Been a long summer...and no building. The Mustangs are set aside for the moment...dust is stupid...and I needed a quick OOB build...or so I thought. I've always loved the corncob Corsairs and Air Racing so I thought it would be fun to do a quick build of #57. This kit has been reviewed a few times and it certainly has issues, but it's the only game in town for the F2G. "Quick build" went out the window as soon as I started fitting the cockpit. But that's ok...it's turned out to be well worth all the effort. The tub sits too low in the fuselage which required some grinding on both the fuse halves and the tub itself. Nothing a dremel can't fix. I also thinned out the glare shield to get the instrument panel higher in the frame ala the full scale. The fuselage fit together pretty well, but this is where it kinda turns in to an R/C model kinda build. Lots of sanding and filler. I'll preface this article by saying it's done...so no unhappy endings 🙂 It's kind of fun to revisit through photos...4 weeks of dust and paint fumes worked out pretty well.

6 attached images. Click to enlarge.

One more for the day...With the wing buttoned up it was on to the big carb scoop. There are a bunch of 3 views floating around a few books and Lord Google but none look right. I ended up enlarging a photo that is almost a perfect profile shot. I built up a box using styrene and installed the kit scoop to serve as the forward part of the scoop. That was as far as my plan went...I thought about using thick chunks of styrene or balsa to fill in the void. In the end I used Tamiya putty. In hindsight I should have used Testers molding compound or something similar. The Tamiya putty worked but it attacked the styrene and slighty deformed the shape I created. Note to self, coat the inside with CA...this will prevent that. In the end it worked with a lot of sanding and filling and sanding and filling.

7 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Wow. Lot's of work so far. Looking forward to seeing this completed.

I had cut the tail feathers off the fuselage before I glued it together. I think it gives depth to the model to pose them away from neutral. Fortunately the plastic in this kit is fairly soft so it doesn't take long to cut them off. I added strip styrene to the leading edges and rounded them off per the full scale. Once the cowl was done with the heavy sanding the wing was glued in position. This fit amazingly well, just some small gaps around the leading edge where it attaches to the fuse. Styrene to the rescue, but filler probably would have worked just fine. Fortunately with the wing glued on the scoop looks more in perspective...it's huge! but it matches the photos.

5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

excellent work! Looking fantastic - it'll look stunning once that glossy red/white paint coat is on!

I'm really glad you guys are liking this. It's a labor of love for sure. Some more for tonight... after I got it primed a friend pointed out the fatter oil coolers. It sure changes the look of the airplane. There is a big cooling door on the bottom of the fuse just behind the exhaust pipes. From the beginning I planned on making that door...just not the extra bits of inlet. After dremeling out the door opening I built another box out of styrene and coated it with CA. I packed in filler and sanded to match reference photos (which I'll post at the end of the thread) The prop also has issues...fill here and fill there

8 attached images. Click to enlarge.

The red paint on a Corsair is awesome and will be even more striking when the rest of the paint scheme goes on. Can't wait to see the big finish.

There are few racers that really have the presence of these F2G's...they look better as racers 🙂 Before I applied the decals I taped off and sprayed the black trim around the forward canopy. You'll also see in the photos I sanded down the scoop some more...which was an easy fix, just didn't like a ridge that showed up in the red paint. I didn't spray it with clear before decaling, the gloss red went on and polished out really well. The big sunburst decals are all one piece and I didn't want all that clear film so I separated each bit of white. This took a ton of time but it worked out well. I started on the fuselage first. They go on beautifully and settle down nice with microsol. The kit only supplies one N-number so I used my second kit for the top number. In hindsight I should have sprayed the wheel wells before I did this but I was tossed on what color to use. I'd venture to guess they left the factory with blue wheel wells and I doubt Cook and his crew would have gone to that much trouble to change those since time was an issue. I'm probably wrong but it sounds good to me 🙂

11 attached images. Click to enlarge.