Life is fighting you, compressor-wise, my friend @scalerambush!
Hope at least you'll somehow get a replacement one, free of charge.

Annnnnnnnd we're back.

After the compressor issues were resolved by the thankfully the very helpful supplier of the compressor, Bartsharp, I got a new pressure gauge and some sealant tape. A quick change later and I have it all working. That was about a week ago now, and with a busy weekend after repairing it I didn't have much time to get working.

During the Great Compressor Depression

Motivation wasn't particularly high when the compressor was dead, so I most caught up on Microsoft Flight Simulator and my beloved IL2: Great Battles, that being said I did get a bit done. I attached the cannon blast tubes to the -1Cs wings and rescribed the ammunition hatches, I'm not 100% happy with this and am trying to work out the best solution for if I was to this again, trying to make those gun tubes flush with the wing is a bit of a challenge.

I also did some random little bits, the planes needing to be wheels up are all sorted, the folding wing of each Corsair has been assembled and the leading edge sanded relatively smooth. The internal 'spar' that Tamiya provides to give the wings something to glue on are set. I also started work on the flaps, though haven't made the necessary scratchbuilt modifications to the ones that will be raised yet.

Painting and Detailing the Cockpits

After it was all painted and detailed, it got given a quick wash. I just use Citadel's Nuln Oil, but I'm sure any panel-line wash would work as well or better. Ultimately there's no need for something like florymodel's wash which can be cleaned up as the tiny parts of the cockpit will be hard to clear up excess, in the end there really isn't any difference between painting a small miniature and a small cockpit so generally I use miniature painting products in the area as I have them. Next up will be drybrushing and chipping, but first I need to finish off the Tamiya parts which are mostly done. Decals for the Tamiya Corsair have an instrument panel on a black background, I hate these and don't use them as I think they look awful. Instrument panel decals with a clear background so you can paint the instrument panel itself work the best I love them. Interestingly, the Tamiya F4U-1D with Moto-Tug which is their most recent reboxing of the Corsair has the nice instrument decal without the black background, all 4 other boxings have the black background. I'll likely paint the instruments on, it won't look pretty but it's better than the decal provided and buying a whole PE set for one bit is a waste.

I'll do a post on my decisions for the Corsairs colours later, the Corsair varied a lot in its colours over the long production life it had. For instance the earlier Corsairs were green all the way on the interiors, with the F4U-1D and beyond having black side walls above the switches.

2 additional images. Click to enlarge.

That is some awesome result on the cockpit, Harvey @scalerambush
Also like the tattoo on the fuselage

Greetings again folks, with the resin finally shoved into the model (more on that later) I almost feel like progress has actually been made, enough to warrant a post! It's definitely been a very stressful and frustrating journey and I'm glad, for the most part, the resin is put behind me.

The Bad and Ugly, Dealing with Resin.

Where to begin. As stated early on I haven't really any experience with resin. My Hawker Tempests have resin wheels, some resin pilots have been squeezed in kits, and some of my Corsairs have resin flaps or control surfaces. None of these previous resin parts require any substantial modifications beyond cutting and replacing some easy parts. I went the resin cockpit route not because I wanted to (I wanted to do Eduard PE) but because I wanted to get more experienced with it so I can get the eventual goal of a fully opened up Corsair done.

Putting the resin tub into the Corsair was a challenge. I sanded down the plastic fuselage as much as I dare using a dremel, I also sanded down the resin as much as I could and went so far that the resin went translucent enough to see the paint on the other side. I test fitted once, twice, thrice and it seemed to fit, so I broke out the superglue and glued the two fuselage halves together whilst I was at it. I preceeded to royally screw it up by gluing the resin tub a few millimetres too low, meaning that the wing could never fit. As such I had to pry the now gluing Corsair fuselage halves apart with a scalpel and toothpicks, and try and break the now firmly glued resin parts out of their position. Eventually I did so, but naturally the fuselage needs a nice amount of rescribing due to sanding, cutting and ripping, and the resin parts took some injuries thankfully most won't be seen, though I need to replace a rudder pedal and a gun sight which are visible.

We learnt two things;

1. Loctite super glue sets instantly, good for a lot of applications but a slower setting glue would have been better here.
2. Don't rush building the model due to a lack of progress in the past week.

The resin was rebuilt, reglued, and the fuselage was heavily filled in. Some more filler is still probably needed down that seam.

The Plastic Cockpits

Next Steps

Next up, after filler, would be to decide if I want the wings on now or later as having the wings off would make the fuselage easier to rivet if I do go forward with that plan. I have primed that Bf-109 to test riveting on it to see if it looks worth doing. I also need to paint up the pilots and I still somewhat want to replace one of the pilots with a resin one that doesn't look so... Derpy.

Finally I need to paint up those pilots, shouldn't be too difficult.

We'll see how things work out.

Thank you! Honestly painting the cockpits is probably one of my favourite parts, painting the resin was really nice as it has much more detail. I was thinking of painting up a resin engine for similar reasons but leaving it on display on a stand next to the model. Painting resin is fun, gluing together a resin thing isn't the most fun but is bareable, but putting that resin piece in the model is the real pain.

That's great progress, my friend @scalerambush!
And it's "good" that you left the resin behind you...
I have worked quite a few times with resin , facing more or less the problems you encountered. Resin is usually wonderfully detailed, but not the easiest media to work with!

Kilroy just about gets everywhere. . . .

Great progress on the three.