Great chipping effects, my Friend Louis @lgardner!
Look very "right"!

John, @JohnB
I used a plastic brush with stiff plastic bristles. I dipped the brush in some silver paint and wiped off the excess. Then I "dry brushed" some places and "dabbed" the brush end on the plastic to get the desired results. Here's a picture of the brush I use. Hope it helps.

Spiros, @fiveten
Thank you Sir, for the compliments. I tried to replicate these chips as best I could. I am very happy with the end results.

Erik, @airbum
Yes the Iron Werke was busy chipping away at yet another F4U. Now it's done, so please stay tuned for another update. It's coming up next... 🙂

Louis @lgardner my friend, you aced the bomb racks. Even with all the issues with getting the correct decals and colors, this has turned out fantastic. Museum worthy!

Bravo Zulu!

Thanks James for the compliments. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do here with the bomb rack, but I’m very happy with how it turned out. Take care buddy.

Hello Tom and thanks for the compliments. However I’m afraid that you have it wrong. The formation lights are the blue ones that are on top of the wing. These three different colored lights under the wing were called recognition lights, and were used as signaling lights. They had a separate control panel and could be operated to flash Morse code and also used as a password reply. Say for example an American plane saw the aircraft and flashed a red light at the Corsair trying to identify it without breaking radio silence. The Corsair pilot would have been given the correct color signal to reply back with during his pre mission briefing and would have answered accordingly as the answer to the challenge. If he failed to send the proper light signal back as his reply, chances are he would have been met with some fully automatic machine gun fire in response.

Here’s a good picture showing exactly what I’m talking about.

This information is covered extensively on a “tail hook topic”. This is where I gathered the information from.

Almost every American aircraft in WW2 used this system. I’ll try to attach the link so you (and others) can read up on this in case you’re interested.

Thanks again gentlemen for the compliments. Take care and stay safe.

A great looking Corsair, Louis (@lgardner). The yellow numbers on the dark blue background always makes a particularly striking paint scheme. This has been a fun build to follow along.

Looking great, no less!

Thanks for setting the record straight on those lights - I had long been wondering why one could buy blue resin lights, now I know the facts. Using lights that shine down for formation flying would not work well at all in my book. The many hours I've spent flying in formation we used handsignals, and in the small GFA-planes I've flown it worked like a charm - I've flown in formation with a few different nationalities, and one of the most memorable was with e Russina gentleman. He reacted instantly to my signals, and when, after the flight, I asked what he had flown before, he replied that he used to fly the Buran - imagine that, he flew the Russian spaceshuttle (they put 4 big engines on it for testing, doing pattern-work with it), and I had the privilege to fly in formation in old Cessnas with him! Oh, sorry - got carried away - back to thearmchair and coffee to get some more hours of armchairaviation 🙂
(picture from my flight here; http://www.oy-reg.dk/billeder/l22413.jpg)

Oeps, missed a couple of posts, sorry for that.
Thanks for the answer, Louis @lgardner
Seems like you are more handy in this dry brushing chipping than I am.
More practice needed from my side to achieve your results.
Your build is getting perfectly together.

Tonight was the perfect evening... I managed to paint the Goodyear Corsair. I had to go back and do a little touch up work, but I am extremely pleased with the results.

The very early "birdcage" F4U-1 Corsairs were painted using a "Blue Gray" color, which was used as the top color, and a color called ANA 602 "Light Gray" was used for the lower underside color. When the change to a three color camouflage came into effect, it didn't happen overnight. It involved some trial and error.

Because of this, the last several hundred of the Vought built "Birdcage" F4U-1 and even some of the early F4U-1A "raised cabin" Corsairs were painted using a "graded" method on the fuselage sides. This was where the white underside color eventually faded into the Dark Sea Blue upper color. There was no in between "Blue Gray" color used at this point in time, on the side of the fuselage that is. (the rudder / fin, and the underwing outer panels did use the Intermediate Blue color)... This was the painting style incorporated into these F4U-1's, before the "Intermediate Blue" color was officially approved for use on the sides of the fuselage. It took a skilled painter to achieve the proper look. It also took more time to do it, so this idea of using a graded paint scheme was abandoned, and the use of "Intermediate Blue" was adopted. Later the color "Intermediate Blue" was approved for use on the fuselage sides of Corsairs. It began appearing a little later on the sides of the raised cabin F4U-1A Corsairs... Goodyear adopted the painting style used by Vought.

Here's how I did it on my model. I had a good base coat of white already applied. Next I sprayed on the Intermediate Blue color on the sides of the rudder

and the undersides of the outer wing panels. On the pictures I have of the Goodyear Corsair I'm building, the overspray between the Intermediate blue outer wing panels and the white center wing structure, has a soft edge. I tried to replicate this here.

Once the Intermediate Blue was painted, I switched over to Dark Sea Blue.

I painted the top of the fuselage and wings. Then using some highly thinned paint, and multiple passes from a distance, I tried to make the blue paint fade into the white. Now I know why this method was discontinued.

It is VERY hard to do, and make it look proper. More often than not, I ended up with the sides being either too light, or too dark. It took some practice on scrap paper before I felt comfortable enough to try it on the model.

Here are the results.

In one of the pictures I'm using as a reference, the caption stated the cowling was painted in yellow. The original photo was made using Kodak Ortho chromatic film. This film makes the color "Yellow" look much darker than it actually is. If you look at the color of the propeller tips, they are a dark color, as one would expect from Ortho film.

However, the cowling is a different shade of yellow. It is not the same yellow that was used on the tips of the propeller blades as has been previously reported.

I have seen a WW2 color factory picture of a Good year F2G where the cowling was simply Zinc Chromate yellow / green. It was not painted in a camouflage color.

I suspect this is what happened here... Especially since this is also a Goodyear produced Corsair, one that was retained by the Goodyear factory as a test plane. This happens to be the 16th Corsair that Goodyear built.

I did some experiments with various shades of different zinc chromate greens and yellows. I sprayed them out on white paper, and converted these pictures to various Black and White shades.

This color I have used on my model is the closest thing I can get to match the effects of the ortho film.
These next pictures show how the Goodyear Corsair looks after I removed the masking tape from the cowling.

I think this is the most accurate I can be. Judging color using a B&W picture can be a fools errand. It's not confirmed to be absolutely correct by any means. It is close in my opinion, but I'm not an expert... I know just enough to get in trouble.

Take care and stay safe. I hope to wrap this Goodyear F4U up very soon. As always, comments are encouraged.