F4U-1A Corsair Tamiya 1/32

[GazzaS]

That engine is looking beautiful, Rob.  There are so many engine pics on this page I had trouble sorting them out.

[DocRob]

19 hours ago, GazzaS said:

That engine is looking beautiful, Rob.  There are so many engine pics on this page I had trouble sorting them out.

Thanks Gary, but there will be even more engine pics.
Today, I finalized the wiring. I used 0,3 mm lead wire from PlusModel for the job. The braided Anyz thread just didn't look right. There were four different length of cables, from which I cut nine each. I started to wire the front plugs and the backside of the front cylinders and last the wires for the second row. I used CA glue to attach the wire.
By the time, I decided to use lead wire instead of the Anyz stuff, I already glued the ignition harness to the engine. That made the assembly a bit more difficult and led to the decision to not paint the lead wires. I've seen so many pictures with different colored cables, brown, grey, black,..., so I think I can get away with it.

Some touch ups here and there and the engine can be called done.

On the Eduard.com page you can find PDF manuals for all their products, in this case, I used the manual for the F4U-1A engine set. It proved to be very helpful.

Cheers Rob

[KevinM]

Looking quite the part Rob!

[GazzaS]

That looks great, Rob.  Certainly worth the effort given the large face of the cowling.  I wasn't complaining about engines...   I was just noting that many others were showing you theirs, and I had to sort out which was which.

[DocRob]

6 hours ago, KevinM said:

Looking quite the part Rob!

Thank you Kevin, I'm happy that I switched to the lead wire instead of Anyz braided thread. It would have looked right in 24 scale. My late decision made the approach a bit bumpy and the result is not perfect, but I feel better now.

Cheers Rob

2 hours ago, GazzaS said:

That looks great, Rob.  Certainly worth the effort given the large face of the cowling.  I wasn't complaining about engines...   I was just noting that many others were showing you theirs, and I had to sort out which was which.

Thanks Gary, I did what I thought I have to do for a decent front presentation of the engine. For now there will be only a few more engine shots, with the big P&W mounted to the fuselage, an area where I struggled with my first Corsair build, using the Brassin engine. I hope this time alignment will be easier, as the engine is only held in place by the various exhausts and after that the cowlings have to fit.

Cheers Rob

[nmayhew]

11 hours ago, DocRob said:

Thank you Kevin, I'm happy that I switched to the lead wire instead of Anyz braided thread. It would have looked right in 24 scale. My late decision made the approach a bit bumpy and the result is not perfect, but I feel better now.

Cheers Rob

 

agreed - I have a bunch of Anyz stuff and I don't think any of those braided lines are that appropriate for 1/32 - the braid is just too chunky (and apart from that I am not sure that half of the things we want to use them for were actually braided hose in the first place).

it's a great shame their spark plugs and other similar 'gubbins' do not come pre-drilled to mate any associated wiring - I tried and failed to drill them out, and just gave up.

i like the way lead wire is super easy to work with, but i have to be careful not to dent it with tweezers; again something I usually fail at (if you look closely at my P-51 wheel well - but don't tell anyone lol)

Can't wait to see more of this build

Nick

[DocRob]

5 hours ago, nmayhew said:

agreed - I have a bunch of Anyz stuff and I don't think any of those braided lines are that appropriate for 1/32 - the braid is just too chunky (and apart from that I am not sure that half of the things we want to use them for were actually braided hose in the first place).

it's a great shame their spark plugs and other similar 'gubbins' do not come pre-drilled to mate any associated wiring - I tried and failed to drill them out, and just gave up.

i like the way lead wire is super easy to work with, but i have to be careful not to dent it with tweezers; again something I usually fail at (if you look closely at my P-51 wheel well - but don't tell anyone lol)

Can't wait to see more of this build

I have some pics, which show braided ignition wires in a coppery color, but more so with black or grey lines.
The Anyz spark plugs, I used, have an angled connector for the wire. You can carefully push the braided thread onto these, good looking, but not scale wise.

Like you said, working with lead wire is much easier, it cuts with only the slightest push of a knife, glues well with CA and keeps it's desired form, if not touched during the process. The 0,3 mm variant fits best to my eye for this 32 scale ignition.

Cheers Rob

[harv]

How in the hell did I miss this ! Looks fantastic so far Rob. I'm here for the finish....harv 

[DocRob]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:48 PM, harv said:

How in the hell did I miss this ! Looks fantastic so far Rob. I'm here for the finish....harv 

Thank you Harv, good to have you on the trip. I hope, I will be able to stay continuously with the build.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The engine got assembled, got some touch ups and was installed into the fuselage mounts. The assembly with all the cowling rings and myriads of exhaust tubes need careful alignment to get it right. Following the manual is advised here.

This is what remains visible (looks better in real life, but the picture needed to be badly exposed)

Luckily the only loosely fitted side cowlings sat in their places with only minimal gaps

 

Cheers Rob

[GazzaS]

Looks good...   but I can understand why many would want yellow wires.

[Irishman1]

The solid wire does look good in this scale, I actually debated using wire instead of the anzy line anyway even thinking the solid wire looked more realistic in 1/24 scale too. Looks fantastic 

[HubertB]

I don’t want to rain your parade, Rob, but, IIRC, lead and CA don’t make for a durable couple… CA reduces lead-containing alloys to a white powder over time. At lest that’s what I read during my ship-modelling times. And I think I remember that the use of CA is forbidden by most museums worldwide, for that reason, in any restoration of vintage ship models, where metal castings used lead.

I am the first one to forget about it, but white PVA glue is most often a very suitable replacement for CA when gluing metal to plastic.

Hubert

[DocRob]

On 11/2/2022 at 10:17 PM, GazzaS said:

Looks good...   but I can understand why many would want yellow wires.

Thanks Gary, I was opting for copper not yellow. There are some historical pictures from the production line of the P&W showing copper braided wiring.

On 11/2/2022 at 10:27 PM, Irishman1 said:

The solid wire does look good in this scale, I actually debated using wire instead of the anzy line anyway even thinking the solid wire looked more realistic in 1/24 scale too. Looks fantastic 

Thank you Irishman, I like the look of the Anyz thread on your engine, but like Gary said, I've never seen evidence of yellow wiring used at the time.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

13 hours ago, HubertB said:

I don’t want to rain your parade, Rob, but, IIRC, lead and CA don’t make for a durable couple… CA reduces lead-containing alloys to a white powder over time. At lest that’s what I read during my ship-modelling times. And I think I remember that the use of CA is forbidden by most museums worldwide, for that reason, in any restoration of vintage ship models, where metal castings used lead.

I am the first one to forget about it, but white PVA glue is most often a very suitable replacement for CA when gluing metal to plastic.

I never knew about a discussion about CA causing problems with lead alloys causing problems, Hubert. I will dig a little deeper here as I'm interested in the why's, albeit not being a Chemist.

I used the combination of Ca and lead wire on different occasions, wiring radial engines and it never failed. In the case of the Corsair, I even skipped the step of pre drilling, to get a larger bonding area. All the wires are glued directly onto the plastic/resin. In the assembly process, I bent several of the glued wires, accidentally or by shaping them and non came loose. I will check later, if the wiring on my P-47, I wired some years ago is still intact.

As I'm only building models for building and painting sakes, in  the end, I don't really care about long term durability. I lose interest into a finished project and don't display my finished builds, with maybe the exception of the Duchess of Kingston, when ready.

Cheers Rob

[Sasha As]

Great construction site!

[HubertB]

3 hours ago, DocRob said:

[…]

As I'm only building models for building and painting sakes, in  the end, I don't really care about long term durability. I lose interest into a finished project and don't display my finished builds, with maybe the exception of the Duchess of Kingston, when ready.

Cheers Rob

What is sure is that it’s not an overnight process. We are talking years, or decades. The articles in Seaways were about the conservation and restoration of museum pieces, some of them in closed glass boxes, which probably compounded the problem.

I an with you. I used to « file vertically » my kits a few months after completion, so the long term is not really an issue for me as well

Hubert

[DocRob]

On 11/5/2022 at 8:56 AM, Sasha As said:

Great construction site!

Thank you Sasha, it's a feelgood kit and I can't wait to get to the painting stage.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

With the Covid and it's side effects more or less gone, it's time to get back on track and do some sports. Boy was I missing that. I'm still a bit weak, but today I thrashed my powerless bones into the Atlantic and had a good swim. A bit uncomforting were the Barracudas in huge quantity and different sizes. I don't mind the small ones, but don't like the cold stare of the larger ones.

Back to the Corsair. There will not be too many updates until something interesting happens. I have to admit, building and painting of the inner and outer sections of the wings bore me a bit. I have to take care to not make mistakes, where there are so many options considering flaps up or down, wings folded or not,...
On ModelShipWorld a member pointed out, that the wings of a Corsair only fold simultaneously, so gone was the one wing up option. The wings will not be folded, as my plane is land based.

I finished all the assemblies for the wheel wells and inner wing parts, after painting tons of parts. 

...and glued the wing roots and fuselage bottom to the rest of the fuselage. I think only Tamiya can produce so many strangely shaped parts to fit and lock into place with a tiny little snap. 
On my last Tamiya build, I used Microscale's Micro Mask for the exhausts and it took hours to peel that off, horrible stuff. This time, I inserted a small piece of Kabuki tape to the inside of the fuselage to cover the exhaust opening. This can be pulled off with tweezers after painting. 

The wheel wells itself are very beautiful rendered oob.

Cheers Rob

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Catching up on your Corsair Rob and there's been lots of great progress. The engine looks fantastic and the wheel bays are spotless.

I'm still fighting my cold so can't wait to have the fog lift. 

Carl

[DocRob]

20 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Catching up on your Corsair Rob and there's been lots of great progress. The engine looks fantastic and the wheel bays are spotless.

I'm still fighting my cold so can't wait to have the fog lift. 

I know what you are talking about Carl, having fought my Covid just now. The dizziness and headaches are terrible. I hope you'll be better soon.
Thanks for your thoughts, I want to get over the construction phase, as perfection starts to bore me a bit .

Cheers Rob

 

[KevinM]

Rob those wheel wells and painting look flawless!

[Martinnfb]

As always Rob, clean work with tasteful weathering touch.  Joy to follow. 

[DocRob]

19 hours ago, KevinM said:

Rob those wheel wells and painting look flawless!

Thank you Kevin, I would have liked to airbrush the landing gear and lg-doors in one go, but ran out of holding clips. My whole desk was full of parts to spray . Poco a poco, step by step like they say here.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

16 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

As always Rob, clean work with tasteful weathering touch.  Joy to follow. 

Thank you Martin, you delivered the phrase for my desired look. The look of the Corsair I mean .

Cheers Rob