Heller 1/72
F4U-1 Corsair

Greetings..This kit is Heller's, which is French counterpart of Airfix, one of the modest kits. It also includes three tiny bottles of enamel paint, a brush and a small tube of cement. Although bonus paint sounds fun, they are too dense (just like honey). I guess my kit has been waiting for a looong time in shelves. That's why paints have become so thick.

Anyway, this kit has only a few parts to assemble. Two parts for the fuselage, two for wings, a prop, a pair of bombs, landing gears-bay doors, a canopy and a pilot figure. That's all. In spite of such few parts, I faced some problems during the assembling, due to poor molding quality. I re-scribed panels, cowl flaps, etc. Unfortunately, I recently  noticed that flaps should be just near the fuselage, and there is not a 'stepping area' between flaps and the fuselage. Heller's wrong molding failed me. But it was too late to recover. Due to various fitting problems, I used putty+sandpaper several times.

I painted the model with no-name (but I beleive that they are Humbrol) paints, which come from the kit. I did not mask the plane and airbrushed by free-hand method. My experience in free-hand airbrushing is not well, but the result is acceptable. (I was lucky!)

I placed decals, after airbrushing three layers of Pronto Floor Wax (I guess this wax is probably Future's similar brand in Turkey, because it is produced by Johnson as well). Decals were applied with Humbrol's DecalFix and all fitted surface perfectly. The result is satisfying, no trimmings.

In weathering process I used water paints and pastel chalks to emphasize panel lines. No drybrushing. This time I used silver pencil on rivets and some other places for paint chipping. You can use such silver pencils (and also pens) on your models without encountering risks of drybrushing. I also chopped a pencil (very fine) and used that pencil dust for soot effects on the body. Later, a white school chalk (flashback to our school days:-)) was used to provide faded paint effect on upper side of wings and the body. I brushed the chalk over the plane, then chalk dust fell on it like snow and covered the surface. After final varnishing with Humbrol's Satin Cote, I got the fading effect. 

Hope you enjoy this Corsair. Happy modeling to you all!.

Sertan ERAL/Turkey