1/32 Tamiya F4U-1a Corsair - Boyington 17740

[jkim]

Very cool figure... a good likeness! Reminds me a bit of Bill Clinton too. I don't feel comfortable doing figures and don't want to mess up a reasonably realistic aircraft with a terribly unrealistic pilot. So no figure sitting in the pilot seat. Standing figure? Perhaps...

[jkim]

As I reviewed the many Tamiya Corsair builds out there, one thing caught my attention. The exhaust stubs. To their credit, Tamiya has dimpled the ends to make them appear hollow but they are on the thickish side. I thought about replacing them with angled cut brass tubing or maybe a plastic drinking straw.


I decided to enlarge the openings manually, thereby thinning the walls of the exhaust tubes and also making the openings deeper. Kinda tricky since they are cut at an angle. I used a Dremel (carefully) with a diamond grit bit. I think they look much better.

[Medicman71]

Very nice work on the exhausts! I would have jacked them up bad!

[LyleW]

Double dog ditto on that, Medic. Oh, and run the pin drill in my finger, too.

[Stikpusher]

Very nice work on the exhausts!

[Floki]

Nice work on the exhaust, I'm way to scared to take a dremel to a kit instead I stick to doing things by hand.

[jkim]

I had the same thought and first tried to attack the exhausts with a knife and drill bit on a pin vise. But the oblong cut made things awkward. It's not just a hole you are trying to deepen... it's a trough and my hand work was leaving marks.

I have a set of cheapo diamond grit bits for the Dremel. They are listed as 240 grit but fairly smooth and the conical shaped head (sixth tool counting from the left) was ideal for deepening the trough slowly and smoothly. Sometimes tool speed can be your friend, even with delicate work.

[KSaarni]

Lastly, I picked up this neat little resin parachute from True Details that will be displayed outside the aircraft. There are a couple of other Tamiya Corsair builds that feature this parachute so it is not an original idea but I thought it was too cool to pass up.

This is a fantastic piece of detail ! But will be challenging to saw / file it "down", especially those belts there...

Looking forward to see this detail worked, when the time is right!

- Kari

[jkim]

Yeah, removal of the excess casting material appears to be a challenge. But the reviews said it was easy. It depends on how thin the material around the edges of the chute, especially near the small buckles.

[BlackSheep214]

I'd be afraid to take on that challenge around the tiny bits of buckles as well. Not worth the cussing and swearing if I had messed up. LOL!!