F-5U Morsair (December 2004 - May 2008)

[Captain Canada]

Cool !

Did Mrs. Hilter know you were insane before she married you ?

 

[K5054NZ]

JHM I want one of these morsairs give it to me now!    What an epic thread - i've only just discoverd it today and seeing the development is incredible. I want this done and we need pics of it!
BTW nice work on the wings! And that new fin! And the canopy! And, well, everything! B) Great work.

[John Howling Mouse]

Cool !

Did Mrs. Hilter know you were insane before she married you ?

Hey, SHE was the one under therapy when I started dating her.  Iz okay, I lived with her sister for five years.  Long story, iz easier for you to simply watch the Jerry Springer episode...

Hey, I moved onto WINGTIPS: so exciting (not!).  But had to be done.

Check out how thick the initial slab was.  Was going to do it with two, thinner sheets sandwiched together but the glued edge always gets messed up once you sand down to the final knife-edge, even if you let the sheets dry for two weeks.

So, giant slab it is (to match the thickness of the cut wing edges on the kit.  I have a dime there for scale reference:



You can see just how coarse the first sandpaper is.  Only took about 20 minutes to reduce the slab to the first semblance of an airfoil shape.  Look at it compared with the initial chunk of plastic:







Here, the additional sheet material that I had used as a hand-hold has been removed and the pieces are cleaned up and wet-polished, ready to be attached to the open gaps on the model's cut-off wings:

[John Howling Mouse]

Don't tell Ms. Hitler but I let the kid play hookey this afternoon from school so we could work together in the basement.

Got some real good progress today:
Scratchbuilt wingtips/tailfin and the horizontal stabilizers (modified from the kit's) are all in place tonight.

And, for once (very rare), I can honestly say the actual model looks BETTER than these photos!











Yep, my Photobucket.com account must be close to overflowing now but, hey, who else but you guys would understand the madness...?

[K5054NZ]

I want one even more now!
I like. The wingtips are great...keep em comin JMH!

[Damian2]

OMG you are the master  

[lancer]

Coming on nicely  

[Ollie]

                     

[Brian da Basher]

That is excellent John! It seems like it's really coming together...I can't wait to see it done and painted. What paint schemes are you considering?

Brian da Basher

[K5054NZ]

Bump.......

I second that! What're you up to, Johnnie boy?

[John Howling Mouse]

That is excellent John! It seems like it's really coming together...I can't wait to see it done and painted. What paint schemes are you considering?

Brian da Basher

Thanks, guys.  It is your comments that fuel the job!

Aw, you had to go and ask about the paint-job, didn't you?

I don't know.  With the possible exception of some of the COIN camo versions, I don't really want to match existing Corsair schemes.  All the same, I don't want to distract too much from the overall dullness of the design.  You might recall from the beginning of the thread that my original intent was to show a "Borsair" (boring Corsair) purposely lacking all the usual features that make the real Corsair such a dynamic design.

Maybe olive drab with some yellow wing stripes like many P-47's in the European theatre?  More of a ground-pounder than a true fighter?  Lots of space on those wider wings for ordnance!

You tell me!

[K5054NZ]

The Morsair strikes me as a....well, sorry about the pun just then, a mud mover. I'm not sure about everyone else but it seems there should be a few heavy exploding things under that wing. B)  

[Ollie]

Or what about a racer, eh?



     

[Brian da Basher]

Hmmm a ground-pounder, now that's an excellent idea! How about using some sort of U.S. Marine ground attack camo (two shades of gray and one shade of dull brown)? Or maybe that U.S. W.W. II O.D. tinged with dark green camo? Then again, you could always go with a natural metal if you really wanted to torture yourself...

Brian da Basher

[cthulhu77]

I think a real mediochre "coin" would be perfect...it will slide by the jmn's with a yawn, and then they will do a double take, and say "what the hell???"