Academy F4U-1 Corsair 1/72

It was a windy day today, but that didn't stop me from attempting to add the final clear coat to the Academy F4U-1 Corsair I bought a while back.

Since it is finally done, I thought I might compile my progress into one post.

I started with the cockpit and the engine (I don't think I got any photos of the instrument panel, ugh), then glued it all up.

Adding putty to the join between the wings and the fuselage

The fit was pretty good - it turned out to be a really nice beginner's kit. Cheap, too!

I borrowed my flatmate's airgun and had a go at spraying the paint on. Turns out a tri-colour plane might not be the easiest one to learn by, but it still came out fairly well.

The guy at the model store picked the colours out for me, but the dark blue was completely wrong - for one, it was gloss, and it was also the wrong blue. Argh!

I also did some weird masking, so there is a bit of a stripe around the cockpit where the medium blue (flat) showed through the dark blue (gloss).

The decals were fun to apply, but I think I needed to get them to settle a little better, as there were a few too many bubbles in them.

I did have a lot of fun with weathering, though. I used some panel-line ink stuff to bring out the detail everywhere. I shaved some artist's pastel onto a palette and used a big soft brush to apply it and draw it back from the exhausts. I rubbed some brown and black into the landing gear bays as well.

While I'm not one hundred percent happy with the final result, I'm certainly pleased with the experience I gained while making it.

You can see the difference in blues from the canopy to the main body of the craft, which had a flat clear applied.

I used some black-ish nylon thread as the aerial wire, which worked really well.

Somehow, during the build of this plane, I've picked up and started three other kits:

• Academy B-17F 1/72 "Memphis Belle"
• Academy Sopwith Camel 1/32
• Eduard Spitfire Mk IX C (Early) 1/72

Academy B-17F Flying Fortress Build - Cockpit

My last post about model aircraft was about the T3 Jr set I nearly finished. The decals on them were appalling, so I sort of left them half finished.

Since then I've mostly completed an Academy 72nd scale Corsair (I'll do a separate post on that once it's finished) and bought the Academy 72nd scale B-17F Flying Fortress. It's a big kit.

I bought an Eduard "Zoom" kit for the cockpit. It comes with photo-etched seatbelts, panels, and other details. It is excruciatingly detailed.

The nose holds a place for the navigator to sit, as well as the bomber's seat. I recreated a wood grain on the table by laying down a base of Desert Yellow. I used an old drybrush to drag some Red Brown across it, then passed over once more with the Desert Yellow. It came out really well - I'll be using this technique for the Sopwith Camel I have sitting in my pile of kits.

Here you can really see the detail Eduard puts into their photo-etched kits. It was very hard to put the seatbelts on, especially without the right kind of glue. Still; the detail is enough to distract the casual eye from the poorly laid down seatbelts.

I love this instrument panel. It was just a couple of sheets you stick on, and it just makes this amazing difference. The steering wheels are photo-etched too. Much more delicate than the clunky moulded parts the original kit came with.

And here's the bomber's seat! The bomb-sight doesn't look anything like the real part, and I wasn't sure which way round it should go, even from the instructions. Ah well.

As fiddly as it was to attach these parts, the frustration paid off in the end. I'll be getting hold of a vacuum-formed set of canopies and windows, so you'll be able to actually see into the craft once it's finished.