First thing I did was to go out and spend the $3 for a True Details Corsair resin cockpit. The kit one is OK, but this one is MUCH nicer. In addition to the full cockpit tub, you get a new instrument panel, seat and some small boxes for the sidewall. After cutting the seat and instrument panel off the resin plug, the seat was glued in place. You have to use the kit control stick, so the attachment point was drilled out and the stick glued in. Then the interior was test fitted into the fuselage. You need to remove the old mounting tabs and sand away at the plug on the bottom to get a proper fit.

Once that was done, the small radio boxes and throttle quadrant were glued to the fuselage side and all the bits were given an Interior Green paint job! As a hint for placing the boxes and quadrant, while the interior is held in place, gently scribe the area where there is blank wall. Then when you remove the cockpit, you will have some guide as to where to place the boxes. You can see the scribe marks I made in the image to the right. While that was drying, the wings were glued together and then any gaps filled and sanded smooth. The ejector pin marks on the gear doors were filled at this time and those on the landing gear sanded off.

After the interior had dried, it was painted with the needed black and other colors, then dry brushed. It was then installed in one half of the fuselage and then glued in place. The instrument panel was then glued in and the other fuselage half glued on. I used clamps to keep everything in proper alignment. When dry, any holes and seams were filled and sanded smooth.

Once that was done, the wing was attached. You need to sand/carve away at the back of the inside of the wing to allow room for the resin interior to fit. The resin interior is deeper than the kit one so carving this away is necessary. I found, much to my dismay, that the plastic in this kit is a bit brittle and during my carving a chunk broke out of the underfuselage! It can be repaired with filler, but a warning to you to be careful.

When all the fuselage filling and sanding had been completed, I decided to add some red and green wingtip lights. This is a very simple procedure and one that only requires a razor saw, a red and green drink stirring rod, some glue and some sandpaper. First, you cut away the kit light. This works best on those aircraft with the lights built into the wing. Next, simply cut a square(ish) chunk out of your plastic rod and glue it into the area you just cut from the wing tip. There will be way more than you want, but no worries as you'll be sanding most of it away. Give it plenty of glue to make sure it holds well.

The next step is to start sanding. I use sanding sticks for this kind of work. You can get them at most any hobby shop; they come in multiple grades of coarseness. Starting with the coarsest start sanding away until it gets down close to the wingtip. Then start using finer and finer grades. Finally, you'll get it down to where it is flush with the surrounding wing and has been properly shaped. Later on, using ultrafine sandpaper and buffing it, you can get it very smooth. Then simply mask it over in preparation for painting. It almost takes longer to explain it than it does to do. It is a very simple operation and the required colored plastic can be obtained from a number of sources, including old toothbrush handles! Once the colored plastic is glued in place and dry, it takes about 5 minutes per wingtip and adds a lot to your kit. I don't do it as often as I'd like, but should.

With that little addition was out of the way, the tailplanes were glued in place. Then the engine was painted and drybrushed and glued onto the front of the fuselage. I now had a pretty complete airframe. Then some touchup was done in the cockpit area in preparation for having the canopy attached. Now I must confess that I didn't fully believe the kit painting instructions when they told me that the wheel wells, inside of gear doors, and the area inside the small quarter windows was interior/chromate green. Having no reference books on the subject, I figured the best thing to do was to start some internet inquiries.

What I found was that most Corsairs had the wheel wells and the gear door interiors in whatever the underside color of that area might be. In this case it would be light gull grey. I also found out that the engine cowling and accessory compartment were in a grey color as well. On the -1s, often the chromate primer had some Indian Red mixed in with it giving it a sort of salmon color. This was used everywhere on the interior except the cockpit. Same for the inside of wings and tails, so if you are doing a -1 with open panels, you'll need this pinkish hue.

The underside of this plane is light gull grey. I had a bottle of Aeromaster paints that I mixed up and then sprayed not only the underside, but also both sides of the gear doors. At this time, the landing gear was painted dark gull grey. I must have applied too much thinner when I mixed the light gull grey paint as, despite being matte, it took a very long time to dry. After the underside was masked, it was time for the upper color. This is supposed to be FS 36189, a blue-grey. Looking around my large collection of paints, I couldn't find any of that shade. Not wanting to add yet another bottle to the mess, I started looking around for a substitute. It was found in the form of French blue-grey from the now sadly defunct Aeromaster line. It is a bit lighter than what is needed, but that isn't really so noticeable.

Once the main colors were applied, it was time to have the landing gear glued on . The gear were painted in dark gull grey in accordance with some correspondence I had with fellow enthusiasts via the 'net. The tail hook was cut off as they were not used by shore-based Marine squadrons. Now on some legs, the plane was taken back to the paint shop to have the gloss clear coat applied.