Saturday, September 30, 2017

Lung Protection

Spray painting more than usual recently I have been thinking about the health inpacts of such activities especially as I start to get older. I have already used those cheap dust masks but I suspect there effectiveness to be minimal at best...

A few weeks ago it was my 38th birthday and I received a $50 gift card at Home Depot. I had initially intended to buy some lumber for a shelf project but the idea got "shelved". But then I got the idea to get myself a high end air mask as seen in the photo.

The first time I tried it I could smell nothing while painting in my garage so I was curious and just made a crack between the mask and my face and what a strong smell of paint! So this 3M mask really works well and will hopefully extend my model making activities while breathing a bit easier...


Thursday, September 28, 2017

Cockpit Finished & Installed

After 4 coats of green I was satisfied with the cockpit interior. I did have some doubts as I applied the first coat since the cardboard started curving but it straightened out once dried to my relief. With some spare balsa I created a headrest which I painted flat black and glued the cockpit to the airframe. This last step was a bit difficult as the sides of the airframe curve inwards but with the aid of some super glue everything went into place.



Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Cockpit Window

I decided it was time to cut out the cockpit window from the mold. Had been dreading this for a while because any screw ups will be hard to correct and the part cannot be easily replaced. With a new x-acto blade and some patience all went very well.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Detailing the Wheel Wells

I plan to paint the wheel wells green and the detail of the cardboard will unfortunately be lost. Since the plane will be hanging from Andy's ceiling I decided that extra detail would be worth the trouble.

I started cutting up small 2mm wide thick cardboard strips and spent about a good week detailing these two areas of the aircraft. In all I estimate that it took a bit over 10 hours to complete.  Was it long, yup but I think it will add a nice touch.


Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Painted Pilot

Completed painting the pilot which did not have any details in the plans but reference color photos found online provided enough info to get a fairly accurate look.




Monday, September 11, 2017

Cockpit Assembly

Tonight I completed assembling the cardboard cockpit which was fairly straight forward. I do plan to paint the interior green and add a headrest for some extra detail.


Thursday, September 7, 2017

Pilot

Assembled the pilot halves which took a lot of white glue to fill in the gaps and smooth out the seam lines. Just coated the figure with Tamiya fine primer during my lunch break and will start painting tonight.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Landing Gear Strut Cover

The F4U Corsair has covers on the wheel struts which for this kit are also in green cardboard so like the landing gear doors I have replicated them in basewood.

Honestly I would have done this yesterday but I have been having issues with my hands going numb for the past few weeks. If I work more than 10-15 minutes I start to have a lot of pain in my arms so I have been limiting my scale modelling activities. I am currently waiting for an appointment with a specialist to get it checked out, suspect a nerve is getting pinched. Just hope I don't have to reduce even more how much time I can spend on my hobby.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Landing Gear Doors

Just like the landing gear wheel wells the landing gear doors are also in green cardboard to my disappointment. So today during my lunch break I went to a local hobby store and picked up a 1/32" sheet of basewood which was the thinnest piece of wood I could find that was fairly ridged. And unlike the kit which is made of balsa, basewood is stronger, perfect for the cardboard parts I want to replace. All I had to do was trace out the parts and use a sharp xacto to cut the pieces.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Wings Covered

With the landing gear wheel wells completed I proceeded to finish covering the wings with tissue. I left the middle section uncovered until it is attached to the fuselage.