A lot has happened over the last few days.
I built the tail wheel strut assembly. I used the locating holes inside the fuselage to ensure the parts were in good alignment.
The wings have a provision to display them with the gun bays opened up, and the MG's along with the ammunition belts are included. However, I have decided to close this up, and not install the guns into the wings. I decided that now would be the best time to do this, while I still have access to both sides of these panels.
I also opened up the holes in the lower wing to install the rocket mounting lugs. Then I started installing the mounts, just to see how they fit. They look OK to me, and the rest will have to be added soon.
I assembled the landing gear bays. They look very good and are on par with the 1/48 Tamiya kit as far as details.
Speaking of the 1/48 Tamiya kit, I had an idea... The Tamiya version was modeled after a Corsair that was restored. I'll explain.
The flaps are interchangeable between the various versions of the F4U. The restored F4U-1D that Tamiya used as a reference had the later style inboard flap that had an open step in it. On the earlier models of the F4U, this step was covered by a small spring loaded door. Starting with the F4U-1D version of the Corsair, midway through the production run, they switched over to the open step inboard flap, as it was easier to manufacture, and posed no harmful flight characteristics.
Hobby Boss has molded the early closed step version on their F4U series of Corsairs. This is correct for the early planes, but not for the later ones. Tamiya is on the left in this next picture, and HB is on the right.
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1. Tamiya Open step Flap
2. Hobby Boss closed step flap
The next picture shows the same parts, but this time the middle flap is included. This is the flap that is positioned at the lowest point of the wing, at the Gull section.
However, since these parts did interchange on the real Corsair, it was not unusual to see early model flaps on a later plane, and vice versa. Here is where it is best to use a photograph of the plane you are building if you are lucky enough to have a picture available.
I have saved several sets of flaps from various Tamiya kits that I have built over the years. On these previous builds, I had replaced these kit supplied parts with aftermarket resin ones, so that I could display the plane as they were often parked, with the flaps up. Here you can see a set of resin flaps along with the ones from Tamiya, and Hobby Boss.
The Tamiya kit comes with the outer flap covered with cloth. This is how the early Corsairs were. However by the time the F4U-4 came into existence, these parts were covered with wood, just as the ailerons were. Then they were covered with doped fabric and painted. This made a stronger flap and also increased the VNE speed.
Here you can see the solid HB flap, and the cloth covered Tamiya version... See where this is headed ?
Here is a photo showing the flaps I had left over, along with a resin set to raise the flaps on a Tamiya kit. Right in the middle is the HB parts...
I had an idea to fix what was wrong with both kits. It involved swapping the flaps set from the Tamiya over to the HB Corsair. With a little bit of surgery, things were under way. I installed the original outboard wood covered flaps in the wing that were provided by HB. I did this so I would have a good starting point to go by.
With a little more work, I had the Starboard side done...and the Tamiya / HB hybrid flaps were done. You can also see here how I lightly sanded the upper wing surface, to smooth out the gun access panels.
It looks good from underneath as well. In fact, the HB kit has molded the special doors that covered the flap openings as the flaps were lowered. These doors are molded in the "Flap down" position, although the HB kit provided the flaps in the raised position... Sounds confusing.
Now I have the corrected flaps installed. You can see the end results here. I'm very happy with how this turned out. I have several other late model HB F4U's in the stash, and several more sets of leftover Tamiya flaps in the spare parts bin... So this is now an easy fix for me to correct the flaps on the HB kit.
I might even try to install a set of HB flaps into a Tamiya kit in the near future. This will allow me to have them posed in the raised position, and also fill in the pesky step that shouldn't be there usually...
I still have to install the remaining rocket stubs, but other than that, the wings are almost completed now.
Next I worked on completing the cockpit assembly. It needed to be sprayed and I used Interior Green on the floor section. The remainder of the cockpit was painted using Flat Black as was the norm for Navy planes by the time the Korean War started. This is something the US Navy started doing near the end of WW2.
Once the cockpit was finished, and the IP decals were applied, It was installed into the fuselage.
The inner fuselage tail wheel bulkhead was assembled and installed. Then the rear interior of the fuselage was sprayed with my home brewed "Yellow Green Zinc Chromate" color.
The previously assembled tail wheel strut was installed next...
This is how things were looking at this point. Now it's starting to look like a F4U !
The last thing to do for the day was to glue the fuselage halves together. This was done, and the parts were held together using tape. The fit looks to be pretty good along the seams. It will need some more sanding work to shine up the surface of the wings, and I'll probably have to scribe a few lines back in.
But other than that, I think a few swipes with a razor blade along the fuselage seams will have it ready to glue the wings on...
Here's how it looks now. I'll let this dry overnight.
As always, comments are encouraged. Hope you had a good Labor Day weekend. Stay safe.
