The Second FG-1A Corsair, Part Two

By Rodney Williams

Continue with the Model’s Construction

As you recall in Part One I had reworked the cowl flaps and glued the engine onto the firewall. The revised cowl flaps were attached to a retainer ring that was supplied in the kit and the ring was attached to the aft side of the clear plastic cowling.

I started to “dry-fit” the cowling over the engine and to my surprise it got stuck on the first row of cylinders so I had to carefully grind off some plastic with my portable Dremel Motor Tool. With a bit of grinding on the inside of the cowling it fit over both rows of cylinders. I painted the inside of the cowling with Tamiya XF-4 “yellow-green” paint.

I added a bracket to the lower front section of the firewall, which gave me an attachment point for the bottom of the cowling. As I was about to attach the cowling I noticed that I had never spruced up the engine with ignition wires and spark plugs, so I took out the engine and added all these items. I left the “aft” section of the engine off, as once the wings are on the fuselage you can’t see this part of the engine. I have no idea why Trumpeter made the part in the first place unless you just want to build the engine by itself.

I assembled the wings OK but as usual there were a few gaps here and there to fill up with card stock and super glue. The kit flaps and especially the two ailerons were not right so I used a spare set of my ailerons and flaps that I had cast from my “F2G Corsair Masters”, including a set of my flap hinges. Trumpeter’s “PE” hinges were crap. Here are 4 photos showing the ailerons, flaps and hinges.