Tamiya F4U-1A Corsair

[Peterpools]

The Big P&W R2800

The P&W R2800, firewall and exhausts. Here is where Papa Tamiya requires strict attention to the instructions and details. Care needs to be taken in assembling the Big Radial and assuring you are following the engine for the aircraft you are building, as there are specific differences between A, B & C and I’m building scheme B depicting Lt. Cmd John Blackburn's aircraft of VF-17 The Jolly Rogers, Ondonga Airfield, New Georgia, Solomon Islands, November 15^th, 1943. I questioned Tamiya’s color call outs, as the kit specs the firewall and the inside of the cowling to be painted AS-12 Silver and Dark Gray respectively and my research shows they should be painted the same color as the undersides of the aircraft; Insignia White. I wasn’t planning on opening up any of the access panels or cowl flaps and none of the area forward of the firewall would be seen, except looking directly in from the front.     

The Big P&W went together with the usual fussing and adjusting the various parts so all would line up as needed. The most finicky portion of the engine build, was adding the ignition harness and ignition leads, which were made from thin copper wire painted brown. The instructions call for the engine block and crankcase to be painted Tamiya XF66 Light Gray and some research showed that FS36240 was a bit closer in color match. The R2800 cylinders were primed and painted with Model Air Aluminum for the upper portion of each cylinder and the lower portion of the cylinders with Model Air Gun Metal and then given a healthy wash of Tamiya Black Panel Wash. Push rods were painted with Tamiya’s new Gloss Black Lacquer. Allowing all the engine parts to dry overnight, it was time to assemble the engine and thank goodness Tamiya in their infinite wisdom, keyed all the parts making the assembly a bit frustrating but going slow and working carefully, the assembly was completed.

Installing the Big P&W onto the airframe was another issue, taking care and time, as it’s a very tight and tricky fit.  

While waiting for the various engine assemblies to dry, I completed the horizontal stabilizers, elevators, rudder and vertical stabilizer.  No issues again and part fit was sensational.

Next up: Tailwheel and the center wing assembly, a major crossroad: it’s here you have to decide: wings folded or extended and  flaps up or down.

Thanks for checking in

Keep ‘em comin

 

Peter

 

 

 

 

[Martinnfb]

Amazingly clean work Peter

[GazzaS]

Well, that P&W engine looks excellent!  I'd never build one wings up unless I had too many...   they just look too nice ready to fly.

[Kaireckstadt]

Great work Peter, looks amazing!

I would suggest wings unfolded and flaps down. Folded wings - even only on one side - hide too much of the beautiful details.

I did the same configuration on mine:

[DocRob]

Superclean and super detailed work on the engine Peter, your ignition wiring looks phenomenal. I was about to write, that there is no need for a resin engine, when I saw, that Tamiya may have missed the black metal fairings around the lower parts of each cylinder. I remember these well, because I built mine with the Brassin engine and they where a pain to mask and paint.

Cheers Rob

[mark31]

Great work Peter

 

Mark

[Peterpools]

Thanks Martin, much appreciated.

I know I always lean towards clean aircraft but I may just give the Big Bent Wing Bird a bit of weathering as I go. See what happens.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

Thanks Gaz and completely agree. My first Corsair had the wings folded and this bad boy is going to have them fully extended.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

Thanks Kai - very much appreciated and that's the plan - wings extended and flaps dropped. Love your Corsair and the dio is awesome as it portrays both time and place.

Keep 'em comin

[Peterpools]

Thanks Rob

I'm finding loads of details and surprises as I progress through the build. Tamiya did a terrific job replicating the Big P&W and if I was going to have the cowl panels open, I would have added a few more of the missing details which would have been seen.  I'm not sure why the crankcase gray is as light in the pics as it appears but it's darker on the model as well on my exported JPEG Files uploaded to Image Shack. I'm still planing on adding a light bluish wash to add the missing bluish tint to the crankcase.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

 

[Peterpools]

Thanks Mark

Making progress and I should hopefully have another update this weekend. Just love your Viggen build thread and I'm patiently waiting for my kit to arrive by Christmas(?).

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

Tamiya F4U-1 Birdcage

I found these two photographs of my Tamiya Birdcage build from many moons ago.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

 

[brahman104]

Beautiful work as always Peter! The ignition wiring is amazing

Craig

[Peterpools]

Thanks Craig

The ignition lines were a bit testy but in the end, all wells that ends well! I've since applied a few light blue gray washes to the crankcase the darken the crankcase a bit and making nice progress on the kit.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

SUB ASSEMBLY PROGRESS

10/10/21

Tamiya 1/32 Aircraft kits are a maze of beautifully molded and intricate parts/sub-assemblies. Care needs to be taken with constant referral to the instructions and construction sequence, or you will walk the plank – I needed to be fished out twice this week, all of my own doing. 

The Big P&W R2800 – tinkered a bit and added six light washes of an acrylic bluish gray wash to bring the crankcase closer to the right color. The problem is, so many engine photos are of restored aircraft, the engine crankcase color is all over the place. It’s now as done as it needs to be.

Fuselage – Working on the multi piece cowl and cowl flaps, required lots of attention, ungluing, gluing on parts and then ungluing again and then I’m now where I am presently. Study the instructions and just keep test fitting until your mind thinks like Papa Tamiya. I’m going with the cowl flaps closed as opposed to them being open and that means loads of different parts are used. The cowl parts and support rings all are glued to the R2800 for the first stage and with all Tamiya kits, the tolerances are so close, all the paint where parts are attached has to be removed or there will be fit issues. Finally, everything was glued into place and looking good, the center wing section needs to be added first or it won’t fit as the three lower cowl flaps will not allow the wing to fit into place. The offending parts put up a good fight but I finally was able to remove them and test fit the center wing assembly carefully, which is just being test fitted right now.  The instructions show the cowl flaps added first but I just couldn’t get the wing center section to fit with this sequence.  I walked the plank on this one!

Prior to finishing up the center wing assembly, the following sub-assemblies needed to be built;

Inboard wing flaps – a sub assembly unto themselves with a good amount of Tamiya PE used and I this case, being stainless steel was a plus.

Oil cooler assemblies were completed plus it’s required PE.

All the remaining parts were added, painted and the upper and lower wing skins glued together. Much like ZM, the majority of these parts will never be seen.

Outer Wings:

Ailerons and outboard flaps built up and all required PE added as well.

Parts N58 and N51 as the boxes the wing spars slide into to support the outer wing panels and there is a note not to glue them in place. Of course, my brain must have bee3n asleep at the switch and I took it that the spare isn’t to be glued into the spar box and glued the spar box in place. What a nightmare, as I now had to carefully sand the spars down until they would snuggly fit as the boxes were designed to float inside the outer wings.  

I walked the plank on this one!

At this point, there still is a lot of parts to be added and then all the leading edges for entire wing assembly needs some filler and TLC; the focus of next week’s work.

The rudder and vertical stabilizer is still float loose, I managed to knock off the headrest and these two small items need attention.

I still haven’t decided what to do on the gear yet, as it’s the same color as the underside and wheel wells bit between doing the oleos and detail painting but my instinct tells me to follow my plan and not the instructions and add them after the Corsair is through the paint shop.

The front canopy is just resting in place and the fit is tremendous – just might add it as with the gear, after the paint shop visit is done.

Thanks for checking it.

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

Parts N51 & N58 should only be place in position and allowed to float, In my infinite wisdom, I glued them in place and then had to do a lot of fancy sanding on the spars to fit when test fitting.

 

 

 

[Bomber_County]

Peter, superlatives escape me…….i blink and we are off to the spray booth………the engine is a work of art……

[DocRob]

Great work Peter.  can remember the flap/wing assembly was a bit fiddly, with all the options, but as you said, following the manual is essential. The pictures show, everything is aligning cleanly, good job.

Cheers Rob

[Kaireckstadt]

Great work Peter. The fixing of the outer to the inner wing was a bit fiddly. But it will work. 
I didn’t glue the flaps to the wing. Mine are just plugged. Much easier to paint.

[Peterpools]

Thanks Phil, much appreciated. Still a bit away from the paint booth as the filler work needs to be done and some small parts added and then, it's painting time.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

Much appreciate Rob.

Slow but steady progress and no doubt, following Papa Tamiya instructions is a must and even double checking before gluing is surely recommended.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

Thanks Kai

Going slow is the best course with the Corsair and the flaps are just being test fit and will be painted separately.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[GazzaS]

Nice work, Peter!  These Tamiya Corsairs are definitely not shake and bake.

[mark31]

going great Peter

Love it and those tamiya kits are just great.

looking forward to see more

 

Mark

[Peterpools]

Thanks Gaz and you're 100% correct. The newer 32nd scale Tamiya kits are far from shake and bake but they do excel in part fit, instructions and details - unfortunately it's still not hard to error and I can testify to that again just the other day.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

Much appreciated Mark

And I do love those Tamiya kits.

Keep 'em comin

Peter