Afternoon folks, with the Tomcat done I think it's time to start my next project, not just one but three tamiya Corsairs! Generally my preferred way of building is 2 models at a time, but I did previously build 3 Corsairs at a time which would end up being my very first posts on this lovely website, and this time I'm sticking to 3 of the same kits which should simplify things.

I've previously mentioned that I have a long term goal of building a 1/48 model for every variant of Corsair, sadly some (XF4U-3) are impossible for me to get thanks to brexit, whilst others (XF4U) may prove to be possible in the future. For now, rather than start the post-war F4U-5 variants I've decided to stick with the classic F4U-1 as I'm not quite finished on that airframe. As such, I present 3 different builds that will hopefully be fun, challenging, and very challenging.

F4U-1A, 'White 29' of VF-17, Flown by Lt. Ira Kepford.

As such this model will show off everything I've learnt since the last Jolly Roger Corsair, I'll also be using some resin in the form of a entirely aftermarket cockpit. I've never really worked with resin beyond the previous F-14s modification and some resin wheels, so this will be a bit of a new thing for me but flows nicely into a future build of a Corsair under maintence which I'd like to do. Furthermore, I'll also be using this build to use riveting for the first time, this sounds like a fairly difficult thing to do so I figured using it on a kit I'm familiar with (now that I have 5 completed) is probably the best chance. Depending on the results of riveting will determine whether the other two kits get the same treatment or not.

All in all, this kit will be done the same as the previous 'Big Hog', on the ground with the cockpit open. For decals I naturally went the aftermarket route as required, and I may also buy aftermarket wheels. Unlike on 'Big Hog' I'll be using chipping fluid to produce the very noticeable wear and tear as seen in photographs.

F4U-1C, VF-85 aboard USS Shangri-la.

The biggest issue by far is the lack of useful, usable resources online that don't conflict other sources. The -1C has 4 bulges on the wings for the cannons, but where are they? What shape are they? What size are they? I had no idea and after weeks of searching, I remembered that WW2Aircraft forum existed. This people are wizards, I asked a question on there a year ago about one specific airframe, a Fiseler Storch with only 1 photo online, only to immediately be told about a book with another photograph. After weeks of searching image boards, Google, forums, Pinterest, going deep into page 10+ of Google, and even using the search function in WW2Aircraft forums, I finally made a post asking for help over there and got a reply in 8 hours telling me about a book with what I need, and a photo of the wing. So, with that book on order, the original plan of building the 1C wings first to see how they turn out is on hold until it arrives.

As for the scheme I don't really have one in mind, I was thinking of recreating the only F4U-1C's ace but his aircraft is just a completely normal Sea Blue with no notable markings like most aircraft were. I think I'll go for one from VF-85, as USS Shangri-la aircraft have the lightning bolt marking to recognise them which helps break up the otherwise plain looking scheme. I'll likely put a drop tank or bomb on this one, and will definitely put some (more on this later) rockets, this model will be displayed in flight in a slight dive.

F4U-1A, NZ5272/NZ5307, No.18 Squadron, RNZAF

I'm not 100% sure on this one, there's a lot of interesting New Zealand schemes to choose from. Whilst my main long term goal is a model of every Corsair version, producing one for each nation that used the aircraft is also an interesting project and the RNZAF was the third largest user behind Britain and of course America. For now, let's tentatively call it NZ5307 with a possible colour change later. This one will likely be in flight, probably with a 146gal fuel tank, though I'd quite like to do NZ5440 'Lil Audrey' due to the interesting triple fuel tank loadout in the picture below.

This one will be a fairly straightforward build, the most relaxing build of the three. No aftermarket will be use on this build beside a Montex mask set with the decals and mask for this airframe, I got this set ages ago as it also came with the masks I used on my Fleet Air Arm model.

Honourable Mentions

There are a total of 5 more F4U-1s on my list which are divided into the trio and later pair. The two left after these three will be 'SS-11 Sally', a Corsair built from boneyard scrap by Marines at Service Station 11 and sports a unique aluminium drab paint scheme, as well as having no weaponry. This aircraft was repainted blue and saw service as a reconnaissance aircraft.

That model should be an easy build, which pairs it up nicely with the very difficult plan of building FG-1D, appropriately serialled 'G-FGID', which is one of two Corsairs in the UK and the only airworthy one. This will be done based on a photo I took in 2020 where it was undergoing some maintenence and so the engine, fuel tank, and various other hatches were open and visable, meaning an Aries complete resin set is required which cost some 2.5x the amount of the actual kit! Regardless, I'm planning to develop skills here with these builds to allow me to build G-FGID in its shiny modern day paint.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves though, time for these 3 Corsairs. I'll post some references below to help you see what I'm looking at. I started a little bit of work a couple of days ago and will post this as a seperate reply to make formatting a bit easier. See you along for the journey!

17 additional images. Click to enlarge.

Interesting project, and a very comprehensive text so far. For the few like me that know very little about the Corsair, this is a valuable thread.
I’m looking forward for further progress

Thanks folks, will be good to see you along and if anything here is helpful to you, all the better.

Speaking of helpful, my book arrived today. The delivery said it would arrive next Saturday but I'm not complaining in the slightest.

The Vought F4U Corsair, A Comprehensive Guide

Finally, here's some RNZAF.

The F4U-1/1A had provisions for a single centreline tank, or eventually a bomb rack. The F4U-1D had the twin underbelly pylons for a fuel tank or bomb, the early F4U-1Ds kept this original centreline mount so you can find interesting loadouts of triple bombs, triple tanks, or a combination as desired, I can't quite clearly tell if the 1C had this but I imagine since it was based on the 1D that they did. Eventually this centrline mount was deleted from the 1D production which is why you don't see it all that often in photographs and wasn't carried forward to the F4U-4.

Hopefully people find some kind of usefulness out of this, at the very least I hope someone stumbles across these reference photos on their own builds cause I sure had a hard enough time getting them.

The Wheel Doors

The Tamiya Corsair is many things, but it isn't designed to be built wheels up. The wheels and flaps are both meant to be down. On my previous F4U-1 build, the first Tamiya Corsair I built, I went for my usual method of sanding until the doors fit and using blu-tack to prop the doors in position as they were glueing. I had huge gaps and filled them in, and eventually just drew the doors on with a pencil!

For this I wanted to got a smarter approach, so I got to work experimenting. The main doors have a tab that goes into a hole in the sidewall of the wheel well to prop it in the right angle, I sanded this down slightly and then glued each door into position. This worked well, I then went round the doors with Sprue-Glue to fill in the gaps somewhat, and also added a bit of styrene for support. I added a styrene support for the gear leg part of the door and glued it in. This worked somewhat well but I had issues putting the top half of the wing on as it was just stuck against something, I then removed all the tabs once the doors were glued and cut off the door tabs. It worked, it fit, but it felt quite weak.

1. Remove the main doors from the sprue, sand down the locating tab slightly so it's in line with the door rather than at angle as it is by default.
2. Glue the doors in position, this is easy enough.
3. Add styrene to support between the two doors, preventing them from being pushed in. Add styrene strips in the little divet between the door and the wing, once again preventing the part from being pushed in.
4. Add styrene approx 4.7mm square to go over at the very from where the top of the landing gear cover would go, unlike the main doors this small landing gear cover has nothing to glue onto so this is required if you want to get the cover to actually glue to anything. With the styrene in place, glue the door to it.
5. Go round all the doors with Tamiya extra-thin on the external side, a healthy dosage of Sprue-Glue is useful if not absolutely required for the internal side for strong support.
6. The locating tabs on the outermost main door should be removed as they will go over the line where part of the wing fold mechanism would go, you can do this at the beginning if you'd like or do it after it's all glued and set in place.
   

   

   1. Second attempt works better, a styrene to support the gear leg cover, one to give strength between each door, and one inserted into the little divet between the edge of each door. The tab of the door is yet to be removed here.

   
   

   

   1. The sanding really just made the tab flat rather than angled.

   
   That should be it, doors done. I messed up and got the wings mixed up, not a huge issue but this means I have to fill in a hole I drilled that isn't needed for 'White 29'. Basically I glued the top and bottom half of the 'RNZAF' one together, but decided its far easier to glue the doors on before you do that, and as such since 'White 29' is wheels down I decided its best to fill in the hole and use it for that model and start fresh for the wheels up '1C' and 'RNZAF' Corsairs. Little bit of confusion but not the end of the world.
   

   

   1. Not perfect, not bad either.

   
   

   

   1. There isn't anything you can do to remove this gap on the gear leg cover and the wing. As far as I can tell the rivets should be touching each other, basically the Tamiya part is too short so it fits when the wheels are down.

   
   

   The Window

One notable thing is this little window, it may look useless and really it was. It wasn't well liked by crews, the Corsair wasn't really capable of carrying bombs on the F4U-1 at first (technically they had two tiny wing racks but I don't think they were ever used beyond F4U-2 night annoyance raids) since the centreline mount wasn't a thing until 1943. Another issue is that the Corsair, like many warbirds, was a very oily aircraft. This combined with operations from sand and dirt runways meant the window was had a poor view at the beginning, quickly worsened by oil and sandblasting on takeoff. As such the window was often painted over on the F4U-1s and 1As, sometimes even field replaced by scrap metal. Early into the 1A production the window was deleted for a sheet metal, carried on into the 1C and 1D, and then this sheet metal of the same shape of the window completely removed on the -4 with it not having a square there at all.

Regardless, if you're modelling a F4U-1 you may want to glue this in and mask it off, or just paint over it, your call. For an F4U-2 it's your choice, keep in mind the -2 was exclusively extremely early production aircraft, personally I'd keep it as a window (I painted over it without thinking, oh well). For a -1A I'd say paint over it unless you're deliberately doing an extremely early initial production version, or you have a reference that shows it, for a -1D paint over it always. For these 3 it's getting painted over every time, so just glue it in with your standard plastic glue of choice and call it a night.

Incredible work done, Harvey @scalerambush
You did great on trying different methods to get the best result.
Thanks for explaining all your work in such detail and for all the detailed pictures you shared.

Seems like the Ironworks style works just fine here. And having the documentation at hand when taking on such a massive project is just something I would not be without. I shall be strapped in on this build.

That's some amazing progress, my friend @scalerambush!
Yes, thin resin parts are a pain: apart from being too fragile and difficult to handle, they buckle over time if weight is applied (ie, if they are thin landing gear legs).

I might get some resin wheels for one of the Corsairs, maybe I'll splash out and see if I can get some brass landing legs.

I really need to get some mask sets though, but I think they're not longer in production and are getting more difficult to find sadly.

I've always like the idea of these paint mule kits, I had an Airfix Bf109 I half attempted to build as a teenager which ended up as one as well as a failed Special Hobby Bu181, but they have too many layers of paint on them now!

Weird how it always ends up being German aircraft for some reason...