Howdy...
I've actually had time to put in some workbench time--the joys of working from home and having flexible hours means that I can step away from the desk and visit the workbench. As long as my work assignments get done, the boss doesn't care. What I usually do it start work (the job) at around 0800, work through the day, and knock off at anywhere between 1600 and 1800. So, I've found myself actually finishing projects. Here's the first to be documented...
This project all started when we were discussing the availability of kits for the hobby shop. I noted that the Monogram kits of 1/48 scale World War Two aircraft were getting to be a bit expensive (between $17 and $20), given what they were. Most of them are old enough to collect Social Security and Medicare, and a good many of them are really nothing but shells with gimmicky working parts. Sure, there are some--the Stuka, Devastator, Mustangs, and Thunderbolts--that are still great kits, but not at today's prices. I remembered back in the day, when one wanted to take the next step, we went with the Otaki kits. They were fairly easily obtained back then, and cost around $8 at the time. A tad more expensive than the Monogram kits to be sure, but they were, for the most part, better kits. Recessed panel detail, complete cockpits and wheel wells, and decent decals were some of the high points of the Otaki offerings. Sure, they had their low points, too--the swept leading edge on the P-40E wing, the subtle shape issues on the P-51D Mustang, and the lack of the gull section of the Spitfire VIII wing where it meets the fuselage. But as a whole they were all a cut above Monogram, even now that the Arii/Micro Ace issues of the Otaki kits only have one decal option and lack the color plates that we used to collect.
So, I went looking for the Otaki kits--by the way, I still refer to them as Otaki products, even though Otaki went insolvent in the late 1970's/early 1980's and the kits have been distributed by Arii (and now Micro Ace) since then. Anyway, I searched all of the domestic distributors. Stevens International used to carry them. Apparently no longer. Squadron doesn't have them. Sprue Brothers? Nope. I would try Sentai, but they got assimilated into the Squadron/MMD Borg under the previous owner. So, let's look further afield. Try as I may, I couldn't find a distributor. Until we tried to get a wholesale account with HLJ. And there they were...for about $8 USD a pop!
Now, the owner is still working with HLJ, and we think we found another source, so they may well become New Arrivals at the shop. But that's a different story...
One thing I have noticed while dealing with novice modelers is this: If they're not familiar with the manufacturer, the product will sit. You can explain until you're blue in the face how good or bad a product is, but they won't pony up the dough until they actually see the product. That's where I come in...
I had previously built an Otaki F6F-3 Hellcats for a model building class that I wanted to hold at the shop back when I managed the second HobbyTown branch in Columbia. I also had a surplus to my needs F4U-1A Corsair kit kicking around upstairs--it had been on and off either my wife's or my SIDNA stack for years. I decided to build the Corsair as a companion piece for the Hellcat so they can be placed in the shop's display case as a sales aid. Somewhere along the line, the Otaki Corsair we had gathered a Verlinden update set for the Tamiya kit, so I decided to incorporate that into the kit, or at least a little of it. I also wanted to see how the Vallejo WWII U.S. Navy aircraft colors stacked up. So, I started to do dry fits and some mental engineering to see how well the Verlinden parts would work.
I was working at the shop one day, and noticed that we had two copies of the recent Revell AG 1/72 F4U-1A. So, I formulated a new plan--build the Otaki kit as a sales tool, and build the Revell AG kit as a scale comparison. The Revell AG kit comes with markings for "Lucybelle", the aircraft widely assumed to have belonged to Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington while he was commanding VMF-214 on Vella Lavella in the Southwest Pacific. Of course, we all know that nobody in VMF-214 had an assigned airplane, and that Boyington usually took the worst airplane ready to fly on a given day. Basically, "Lucybelle" was the prop for a photo-op for the squadron in late 1943...
I had already noted that the decals for the Otaki kit (Phil DeLong's aircraft with rows of bomb mission markings) were decidedly shot, and remembered that I had the old MicroScale sheet number 48-38 with the same airplane (although the name was "Lulubelle, as it was widely assumed to be back when the sheet was researched. And yes, it still had the manufacturer's price of $2.98 printed on the envelope!). With that, I bought the Revell kit...
OTAKI 1/48 F4U-1A Corsair:
This kit was, up until the advent of the HobbyCraft and Tamiya kits, the best WWII Corsair in this scale. It had a few shortcomings--the engine was anemic, the cockpit was basic, and there were some molding curiosities present (the indented ovals on the prop where the manufacturer's logo is, the blob that was, at some time, a raised strap on the cowl). But in comparison to the only other WWII Corsair in the scale, it was a gem. Several companies came along in the mid-1990's with resin update sets, which made them an even better choice, even in light of the release of the HobbyCraft kits (which had some goobers of their own). It was the release of the Tamiya kit in the late 1990's that finally relegated the Otaki kit to bottom of the SIDNA stack, novice modeler fodder.
My copy was what appeared to be from after AMT had the U.S. distribution of the kit (Matchbox and Airfix, too, at one time issued these kits). The indented ovals were still there, the cowling had been cleaned up a bit, yet there was now a mold defect in the crown of the canopy. I was originally going to use a Squadron canopy on this little feller, but decided that the kit canopy wasn't bad enough to cry about.
As I said, I had the Verlinden set designed for the Tamiya kit--like that kit needed anything. Verlinden gives you an engine, a cockpit, and some elevators and assorted bits and bobs. I decided to use only the engine and cockpit. Now, I'm really bad about taking in progress pictures, so I don't have any to show. What I can tell you is this: I used the kit aft cockpit bulkhead and control stick, and engineered up a control system with some Evergreen rod and strip stock. I used the Revell kit as a guide (a handy thing to have, too!). Otherwise, I assembled and painted the Verlinden cockpit parts and offered them up to see what I needed to do. The forward bulkhead needed some trimming, so I cut it back until it fit within the fuselage. It took a little bit of work, but nothing beyond the capabilities of an average modeler.
The engine was done in much the same manner--I had to sand down the cylinder heads a wee bit to fit within the cowling, but nothing too difficult. Be sure to have assembled the cowling halves and allow the cement to set overnight before you start fitting the engine, since forcing the engine into the cowl will split it back apart. The biggest thing to watch for is the alignment--the magnetos are on top of the gear case. What I did was dry fit the cowl to the fuselage and marked the top centerline. Then, when I installed the engine, I made sure that the center of the crankcase was in line with the mark. Easy...
I bored a hole in the crankcase to accept a prop shaft made from Evergreen rod. Fill in those oval depressions, and the prop is ready. I drilled out the flattened bumps that Otaki wants us to think are exhausts. I figured I'd paint them in after the rest of the paint work was done. If I build another one of these, I'll do what I did in 1981 when I built my first Otaki Corsair and bore out the exhausts completely and insert new exhausts made from tubing...
The rest of the assembly was per the kit instructions. I didn't do this, but if your test fitting shows a gap along the wing roots, you might want to install some sort of backer so that any filler you use has a place to grab on to. My example did need filler, so I swiped a bit of Perfect Plastic Putty (PPP) along the wing-to-fuselage joint and cleaned it up with a damp Q-Tip. The stabilizers fit quite well, no filler was needed. The only filler I needed on the fuselage was to fill the holes for the belly tank mounts--I first plugged them with scraps of styrene, then filled with PPP. The cowl was the last thing to attach, mind the gaps.
The canopy was cleaned, masked, and installed on the airplane. There was a gap along the windscreen, so I shot some flat black paint (the interior color of the windscreen frames), let it dry, then applied a little PPP into the gap. I cleaned it up with a damp Q-Tip, and let it dry. I then shot some FS34102 green over the canopy frames (the cockpit interior color) and allowed it to dry. By the way, the black paint was applied first so that the white putty wouldn't show...
I installed the landing gear and struts at this time. Not something I do all the time, but I did it to save some time. I painted the wheels and tires separately from the rest of the model.
The rest of the paint job was standard U.S. Navy Tri-color from 1943. I used the Vallejo colors, and I liked how they looked--the remind me of the old Pactra Authentic International Colors that I used on one of these kits (and an Otaki Hellcat) when I originally built them in the early 1980's. The key to the paint scheme is to paint the white, then the Sea Blue, then the Intermediate Blue. The Sea Blue tends to "absorb" the overspray from the Intermediate blue, so you only need to be really fussy along the Intermediate Blue/White demarcation. Even so, I had to do some touch-up work on all three colors. I'm still getting the hang of the Vallejo paints, but I think everything came out well.
After the paint had a few nights to fully dry/cure, I clear coated the model. My clear of choice is whatever they're calling Future these days, thinned 50-50 with Isopropyl Alcohol. I usually apply three or four thin coats and allow it to dry for a day or so...
The Microscale decals were a gamble I decided to take--they were originally purchased in 1987, but had been kept indoors, in an air conditioned house, in their sealed envelope. I figured they'd work well, and I wasn't disappointed. They went down beautifully, and all I needed was some diluted Solvaset to get them to hug every surface detail like paint. Given that the research for this sheet was done in the '60's and '70's, it achieved the results I was looking for. As an aside, I botched one of the "86" decals on the strut door--I later found it balled up on the Future bottle! One of these days, I may replace it...
Final finish was Vallejo's Matt Varnish. Next time, I'll probably use the Satin Varnish, since the Matt Varnish is absolutely, completely dead flat. Almost too much so. In any event, it is what it is now. I probably could have wet sanded the model with 3200-grit Micro Mesh to knock it down some. Maybe next time...
I mixed up a tinting color of about 50% Matt Varnish, 40% airbrush thinner, and 10% of a black/red/brown mix and added the beginnings of exhaust stains. Once that had dried, I accentuated them with pastels. The wheels got added to the model and weathered with pastel dust, and I called it done.
REVELL AG 1/72 F4U-1A:
I bought this one, as I outlined above, on a whim. I will say this right now--if I build another 1/72 F4U-1, I will probably seek out either the Tamiya or Academy kit. Not that this was a bad kit, per se, but it certainly is different...
The first think you notice is that it is molded in white. White plastic makes it difficult to spot molding defects like sink marks--this kit is rife with them. It is also a bit softer than, say, gray plastic. The next thing you notice is that the kit has some parts breakdowns that make you scratch your head--especially the wing. The outer wing panels attach two ribs into the fabric covered outer panels, which leaves a fairly prominent seam. The fabric effect is overdone, too. The bomb racks have depressions in the wing of the same size and shape, which are difficult to fill (especially on a -1 Corsair that didn't carry bombs). The oil cooler inlets have a strange fit, as do the gun muzzle panels. Moving to the fuselage, the panel from the windscreen to the cowl is separate, and the fit isn't all that great--I used Squadron white putty to fill the gaps. The forward end of the fuselage--the cowl, especially--is an overly-complicated assembly and took some additional care to get aligned correctly. Two sets of cowl flaps, one closed and the other open, are included. The open set has that gap-toothed look so common in kits these days. The exhaust pipes are on an insert to be fitted to the forward edge of the fuselage assembly. The rudder is separate, and is the only control surface to be a separate part.
On the other side of the coin, the cockpit is quite nice for the scale. The seat belts are decals, but there's nothing stopping you from making some simple paper belts. The fit of the rest of the kit was good. The engine is a bit tight in the owl, so you might want to trim the bulkhead a bit. The kit went together with no real difficulty, but as I said, you need to pay attention during some assembly steps.
The paint was the same as the Otaki kit. I free-handed the camouflage, and it looks pretty good. Again, I started with the white, added the Sea Blue, then the Intermediate blue. Touch ups were completed, the airplane clear coated, and allowed to cure.
The kit decals were the Shop-Vac of suck. Seriously. They were stiff and unyielding. Were I building this kit for a contest (not a chance!), I'd opt for aftermarket. As it was, I needed the "Lucybelle" scheme and didn't want to search out aftermarket on them, so I stuck with the kit decals. Nothing I tried would get them to conform--Solvaset, Future under the decals, hot water, or 99% Isopropyl Alcohol. I didn't attempt the Tamiya Super Thin Cement trick, I just left well enough alone.
Once the decals were dry, I cleaned up the decal residue and applied Vallejo Matt Varnish. As before, I added exhaust streaks, installed the landing gear, cleaned up any glue spots, and called it done.
Something to add here about decals of any type--how many of you apply the decals, let them dry, then final finish the model? How many of you who do this wonder in six months where those brownish stains on the model came from? When the decals are dry overnight, use a soft, lint-free rag and some water (I use distilled water for decals, since my tap water--even filtered--has a high mineral content) and gently clean off the decal glue and solvent residue. You'll be able to see it as you remove it--there will be tide marks visible when you wet the surface of the model around the decal. Gently wipe the tide marks away...
Another trick when painting combat airplanes is to mute the colors. White, especially, sticks out like a sore thumb. Remember the mix I used to add exhaust streaks? Well, thin that way, way down--it should be mostly thinner--and mist a thin coat on the model. It won't take many coats to impart a drab, homogenized look to the colors...this is definitely one of those things that carries the adage "If you think one more pass will be good, stop!" You can't un-do it if you overdo it short of stripping and repainting the model...
I made some simple display bases from craft store plaques. Don't just take them home and slap a coat of varnish on them--sand the too marks out first! I used some 100 and 220 grit paper to smooth out the imperfections on the bases, then applied a few coats of clear polyurethane to the bases. Once dry, I glues some felt to the bottom to prevent scratching when the base would be placed on furniture and to give it a finished, professional look. I then cut some mat board (I got a pack of off-cuts from the craft store for about $5, which has been good for about ten models so far) to fit the bases, and attached them to the base with Elmer's Tacky craft glue. Put the base on a flat surface and add some weight in order to ensure the mat board adheres to the base. This is where 90% of my bases start...
Because the aircraft dispersal area at Barakomo Airfield was crushed coral, I could have landscaped the base in a few ways--white glue and some fine railroad ballast, glue and some fine sand, or some other product. I used "some other product"--in this case, Liquitex Artists' Gel Medium with grit added--they call it "Stucco" at the store. I masked off the area for the placards after positioning the models to goo effect, removed the model, and spread on a very thin layer of the stucco. I let this dry overnight, then dusted it with pastels to represent oil and dirt on the ground. The airplanes were white glued to the base (yes, not terribly strong, but easily removable).
The placards were made on the iMac. I used Neo Office to create the text, then imported a clip-art version of the Anchor, Globe, and Eagle emblem of the United States Marines. I printed the design on to some colored card stock (65lb. sold under the "Astrobrights" label), cut it to fit, then attached them to their respective base with spray photo mounting adhesive. That put the cap on the project. I may make new placards, since in my effort to make everything fit the space available, I unintentionally deleted the "VMF-214 Black Sheep" line of text. D'oh!
In the past, I have used photo paper for the placard. The card stock worked well, and I'll try it on a few more models before I make a final decision as to how I like it. I foresee using both products in the future, as the case warrants...
There you have it. What's that? Oh, yeah...pictures. Pictures, or else it didn't happen...
This would be the only in-progress photo that I have. You can see the goofy wing and fuselage construction on the Revell kit.
Here's the Otaki kit with the original kit parts alongside. You can see how basic they are, from the anemic engine to the basic--and incorrect--cockpit. Early Corsair cockpits had no floor...
Here's the Revell AG kit. It is a handsome model, to be sure, but not my favorite 1/72 F4U-1 kit...
Here's a so-so shot of the Verlinden engine in the Otaki kit. Much better...
Here's the completed pair of Pirates. And yes, you can see I left off the squadron information when I made the placard. I can always print new ones and glue them over the old, something that is more difficult (read as "expensive") with an engraved brass plaque.
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I have a Trumpeter 1/35 SA-2 in the weathering phase, to be followed by the Dragon StuG IV. The Special Hobby 1/72 ER-2 is close to the paint shop, along with the Hasegawa F-111F and 1/48 Special Hobby Macchi C.200. After that, the Mini-Moo should get a turn in the finish shop. The Gamecock will be a slow burn--I have to engineer wing struts, attach the wings, and then it'll see the paint booth. So, there's no end to the projects in progress just yet...
That being said, I did what I usually do when one area of the workbench is occupied with a nearly finished model--I pulled a partially started kit down and started playing with it. In this case, I bought one of the reissued Monogram 1/72 P-82G kits and used it for a very abbreviated scribing demonstration at a club meeting. I tossed the parts back in the box, and tossed the box on top of the stack. While I was waiting for some of the finishes to dry on the Corsairs and Guideline, I opened the box and realized that I hadn't made a compete hash of the rescribing that I did for the guys, so I cleaned up what I did, and continued. The wing is now 95% done, and I've started on the fuselages. Other than that, I think this will be an out of box build (well, the gun openings on the wing center section are short-shot, so I have to engineer a fix for that), using the kit decals. This is a Revell USA kit, so I'm hoping the decals behave. If they don't, I do have a Microscale sheet waiting in the wings. I still haven't decided whether I'll build the F-82F in all-black or the F-82G in natural metal and Insignia Red--I guess it all depends on just how successful the re-scribe job was...
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Thanks for reading. Be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.
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