Hi ya’ll. New guy here. Just joined this site last night and I love it. Havent built a plastic model in 40+ yrs so thought it about time to start again. Rightly or wrongly I chose the Tamiya 1/48 F4U-1/2 birdcage corsair (item 61046-2000) Since this will be my first “serious” build I’ll do it out of the box using mfgs color chart and therein lies my question. I’m building the marine version.Tamiya suggests XF-18 med. blue mixed with XF-2 white in a 2:1 ratio for the upper surfaces. I’m no expert but that seems a very light blue to me. I thought the corsair was always some variation of a deep blue, i.e. Navy. Am I just showing my ignorance? I don’t expect this first one to be any great work of art but I would like it to be as neat and accurate as possible. Any thoughts/suggestions from you “Pros’” would be greatly appriciated
Thanks a bunch. John L.
Welcome to the forum jlamp
[#welcome]
Not quite sure on the correct answer, however the corsair had several different color schemes, which i’m sure one of them was quite a light blue. I know the RNZAF used a really light blue scheme.
I’m sure one of the guys will know.
Cheers,
Alan
Early in the war, the Navy and Marines used a scheme which was a light blue-grey over light grey scheme. The top surfaces were done blue-grey (Tamiyas mix is pretty close), and the undersides were painted light grey. So Tamiya is correct for that particular Corsair. Later in the war, Navy and Marines aircraft were painted a darker shade of blue like you said.
BTW, That Tamiya Corsair is a very nice kit. You’ll enjoy building it.
Oh, and welcome to the forums.
There is also a tri-color scheme. White underside, graduating to a medium blue/grey (intermediate blue), and then Navy Blue on top.
I like the Navy blue scheme all over.