My New Scratch Build Project - Steampunk Corsair

Papa Guido

New Member
Hi everyone,

Been lurking on and off of theRPF for years. and can't find my old account.

Anyways, last night I started on a new project. Hopefully I'll finish it.

My dad and I went down to the LHS on Saturday for Father's day. I ended up walking out with 4 WWII models. 1/48th scale Mitsubishi Zero, 1/48th scale P-38 Lightning and a 1/48th scale Tamiya F4U Corsair missing the wings. I also purchased a 1/72nd scale Airfix Mitsubishi Zero.

I wanted to do a steampunk spaceship and the Corsair is going to be the starting point. So far, I have the body of the Corsair along with the engine, cowling, and cockpit. It's missing the canopy but that's only 50 cents to order from Tamiya. But's its going to take 4-6 weeks to get here which I don't see being a problem. I also dug out a 1/720th scale revell Turpitz WWII battleship. Wanted to steal some turrets from it and noticed that a lot of other parts from it will make great greeblies (is that the right terms/spelling?). And finally I have some engine nacelles from a 1/48th scale A-10 Warthog.

Need to paint the cockpit first before I can do much more but I spent a few hours thinking about how things would fit together and made some minor modifications to accommodate.

20180617_222059.jpg20180617_221935.jpg20180617_222530.jpg
 
Last edited:
G’day Papa Guido ,

Welcome back ! , and yeah greeblies or nurnies is pretty spot on for what you’re describing .
I’m a fan of custom kit bashed/ scratch built sci-fi models , so I’ll be following your thread :thumbsup


:cheersGed
 
A quick update to my build.. I only get 30 minutes a night if I'm lucky due to having a daughter that and living in a small apartment. My work desk is in our bedroom and we share the room with our daughter..

But over the last week or so.. I did a little more fitting the engine nacelles to fuselage. Nothing worth showing though. But I did get most of the cockpit done with some weathering. It was my first time using the hairspray chipping technique.

It didn't go as planned and I think that was because I was using acrylic paints instead of enamels. I painted the entire cockpit in Tamiya acrylic aluminum and let it dry overnight. The next night I sprayed the entire thing in hairspray and an hour later, I airbrushed the closest interior green I could get with the colours I had.

The next night when that was dry I got out a stiff bristle brush and soaked the cockpit. Some of the edges of stuff seemed to come off with a little persuasion but other parts like the seat took the aluminum colour off too. I wasn't to happy about it it but it still looks nice. I also used some AK interactive dark brown was to make the inside of the cockpit look grimy.

I like the way it turned out overall.

20180628_213226.jpg20180628_213202.jpg20180628_213208.jpg20180628_213218.jpg
 
I've had some time to work on a few things like the engine. I painted the cylinders and drilled holes for spark plug wires. Just not sure what colour to paint the wires. Right now they are bare copper and I kinda like how it looks.. But I'm open to suggestions. What colour would you guys paint them?
20180630_213823.jpg20180630_213532.jpg20180630_214120.jpg

I also spent some time tediously cutting out the plastic between the cowl flaps with a scribing tool.
20180630_213514.jpg

I was also able to fit the cockpit into the fuselage, but I'm going to need to modify a few pieces at the bottom as right now it interferes with the A-10 engine naceles. Here's a picture of what the fuselage looks like so far with the cockpit and engine cowling in place.
20180630_214012.jpg

Stay tuned...
 
I like the copper wires as they are also . The ‘ look ‘ fits into the steampunk genre you’re going for with this craft imho .


:cheersGed
 
Yeah Ged, I agree. I think I'm gonna leave 'em the way they are.
Though after doing a little more research I'm starting to think this fits better into the dieselpunk category rather than steampunk. I did make some good progress this weekend though..

First I managed to trim the cockpit in order to get the A-10 nacelles to fit properly :
20180701_193249.jpg20180701_193229.jpg

Once that was done, I was able to fit the fuselage together and then glue in the A-10 nacelles.
20180701_204356.jpg20180701_204347.jpg20180701_204404.jpg20180701_222436.jpg20180701_222422.jpg

The A-10 nacelles needed a lot of sanding in order to get the fuselages to mate smoothly but I'm think I'm close enough. I just need to fill in some gaps with some Mr. Surface.. But that's for another night.

The nacelle section was left over from a project my Dad was working on and for some reason he decided to cut off one engine. But that meant that the part that goes on top for me.. (it's actually the bottom) is missing a large strip in material and going to need some work to fill in.. I ended up using a small strip of styrene and glued it in place following the curve of the part.. Trimmed it and sanded it down until it was near perfect.. I doubt it will need much filler putty.
20180701_204317.jpg20180701_205734.jpg20180701_222503.jpg

One problem I'm going to have is the fact I only have one front turbine part. Meaning I only have one side.
20180702_144140.jpg

I'm gonna have to fab something from scratch. I started with the external fuel tanks from the corsair kit. Glued them together and wrapped a strip of styrene around them and cut off the fronts. I then made up some discs that will serve 2 purposes.
1) gives me a reference for the overall diameter of the turbine blades
2) gives me some structure to build on
To make the discs I measured the inside diameter of the front cowling of the nacelle, then used a pin vise to drill a centre hole. Then I busted out the Dremel to open up the hole and cut the excess around the outside..
20180630_212828.jpg20180702_130534.jpg20180702_130601.jpg20180702_141353.jpg20180702_142959.jpg

The mocked up the centre blade holders to see how far out they stick. I was kinda hoping they would stick out further so I might add a 1/4 inch of tubing to extend them out a bit further.
20180702_154147.jpg20180702_144152.jpg20180702_144329.jpg

Just for sh**s and giggles, I put the propeller on to see what it would look like. I'm not planning on using the propeller for the build.
20180702_145131.jpg
 
Last edited:
2 Questions.

1) What should I make the turbine blades out of?
The owner of my LHS suggested using Aluminum Foil. I've never used that for building and feel it would be to flimsy to work with. I do have some thin strips of styrene too that I was thinking of using.

2) Should I extend the Turbine centres out further?
 
Thin styrene strips or sheet ( cut to shape ) and scored using a panel scribe , or perhaps consider aluminium from cans in lieu of Foil for similar finish but added strength ?
I think the turbines look good at their current size for what it’s worth .

:cheersGed
 
REALLY like where you're going with this! One suggestion: I'd create a black padding for the pilot seat. It will cover the paint issue and be far more comfortable for the pilot!
Tommie
 
REALLY like where you're going with this! One suggestion: I'd create a black padding for the pilot seat. It will cover the paint issue and be far more comfortable for the pilot!
Tommie

They didn't have padding on the seats in WWII. You can barely tell anyways. If anything I might touch up some silver in seat where the paint came off.

I do need to paint the brown leather pad behind the head still.
 
So life has gotten in the way of this project. I've had to put it aside for a bit. But I did get a 3D printer as a late birthday present from my brother.

My step son and I are both huge fans of the games and he like to collect the special edition games that come with stuff from the games. He has the pipboy from the Fallout 4 special edition and the power armour helmet from the Fallout 76 game special edition that was just released.

For Christmas, One of the things I've printed is a Mini Nuke from the fallout game series, as a present for my stepson.

20181120_125916.jpg
20181124_202102.jpg


It's still not finished as I have to grime it up a bit more with some streaking and stuff.

What do you guys think so far?

As for the Corsair, I have a question for you guys.
Should I add wings and if so, like this?
20180708_120224.jpg


Or like this?
20180708_120338.jpg


If I do the latter I was thinking of filling in the area between the wing, nacelle and fuselage and adding gatling guns in that area.

Let me know what you think.
 
Last edited:
Hey Papa Guido , glad to see you posting updates on your build again .
Slight problem though and I’m not sure if it’s only happening at my end ,
but ‘ clicking ‘ on the links ( in blue ) from your post above doesn’t seem to avail me to the pics/images. It actually states that I don’t have permission to access them , just wondering why ? (n)
 
Hey Papa Guido , glad to see you posting updates on your build again .
Slight problem though and I’m not sure if it’s only happening at my end ,
but ‘ clicking ‘ on the links ( in blue ) from your post above doesn’t seem to avail me to the pics/images. It actually states that I don’t have permission to access them , just wondering why ? (n)
Yeah, since I was away it looks like the site was updated.. I'm not liking it much.. It won't let me post pics directly from my phone like I could before..
 
Thanks Papa G. for fixing the pics . Not familiar with ‘Fallout ‘ ( video game ? ) , but that mini - bomb is wicked looking ... I’m sure your s.son will appreciate it (y)
As for the wings placement , imho attaching them to the fuselage makes more sense , the first pic kinda reminds me of how an ME 262 is setup , besides what aircraft couldn’t use more weapons !? , but it’s totally up to what makes you happy mate ! Either one’ll be sweet ;)
 
I really like you project - and the mini-nuke!
I have been plying catchup on this thread and may have missed something but I do have one question. What is the purpose of retaining the center prop engine?- it is flanked by two larger engines which seem more than enough to propel the aircraft. That location would be excellent for some sort of BFG- a lightning beam cannon which could be built forward of your existing radial piston engine as greebly...
 

Your message may be considered spam for the following reasons:

If you wish to reply despite these issues, check the box below before replying.
Be aware that malicious compliance may result in more severe penalties.
Back
Top