F2G Corsair No. 9 Conversion

By Rodney Williams

I planned on converting this kit from the F4U-1A to a true F2G Corsair. This F2G was minus the auxiliary rudder. I have enclosed a few photos of the aircraft in question. It was painted the standard Navy blue color, and had what they called a "Goodyear Yellow" cowling. Don't ask what color the yellow was back in 1945, as I have no records. Today, Goodyear still has items painted with yellow, so take it from there. My yellow came from Tamiya Acrylic's. Check out my last photo and you will see this F2G with the yellow cowling, minus the #9 painted on it. I'm showing this photo to show that the insignia was attached somewhat slanted, so I had to duplicate this on my model.

I have always wanted to build a model and just paint half of it down the center line. This way, other modelers can see what you scratch built into your project.

Following my written data, which goes with my "conversion kit instructions", I revised Revell's fuselage halves to the enclosed side view drawing. After all the items in the tail wheel, and cockpit area were installed, I glued the two fuselage halves together, then added the top rear deck and the front top section.

The scratch built cockpit was completed, when I made the "master" parts months before. The cockpit tub, which includes the finished instrument panel and foot pedals attached, just slips up inside the fuselage from the bottom. It's a very snug fit, so be careful when you install it. The left and right side consoles are white glued in after the tub is aligned and permanently glued in place. Other parts can be attached once the side consoles are in. I attached my seat, head rest, and several other items on final assembly, which comes after the painting.

Once the cockpit tub was in place, it was time to attach the fire wall. The "side plates" as I call them are attached to the fire wall. This is where the four exhaust stacks exit the model on each side. The underside of the model has to be revised, so you can add the 6 exhaust stacks. You have 14 exhaust stacks sticking out of your F2G model.

The pre cast resin top and bottom center wing section is the next item up for assembly. You have to add in the cast resin air intake parts on the leading edge of the wing. Once this is complete, you just glue the two top cast resin parts to the lower center section, and glue it onto the fuselage. You will have some alignments problems, but for the very advanced modeler, this should not present a problem.

After all of this work is completed, you just toss the engine parts together, attach a shaft to the rear of it, then slip it into a pre drilled hole in the fire wall. You must attach the "front" inside cowling ring and all the parts before you glue on the new cowling. I attached all of those parts with just plain old white glue. For #5, I painted over the white glue, and left everything unpainted on #9.

At this point, I will stress the alignment problem I had with all four of my F2G conversion models, where the cowling meets the front of the fuselage wing area. There are some gaps/seams to be fixed.

Now that all the work is complete on the fuselage, cowling and center wing section, it's time to add the cast resin tail plane parts. Depending on what F2G you are building, be it a military aircraft, and/or one of the late 1940 air racers, some aircraft had the "auxiliary rudder," and some did not. So please pay attention to the photos that I have included in the kit's CD.

You have a "one piece" windscreen canopy. Be careful when cutting apart these items. Naturally you have to align and glue on the windscreen. I attached my canopy, cross and roll bars on final assembly.

The outer wing panels are next for revisions. including the ailerons and flaps. I used a combination of .020" to .030" diameter white styrene rods to attach my ailerons and flaps to the wing. I use .010" white rod to attach all of my trim tabs. After this work is finished, you will have to align and attach the outer wing panels to the center wing section. More alignment problems occur at this segment of assembly.

Building the landing gears are somewhat complicated, and will take some time. However, we have included several "in progress" building photos on a CD with the conversion kit. There's around 200+ photos, which includes several pages of instructions.

This story "Hi-Lights" my model, and is not intended to explain everything in detail.

This conversion kit can be purchased on the following web site: (www.obscureco.com). You must have the old Revell Corsair kit. Sad to say, but not very many parts will interchange with the recent Corsair kit released by Trumpeter. I explain some items concerning it on Skywriter's web site, (www.skywriters.net).

Have fun building a F2G!

F2G Corsair No. 9 Conversion

By Rodney Williams

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