OTDAEABT Maly Modelarz F4U Corsair 1:33
 

It seemed a shame that my favorite bird was having such a hard time getting into the contest so here we are.

I probaly does not need mentioning but this model was designed by our dear friend Bohdan Wasiak. And the distortion that my scanner added to the sheets should make this very interesting.

Model comes printed on very yellow folded paper (blotter?) yielding four pages of parts. If one wished and had a full day one could build it in that time(or less probably). I however am going to attempt to turn this ugly duckling into a swan so a lot more work than just the minimum to build the kit will be attempted. Last year I just got involved in the competition for the fun of it. This time I am in as a serious competitor.

The first pic shows the pages of the kit with a scanned and printed page to show how bad the color is faded and the reason for my request to spraypaint the whole thing.

The build has commenced and already on the area of fuselage between the cockpit and engine I have made 2 modifications.

Instead of cutting the little slits and bending the front of the piece in for the engine cooling air exhaust I cut the section off and used duplicate cowl pieces to round it off.

And as indicated I am very unhappy with the bent portion of the wing as provided in the kit so I cut out the main spar pieces and traced them onto a piece of paper. The center spar only went out about 2/3 of the way to the wing fold line so I made the center spar as long as it should be and took out that sharp corner(see attached).

I have been cutting out the wing skins for the center section of the wing and cutting them up to accomodate the newly curved wing. Also I plan on lowering the flaps.

Hopefully all this modification doesn't get me disqualified but it's the only way I am continuing. And it's the only way I see to make this model competitive with the other superb entries we have seen thus far.

This should be interesting.

With your modifications, it will actually look like a Corsair!

Don

Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. Good luck.

Pun intended?

Bohdan is making his mark already
 

I'll post pics later but I have already run into 2 fairly bad problems. The leading edge of the wing with the intake in it angles down too far. I cut along panel lines and have adjusted it, but I think if I hadn't already cut up the piece for my own mods it might have been more difficult.

The other problem involves the spar. As mentioned about 1/3 of the main center spar out to the wing fold hinge line is incorporated into the outboard spar. Well I drew my new spar by tracing the ones provided in the kit and now that I am trying to attach the skin it turns out what I have is fully 1/2" too short(on either side). I'm going to have to cut off part of the existing spar and splice a piece on either end to make up the difference. But that does make me happy in a way as I didn't think the bottom up the wings was down far enough.

Bravo, sir! In my opinion, this is a terrible kit. I haven't built it, but the detail and overall look of it are horrible and have kept me away from it for years. If you can turn this sow's ear into a silk purse you will be a miracle worker! Mr. Wasiak's kits varied astonishingly and while none of them are particularly impressive, he did some decent kits. This does not appear to be one of them. I'm not quite as hopeful as Don is that you can make this one look like that beautiful bird, the Corsair, but you have my fullest support in your effort and it appears you are making a valiant beginning! Best of luck on this one.
Chris

That's what I needed right there! I thank you Don, B-maniac, and Chris, for the encouragement but what will really get me on my A-game is a doubting Thomas. I love a challenge when it comes to modeling someone expressing doubt about something being possible or not makes me start licking my chops.

You've just raised our expectations! Can't wait to see you work some magic!
Chris

Doubting Thomases in this group? We think anything with wings that drags it's tail looks like a Corsair, how can we doubt you can make this one look like one?

Good luck - looks good so far ;)

You guys think anything looks like a corsair. I guess that would be good for the corsairs if you guys were Japanese ack ack gunners. You would save the corsair pilots the trouble of shooting down zeroes.