I’d have a hard time deciding on those gun bays too. It’s a shame to hide really nice detail that the kit gives you, but I agree that the Corsair has such beautiful lines that opening everything up changes the whole look of the airplane. Since you’re building two of them, though, having one opened up and one buttoned up seems like the best of both worlds.
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I think you made the right call on the ignition wiring. I’m getting better about asking myself how much of that extra detail is actually going to be visible when the model is finished before spending hours adding it. I also like the compromise on the gun bay. You get to show off some of that detail without taking away from the overall lines of the Corsair.
I’ve never actually built a Corsair, being mostly a jet guy, but I do have this Hobby Boss F4U-4B in the stash. After following your adventures with these two, I’m wondering what I’ll be in for when I finally get around to mine. Hopefully Hobby Boss avoided some of the same issues!
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Your Corsair is a jet-age Corsair, produced right after WWII ended, and was used extensively by both the Navy and Marines. I’ve never built that kit, but the instructions on Scalemates show it to be a pretty well detailed kit, not as many parts as the Magic Factory, but should produce a good representation of the Corsair.
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That’s actually one of the things that attracted me to the -4B. Being mostly a jet-age aircraft guy, it puts the Corsair a little closer to the period I normally build, and the Marine Corps connection is really why I bought this particular kit.
And after watching what you’re going through with these Magic Factory kits, hearing that mine has fewer parts and should still build into a good Corsair sounds pretty appealing. 
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Coming along nicely, the engine looks great!
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Over the last couple of days, I managed to get both builds aligned in terms of how far I’ve progressed. Yesterday I fixed a problem with the masking on the -2’s canopy and got both canopy parts temporarily installed. I also masked wheel wells and the cowling openings so that this morning I could start the painting process with a coat of Grey primer (Stynylrez).
This is not going to be a quick paint job, however. Next is to put down a splotchy coat of yellow primer. The Corsair was known for paint chipping along the upper inner wings, revealing the primer beneath. Then I’ll likely paint black wing walk lines on the wings; those will be masked with very narrow tape strips. Then to get the chipping effect, I’ll do a salt treatment before starting with the top side paint.
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That looks so much harder than it needs to be, kudos for your perseverence with it.
Interesting observations about QC, and maunfacturers actually test-building their own kits. The same applies to kit instructions. I just finished a Heller kit in which the instruction booklet included numerous errors– wrongly numbered parts, different parts with the same numbers, parts not numbered or shown, even one part shown being installed upside down. Clearly no proof-reading had been done. Kit itself was nice though.
Apologies for the thread hijack BTW… looks like you’re beating those two Corsairs into submission.
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@Migrant I have spent my career in software engineering. Quality engineering is an important aspect of that, and that should be the case in pretty much any profession. I can’t say I’ve ever encountered errors in Tamiya’s instructions, but I have definitely had that problem with other manufacturers on more than one occasion.
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Probably happens when the checkers language is NOT English! 
Gary
I’m really interested to see how the salt treatment works out. I’ve seen salt demonstrated on YouTube for preshading and creating variations in the finish, but I’ve never seen it used for paint chipping.
I’ll be interested to see how much control you have over where and how much paint comes off. The idea of having that yellow primer showing through underneath should make for some really interesting weathering.
Definitely watching to see how this comes out.
Got a little work done today before my departure for Aggieland, with a game tonight at Kyle Field. I painted the underside surfaces - M-485 light gray for the -2, insignia white for the -1A. I later masked underside surfaces and painted intermediate blue along the fuselage sides, rudder, and outer lower wings.
The zinc yellow chromate for the upper wing surfaces is already in place, but I’m not happy with it. I may very well add to it tomorrow. I tried working with the salt we had on-hand, but many of the flakes were way too big. So no salt treatment this time. I will need to clean the upper wings real well before doing any additional painting there, as there are still some salt flakes present. I will come back after the painting to add some zinc yellow chromate with the tip of a toothpick or my finest brush tip. And I will use the kit decals for the wingwalks.
-1A
-2
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I’ve never tried the salt technique before, so this is interesting to follow. When you say the salt flakes were too big, do you mean they were masking off too large an area and leaving paint chips that looked oversized for the scale?
I’ve seen people use salt for weathering, but I’ve never actually tried it myself. I like the idea of going back with a toothpick or fine brush for more control. I’m curious to see how that works out.
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Yes, many of the flakes were simply too big for the scale. Our paint was better than what the Japanese used, so you aren’t going to see a Corsair with massive amounts of paint missing. Having said that, our paint was not impervious to wear and tear and the South Pacific environment. This is the look I’m going for.
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Okay, that makes sense. I wasn’t quite sure what you meant when you said the salt flakes were too big, but now I understand. It wasn’t the amount of weathering so much as the individual chips being too large for the scale.
Those reference photos really help too. There’s actually quite a bit of wear there, but it’s mostly lots of smaller chips and worn areas rather than huge chunks of paint missing.
I’ve never tried the salt technique before, so I’m interested to see how you control the size of the effect. I’ll definitely be watching how you approach it from here.
Big difference between the ethics of Korea and Japan and it shows here. Im not bashing them “Koreans” and it gets worse the farther west you go.
Just remember those radials leaked copious amounts of oil and it got on everything.
I use salt sometimes for armor,especially the early DAK stuff with the gray overcoated with the brown,its controlled by the size of the salt granules that you use and the amount of salt,remember,you don’t leave any salt on the model,so whatever you remove,that’s the amount of paint coming off,a lot or a little.
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I got a lot of work done today, as well as another setback.
Both are painted as per base camouflage, although I am going to do some fading in the next day or so. Both are almost fully decaled - except for the wing walks. The first decal I put on rolled irrecoverably. So next up will be masking to paint the wing walks. A setback, but one that is not insurmountable.
-1A
-2
I am close to done, and am very happy for that. These kits look great in the box, but the actual construction leaves some things to be desired. I’ll be glad to move on to whatever comes next.
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Nice job on the paint,looks great,I’m easing my way thru mine,being very careful dry fitting stuff and it’s going well so far.
Looking good. Seems like you’ve had to wrestle with these but they are looking the part.