Let the madness begin!
I’ve begun my next build, a Tamiya 1/48 scale F4U-1A Corsair which will be built as the plane Boyington was shot down in. I’m also including an Aires 4225 Detail set, which provides a complete cockpit, engine, gun bays, wheel wells, and flaps, all in resin and photo etch. Each of these details is a kit all by itself, and the total number of parts included is over 100.
As is typical of a Tamiya kit, this one is finely detailed and so far the parts fit is clean and easy. I began with building the Aires cockpit, which basically replaces the entire Tamiya cockpit setup, except for the “stick.” The Aires cockpit is exquisitely detailed, which is a shame as a lot of it will be invisible once it is enclosed inside the fuselage. No matter, I’m going all out on this kit.
If you are going to build the Tamiya Corsair, it is worth much consideration as to how far you want to take the accuracy and detail. Out of the box, it’s going to look great. The Aires detail set adds much detail especially with the cockpit, engine and flaps, but at the expense of your sanity (well, my sanity at least). As I mentioned earlier, there are over 100 resin and pe parts in this set. The parts are beautiful. The instructions are a combination of hieroglyphs and Czech, and are terrible. The glyphs lack clarity as to where parts go. There is no mention of the amount of surgery you must perform on the Tamiya kit parts to make the Aires details fit. The cockpit alone is making me remove all of the molded-in detail in the two fuselage halves, and remove a section of the dash under the canopy from the two halves in order to make the Aires cockpit fit. Later, I’ll need to cut out the wing for the gun bays, cut out the fuselage halves for the engine, cut out the flaps for the new ones, cut the wheel wells…the list goes on. There is no guidance for this in any of the instructions. If you’ve never done this type of work, and have trouble figuring things out, please consider carefully if you want to add this Aires kit to your Corsair. It can be done, you tube is your friend, and slow and steady with heaps of patience will see you through!
All right, back to the topic at hand. As I mentioned, I began with the cockpit, applying primer with my new DSPIAE no wash airbrush with a .03mm needle using Mr Surfacer 1500 gray mixed 50/50 with Mr. Leveling Thinner. The primer went down smooth with no clogs or hiccups.
I must mention that prior to primer, I did assemble a few PE pieces and the foot pedals. Once they were cured, the sub assemblies were shot with a mixture of 2 parts Tamiya Flat Yellow XF-3 to 1 part Tamiya Flat Green XF-5 to make Zinc Chromate Green, thinned with mineral spirits,and shot through my Paasche single action airbrush with a .03mm needle.
Next I hand painted Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black X-18, Red Brown XF-64, Flat Red XF-7, Rubber Black XF-85, Flat Green XF-5, Chrome Silver X-11 to bring out the cockpit details. I used a 00 Winsor and Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable brush (I have the 000, 00, 0, 1, 2, 3, in my arsenal).
I have to say, I was skeptical about “brush quality.” I knew that having good brushes was a must for this hobby, but couldn’t justify the expense of this type of brush until I tried one. Now, I highly recommend getting these brushes, you’ll thank me later. Overall, I think it looks great, but I was a little sloppy on the tanks in the base of the cockpit. They fortunately will not be seen by anyone but me, so I’m not stressing over it. I let things dry and did some assembly and dry fitting, which exposed the need for all the surgery discussed previously. You can see, some of the removal of the molded-in fuselage detail in this pic here:
I’ve applied a clear coat to the sub assemblies, so that I can apply some panel liner and wear and tear. Later today, I will finish surgery, matte coat, and assemble the cockpit sub assemblies.
The panel liner is Tamiya Black and Brown, the gloss and matte coats are Vallejo.
That’s it for now. Until next update, Happy Modeling!!
