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Thomas Hudner and Jesse Brown’s F4U-4 Corsair dual builds

Started by Louis Gardner · 122 ≡ · ↻ 3 years ago

Viewing 106 - 120 of 122 posts

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James B Robinson said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Louis @lgardner, these are looking stunning!
Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Great progress Louis @lgardner!
Indeed the "not glossy" final coat gives a nice scale effect, making it look like a real plane.
Love the transparencies painting!
Waiting for your ordnance decision!
Erik Gjørup said 3 years, 6 months ago:

The re-worked rudders and stuff really makes the HB stand out. Great finish on the planes, well done overall, and just minor bits to go before reaching flight status.
gary sausmikat said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Great job and build posts, Louis! They came out superb.
Morne Meyer said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Louis this is a very inspirational build indeed. I like the painted on markings. I will definitely attempt it and from now on use foil for masking purposes! Well done my friend. Museum quality work!
Louis Gardner said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Hello again everyone.

Tom, @tcinla
Thank you for the compliments. I am very happy with how the blue looks, especially after I sprayed on the home brewed mix of Tamiya X-21 "Flat Base" and Future floor acrylic. When done properly it will be dry before you set the model down. It doesn't take much, and you can control how much or how little you want to apply. This one is indeed almost done !

Allan, @kalamazoo
Thank you my friend.

Robert, @roofrat
I sincerely appreciate the compliment.

James, @jamesb
It's nice to see you posting on this build thread again. Thanks for the compliments, and give your new grandbaby a big hug for Sandy and I. Stay safe buddy.

Spiros, @fiveten
You will not have to wait any longer, as I have made a decision, based on the spare ordnances in my spare parts bins. I'm going with a set of HVAR rockets from an old Hasegawa F6F Hellcat for both planes. Sometimes these were called "Holy Moses" rockets, for obvious reasons... Thank you for the kind words, and for following along with such enthusiasm. This pair of F4U's should be wrapped up today, if all things go as planned.

Erik, @airbum
I am very pleased with the decision to offset the fight controls on the HB kit. Adding the dropped flaps from a Tamiya F4U-1D was like icing on the cake... It shouldn't be too much longer and I hope to have these two Corsairs completed. Thank you for following along, and for commenting as often as you have. I sincerely appreciate the support.

Gary, @gwskat
I want to thank you for the compliments, and for steering me in the right direction with getting these decals. Had you not advised me where I could obtain a set, this project would have never materialized. This is something I have wanted to build for many years now. Thanks again my friend. Stay safe.

Morne, @mornem
My friend, I am happy to hear from you again, and I sincerely appreciate the compliments on these two. I learned something new when I layered three pieces of masking tape and cut the letter "K" into them. The final result was three identical masks and they worked out very nicely. In the future, I might try to do this on larger 1/32 scale builds as I really liked the end results.

I'm also pleased to hear that my foil masking method will be of use to you. Just be careful when you are masking the little bits like radio antennae's, or pitot tubes. These little bits will snap off easily, so care is advised.

Stay tuned my friends, as I have another installment to post... as I think you will like it.
Louis Gardner said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Last night I went through all of the spare parts and located two complete sets of HVAR rockets from some previous Hasegawa F6F Hellcat builds.

I wanted both planes to have identical weapons hanging under the wings. The rockets provided in the HB kit are superb, but they have a different warhead on them, and that was the only reason why I didn't use them. I found out that there were several different types of warhead that could be installed on these rockets. This next photo shows a Corsair with rockets being installed on it. If you look even closer, you will see that two of the mounted rockets have a shaped charge warhead and they are different from the other two rockets that are mounted on the wing. There are more of these rockets on the armaments carts.

I cleaned up the sprue attachment points, and drilled out the ends where the rocket motors would be.

Then I painted the warheads using OD green from the small "Testor's" square bottle.

Once the paint dried, I masked off the warheads, and sprayed the rocket body an aluminum color.

The final touch was painting the tip of the warhead. I used a chrome pen and simply touched the end of the rocket where the fuse is located, and presto... they were done.

Now I'm going to install these on both planes. Once that's done, I need to install the final parts like the pitot tubes and the radio antennae's.

Then they will be done !

As always, comments are encouraged. Thanks for stopping by... 🙂
Allan J Withers said 3 years, 6 months ago:

It's not rocket science Louis, but they do look good !
Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Nice ordnance, Louis @lgardner!
A lot of work that paid off!
Colin Gomez said 3 years, 6 months ago:

I am just catching up on your ambitious double build here, Louis. Beautiful results on the gloss finish, decaling and masked ID painting. Your clear parts also came out flawless. Your work on the little rockets reminds me of the stuff I have to do with tracks on tanks - lots of patience for repetitive work but the results end up being worth it. All in all, these Corsairs are going to look very impressive together when ordinance is fully installed.
Louis Gardner said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Thanks gentlemen for the kind words. I have been away from all things Hobby related for a week or so.

Yesterday I made a few changes. Something about these two just didn’t look right to me. Then it dawned on me that I had the antenna mounts incorrectly displayed.

On both the Hobby Boss and the Hasegawa F4U-4 kits they have the antenna mounted on the top of the rudder. This isn’t correct.

On the F4U-4 the rearmost Mount was moved to the top of the fin. The rudder was left blank.

So I had to change it on my builds. This is covered in detail on one of the “tail hook topics” on another website. This is also a picture from the tail hook website that shows what I’m talking about.

It was really easy to fix. I simply cut off the antenna mount on top of the rudder, and repositioned the lead to the top of the fin on both planes. Once it dried I added the antenna lead into the fuselage on the Port side.

This change was ordered to be retroactively done to all of the earlier built planes that were still in service.

Later on the F4U-5 series, they moved the antenna entrance into the fuselage to the opposite Starboard side.

I couldn’t leave it alone and I had to fix this. Now that it’s done, I can rest easy as these two planes are complete now.

The next time you see them will be on December 4th, when I post the article in the headlines section.

Here’s what the workbench looks like at the moment. I’m about to wrap up the Tamiya birdcage F4U-1 as well.

As always comments are encouraged. Thanks for stopping by.
Tom Cleaver said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Details, details, details...

Even more excellent result now.
Robert Royes said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Nice pair [trio]!
Spiros Pendedekas said 3 years, 6 months ago:

Wow, my friend Louis @lgardner, what a bench!
I love what you did with the antenna: there are certain things that arise during builds that you just cannot leave unattended.
Those Corsairs look absolutely fantastic and I am very happy to having followed their build.
Waiting for the Headlines!
Erik Gjørup said 3 years, 6 months ago:

And the finals were just great. The usual attention to detail we have come to expect from you my friend - well done!

Viewing 106 - 120 of 122 posts

Korea : The Forgotten War………..

Thomas Hudner and Jesse Brown’s F4U-4 Corsair dual builds