting an accurate model is a separate question.
There are currently four 1/48 F4U-4 models. I'll take them in order of appearance.
The Hasegawa F4U-4 first appeared in the summer of 1981, as I recall picking one up then at
Valley Plaza Hobbies. This was one of Hasegawa's releases of kits originally designed by Mania in the 1970s. It has all the strengths, and all of the weaknesses, of a kit from that era. Interestingly enough, as regards overall shape accuracy, it is still the best kit available, though it is far from contemporary standards and requires things like a resin cockpit (increasingly difficult to find) and aftermarket decals to get something acceptable. Louis certainly demonstrated what can still be done with this kit.
There is the Academy kit, which I think is definitely in the running - if not the leader - for Worst Copy Of Someone Else's Kit Design. Appearing in the mid-80s, its original inspiration is obviously the Hasegawa kit, but the designers badly botched their copying, coming up with a fuselage that is oversized and results in a model that is, at best, "Corsair-ish." To me, it barely qualifies as the proverbial doorstop. No matter what one does to improve it, the result is "putting lipstick on a pig."
The next two are from Hobby Boss - the F4U-4 and F4U-4B. These kits are scale-downs of the Trumpeter 1/32 F4U-4, and retain all of the problems as regards accuracy associated with that kit. The cowling isn't the right shape, the fuselage isn't quite right, the wings aren't at the right angle of dihedral, the cockpit is deficient, the gear wells and their doors are misshapen. From several feet away, glancing at one, it appears to be an F4U-4. With a lot of effort, it can become "less wrong," but that's as far as it goes.
Again, as stated at the beginning, as Louis demonstrated, if one accepts the kit limitations a nice looking model can be done.
There is a fifth alternative. It's a project for which there is a need of "some modeling skill required."
Around 2003, Czech Master's Kits (CMK) released a conversion set to create an F4U-4 from the Tamiya F4U-1D. The conversion consists of a well-molded resin cowling and cockpit, a forward engine accessory cowling and different lower wing mid-section, along with photo-etch parts for the cockpit and a vacuform canopy. It also includes resin horizontal stabilizers with separate elevators and a separate rudder, to pose the control surfaces dynamically. A set of decals is included that attempt to do the well-known Glossy Sea Blue/Gull Grey and White F4U-4 from NAS Olathe in the 1950s, and a Korean era Corsair from VF-114.
The canopy is best replaced by either the standard Tamiya canopy for the F4U-1D if the modeler is making an early-version F4U-4, or the Squadron vacuform canopy for the F4U-4 if making the later version with the flat-pane windscreen, but that is only available any more from eBay dealers. As to the decals, there are better decals for an F4U-4 available from both Aeromaster, SuperScale and Meteor; these are all OOP - the Aeromaster and SuperScale sheets can be found at eBay dealers and used kit sites, while the Meteor sheet (the best) is available in limited numbers and a premium price at Dave Klaus' Fine Art of Decals website.
I built a conversion using this back in 2003 and got a good result. However, I made a mistake in how I assembled the wings, and when the kit got dropped a few months after it was completed, it exploded and turned itself into spare parts.
Recently, I was in communication with one of the guys at Special Hobby, who support my reviews with review kits, and the question of "Will there ever be an accurate F4U-4?" came up (it's been going around sites on the net recently), and it was mentioned that they still have the CMK conversion set in stock. I asked to get one and it arrived a few days ago. In anticipation of its arrival, I found a Tamiya F4U-1D at Amazon for $25 with free delivery for members and grabbed it. I dropped by Dave's site and picked up one of his F4U-4 sheets, which has both Corsairs flown by Tom Hudner and Jesse Brown, and a Corsair flown during the opening of the Korean War and the Chosin Campaign by VMF-214 "Blacksheep."
Once the set arrived, I took a long look at it after I separated the parts from their molding blocks, and it suddenly dawned on me how to assemble the wing and get the result one normally gets with a Tamiya Corsair: do some cutting and filing of the resin interior of the lower center wing/fuselage part, to allow installation of the Tamiya wing spar part, suitably modified. With that, the whole project becomes relatively simple.
If you find yourself interested in doing this conversion, the conversion set still costs only $24.00 at Special Hobby, and they have some 15-20 sets left.
For starters, here are some photos of my earlier completed model, to demonstrate one can get an accurate F4U-4 this way, a look at the cleaned-up parts, what you have to modify of the Tamiya kit parts, and a tape-together of everything to show how it goes together.
Like I say, the essential thing is to fix the spar so the wing is secure, and after that everything is just part of the process of doing a standard resin conversion.
Once the interior of the inner upper wing parts have had the interior moldings dremeled off, you need to do a bit of test-fitting and dremel the resin part around the edges to get a good shape. The forward fuselage part fits along a panel line, which makes modifying the fuselage easy. You need to dremel out the interior molding of the cockpit area of the fuselage to allow mounting of the resin cockpit; none of this is difficult.
The two-piece resin cowling is iffy, because it is very thin. The first thing I did was glue those parts together. I attached them at the wide area associated with the intake on the lower cowling, then worked around the rest of the attachment, applying a bit of CA glue, holding the parts in proper position to each other, and hitting that with Zap kicker to speed up holding, after which I sanded that area smooth with several increasing fine-grit sanding sticks. As you can see, the cowling easily fits around the kit engine and easily attaches correctly to the forward fuselage resin parts.
So that is all for now.
12 attached images. Click to enlarge.
