1/48 Tamiya Corsair F4U-1D

by Jason VanLint on July 3 2003

--------------------

 

This is my second Tamiya 1/48 Corsair F4U-1D. It represents a well used member of VFA-84 on the USS Bunker Hill in Feb., 1943.  Before getting back into scale modeling I had no appreciation for aircraft from WWII. However, inspired by many of the wonderful examples of aircraft being submitted to ARC, I researched them more and the Corsair stands out as one of my favourites.  It’s sleek gull wing design and the fact that it was one of the most advanced fighters of its time make this an easy pick for modeling. This model was built for a work colleague whose father flew Corsairs during WWII. I haven’t managed to keep any of the Corsairs I’ve built….always giving them away :-) 

The Kit

The Tamiya 1/48 Corsair is an absolute dream to build. The fit is excellent and it very hard to not make this kit look gorgeous. Panel lines and detail are abundant through out and every kit provides the option to have the wings folded up or down.  I highly recommend this kit for beginners or people who would like to break into their first 1/48 scale kit. 

Construction

Started with the cockpit as is common with most aircraft. The interior was sprayed with US Interior Green from Gunze Sangyo and then control panels were painted black and various details picked out and coloured. The whole cockpit was drybrushed with silverpaint.

Click on images below to see larger images

Once the cockpit was in the fuselage was assembled with only a little filler required near the nose of the plane. This is how excellent this kit is..the fit is really quite good and with some patience only a little sanding is required. The fuselage was assembled by gluing small pieces of it at a time using Tamiya Super Thin cement and prying open the fuselage. 

As I modeled this Corsair with the wings folded up I assembled them separately and they were left alone for the remainder of the project until painting time. Gears are very easy to assemble. 

The engine was painted with Gun Metal, given a wash and the engine cowling was painted interior green before the engine was placed in the cowling. Then the whole assembly was glued to the fuselage. The problem I had with this project was how to protect the interior green of the engine flaps. The color was painted over in this project but I think by simply using some liquid mask I can preserve the color next time. And the liquid mask will be easy to peel of with some tweezers when the whole plane is painted blue.

Painting

The whole plane was given a coat of Tamiya Sea Blue. This is a matt paint and at the time I thought this was a far cry from Glossy Sea Blue color I was aiming for. However, with a coat of Tamiya Clear Gloss Coat X-22 it really did resemble the true color and my fears were put to rest. 

Gear were painted Tamiya Flat Aluminum and given a dark gray pastel chalk wash. 

After painting the fuselage I masked off areas around the wheel bays and sprayed more interior green. I also masked the wings to leave the wing fold area exposed and painted those after spraying the fuselage.

Finally the engine cowling was masked to spray the yellow band and the propeller was painted black and yellow.

Click on images below to see larger images

Weathering

After decals were applied (kit decals are very thick btw…and don’t settle down all that well) I began weathering the aircraft with a dark gray (with touch of brown) pastel chalk wash. I also began to rub pastel chalk onto some decals and onto various dirst areas of the plane like the bottom of the fuselage and the cannons.

In the next step I added the silver paint chips with a silver Pentel Gel Rollerball pen.

The final step was to load up the airbrush with Tamiya Sea Blue Again a lightly spray over some of the decals to give them a faded effect.  

Although some of the weathering worked well I really think I went overboard, adding too much chipping to the overall plane. Another lesson learned in keeping weathering to a subtle minimum.  Overall, happy with the build…except for over weathering. Hope you enjoyed this article.

Jason

Click on images below to see larger images

Photos and text © by Jason VanLint