F4 Corsair Diorama WIP #3

Painting on the Corsair's has continued over the last few days, with the first two stages of the scheme shown in the first four photos below. The white was done first and masked off using blutac and masking tape, before spraying the next areas in intermediate blue. Masking was then removed ready to re-mask for the navy blue final areas. As the transition between the intermediate blue and navy blue were straight edges, masking was carried out with just masking tape alone cutting out disc's for the curved portions above the main wings. 

The navy blue is finished on both of the aircraft and the next stage is to gloss clear both models before adding the decals to them. Once the decals are finished, another coat of clear will be applied before a bit more weathering is done and the pre-shading is touched up. Once this is all done, a couple of coats of matt clear then on to some detail painting.

One part of this project that I have not spoke about is the base for the diorama. This has been a little problem trying to work out how to do it. First it needed to be a carrier deck, second it had to house the battery pack underneath it and thirdly the models would need to be removable from it. So since I re-started on this project, I had been looking around to see what carrier deck bases were available. Some were very nice, one a combination of etch, wood and plastic. But I would have need to buy two of these costing nearly £40, which was too much in my opinion for this project. So I opted for the Eduard plastic USN WWII carrier deck which was big enough to get both Corsair's and the tug on it. Now I have got to make a wooden plinth for it to sit on and house the battery pack and switch for the motorised Corsair.

So it is time to get the airbrush out and clear both of the Corsair's. An update will be posted later this week.

F4 Corsair Diorama WIP #2

I did not realise that I had only done the one WIP posting on this diorama build, this just shows how I can get distracted from doing one project to another. Well, since I finished the Messerschmitt Bf110, after leaving it sitting for over two years, I thought it would be a good idea to get this project out and completed as it has not been touched in over two years. I have too many of these projects just sitting there waiting. 

Well, to catch up on this project. Over a period of a few months, I managed to get hold of two Tamiya F4U-1A Corsairs, one which was motorised. I had a vision in my head of having one with the propeller running with a pilot in the seat and another standing on the wing talking to him. A former club member then gave me a moto-tug that he had lying around unwanted. This then completed the vision in my head of what the diorama would look like.

The non-motorised aircraft had all of the major construction done, to the point that it was ready for painting. It was also the same with the tug with the assembly done and ready for painting. The motorised Corsair was a different situation. I needed a set of small connectors to allow me to remove the model from the display base for safe transportation and displaying the model on my shelves. I kept keeping some connectors from inside old computers, but kept losing them somewhere. The house move did not help either. So I popped into the local Maplins and looked through what they had making a choice on one set. Now I could sort out the power lead for the motor then paint the interior and assemble the fuselage. The wing were now assembled and glued to the fuselage followed by other construction getting it to the same stage as the other Corsair.

I decided to get the tug painted first once I had downloaded some painting instructions for it. This was straight forwards to paint, just one colour all over with the engine in steel/gun metal. Once the engine was weathered/grimed up and tyres painted, I assembled the tug and did some detail painting before weathering the it with worn areas of paint, grime and washes. Now with a little grime, etc. on the tug, the wheel chocks were painted, weathered and added each side of the engine and a few extra lumps of wood behind the drivers seat. These were made from a chopped up matchstick gone over with a wash and glued in place. The steering wheel is only held in place at the moment with blutac, it is hard to get the driver in place with it there. So once the driver is painted and glued in place, then the steering wheel will be glued then.

The fuselages, wings and engine cowls have all been sprayed with Alclad grey primer, which I think is one of the best on the market. But as the underside of the fuselage is white, I also went over the lower half with some Vallejo white primer.

Pre-shading was done using the same mix of black as I did on the Messerschmitt Bf110, covering all of the panel lines and removable covers on the fuselage and wings. The wing folds were also pre-shaded to along with some other edges.

To finish off this posting, we end at where the Corsairs are at this stage. They have both received the white areas under the fuselage, tail planes and inner sections f the wings. I will start to mask off these areas next and spray the intermediate blue areas.

Finished Builds Of 2015

 N ow that I have looked back over the last year, it has surprised me in what has been completed. A few fresh builds, whilst the others have been old un-finished projects from before our move to Yorkshire. The best thing is the way the move has worked out, how we settled into the new house and area and finding a new club to join. Fair enough, my man cave is smaller than the one on the old house, but at least I do not have to climb up the loft ladders to get to it. So lets go through this years builds.

The first is a Dragon 1/144th scale F-14 Tomcat which I started just to keep me occupied once the main unpacking in the house was done. A lot of the building and painting was done while sitting waiting around at work. I also went back to old school with this one by just using the hairy brush for painting.

Next was one of the final parts of my "End Of An Era" diorama, the MD200 aircraft tug. This is a resin, white metal and etch kit which was about 75% done before we moved. So I thought it was important to get it finished for the dio.

Now we are back to aircrafts, this time Airfix's great 1/72nd scale EE Lightning F.2. I had started this the previous year and only got as far as building the cockpit and exhausts, then packed it away. So the Lightning came out to spread its wings and got completed. This also encouraged me to buy a couple of the Sword two seater Lightnings for my collection.

The Diamond T was one I had to get into the right state of mind to finish. To add to it, this was a review build which was a little bit overdue. But I was very pleased with the end model and with the results of trying out some new weathering products. This was a Mirror Models 1/35th scale kit.

Guess what? Another un-finished project done. This was one of the limited edition releases from the Airfix Club. It could be done in the markings of the Japanese Imperial Airforce, or as here in RAF camouflage and markings.

This one had been sitting waiting to be painted for possibly more than two years. It is an old Hasegawa 1/72nd scale F-15C Eagle which had most of the construction work done. I did not want to trust the kits decals, as they were quite old and likely to break up. So I used some aftermarket decals which I had brought for this model.

Now we are onto some new builds. First was a Revell 1/72nd scale Arado Ar.240 Night Fighter. This was a nice and simple kit to build which once painted up, produced a good little model.

Now for the start of the Minions. I had picked these up at a show earlier in the year and decided to have a little break from normal kits and build these three beauties. The resin figures are from a company called RetrokiT and the Minion range of figures are always expanding. I now have four more waiting to be built.

This was a duel build with another Mustang, both Airfix new toolings in 1/72nd scale. First was the RAF Mustang 4 in the markings of 112 Squadron based in Italy during 1945. I added seatbelts and an aerial wire through the canopy to the tail. 

This one is the reclassified F-51D Mustang which were flown in the Korean War. The model was finished with Alclad metal finish with seatbelts and aerial wire added.

I got nagged into finishing this project. I had originally brought this for my grandson a couple of years back and built the Tardis up. It had been painted, but needed finishing off before starting on the figures. I substituted some of the paints supplied by Airfix with the kit, but the others I had to use as there was nothing in my stock. I inserted some pins in the feet of the figures and used an old wooden base I had lying around for the model. This has been allowed to be displayed in the living room downstairs.

There should have been another model included in this post, but I did not manage to get it finished by New Years Day. So the Messerschmitt Bf110 will be included in the review of 2016's builds.