Curious about what to paint the wheel wells on the Corsair.

Gsooke

Gsooke

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I know the instructions say zinc chromate and that makes sense to me. But every restored Corsair they're the same as the plane. That makes sense to. But it could be something done for the restoration
 
I just went with interior green on mine. It's not quite the same as green zinc chromate but similar.
 
From what I've seen on original examples there isn't much of a standard color for zinc chromate. I imagine it varies a lot between manufacturers, application techniques and aging. Honestly I usually just mix some green and yellow and call it a day. Unfortunately I don't have much photographic sources for the Corsair.
 
Nice! Always good to get confirmation. Probably doing my usual over over thinking on what to do with the wheel wells.
 
It's a shame that link is down , it went into more detail about the various shades and when/ where / by whom .
 
Gsooke said:
...every restored Corsair they're the same as the plane. That makes sense to. But it could be something done for the restoration
Click to expand...
Exactly. Be careful looking at restored warbirds as references. There's no guarantee that the restorer made the right choice. It's also possible that the warbird looks the way it does because the owner made a specific decision to have the plane painted in the colors you see, because he liked it.
I'd look at as many photo references as I could, if I wanted to be as accurate as I could.
Some USN aircraft had their wheel wells (and landing gear) painted to match the underside camo color. For an aircraft in the 3-color camo, with a white underside, that would be white. Or for over-all gloss sea blue, it would be gloss sea blue.
A lot of variations to consider.
Of course, if you're building a generic model, not a model of a specific aircraft, that can influence your decision, too.
 
Vought F4U Corsair
Sorting out the interior colours of the Corsair is particularly tricky. For the F4U-1 Birdcage Corsairs, photos taken at the time show the cockpits being a very dark colour, most probably black. Analysis of some crashed examples of F4U-1s indicates black, while the factory Erection & Maintenance Instructions called for Dull Dark Green.

As mentioned before, early production Corsairs had their interior surfaces in areas other than the cockpit covered with Salmon primer. This colour mixture was used relatively long into Corsair production. It would seem that all F4U-1s and a number of early F4U-1As were finished this way.

Somewhere during the production of F4U-1A model Vought discontinued the use of Salmon primers and switched to Zinc Chromate Yellow with cockpits in Interior Green.

In the engine cowling area, Vought adhered to the practice of painting its inner surface the same colour as the underside, ANA 602 Sky Gray on early F4U-1s, ANA 601 Insignia White on F4U-1As.

The wheel wells of early model Corsairs deserve closer inspection. Like the cowlings, the main wheel wells, undercarriage legs and both sides of well covers were painted in the underside camouflage colour, ANA 602 Non-specular Sky Gray. Wheel hubs were silver. However, the smaller forward area of the wheel to which the leg itself retracted was left in the factory primer finish, Salmon. Some aircraft had also Salmon inner surfaces of the small covers attached to the undercarriage legs.

The canvas covers in the wells were probably drab-coloured.

With the advent of the tri-colour camouflage on F4U-1A the same principle was applied with white replacing the Sky Gray with ANA 601 Non-specular Insignia White, and the However, the undercarriage legs remained grey throughout the production of this model, possibly due to the failure or indifference to notify a subcontractor about changed colour specifications. For the record, some photos of -1As seem to show silver undercarriage legs, but it could not be established to what extent such finish was applied. One theory is that Aluminium lacquer was applied on these assemblies during field depot overhauls.

In October 1944 the new factory instructions for the F4U production called for application of Interior Green on all internal surfaces including the cockpit. As an anti-glare measure, all cockpit panels above the lower edge of the instrument panel were to be painted matt black. Curiously, the new directive did not explicitly state what was to happen with the cowling's inner surface. Thus, subsequent machines showed either Zinc Chromate or Interior Green cowlings, until the last standardisation of colour post-war whereupon black was introduced in this area.

During that period, the wheel wells were also painted Interior Green. Undercarriage legs were initially still finished in light grey, but as existing stocks of parts were used up at the factory, the overall Glossy Sea Blue finish was carried over to the undercarriage legs and wheel hubs.

***************************************************************

Salmon
Salmon was a pale pink-coloured chromate primer used by Vought in production of the F4U Corsair. It was produced by mixing Indian Red pigment with raw Zinc Chromate primer. The actual tone was reddish orange.
Click to expand...
 
Salmon zinc chromate?!?!? The wonderful world of modeling where you learn new things!
 
Depends… yellow zinc chromate, green zinc chromate, cockpit green. I agree with reliance on restored wheel wells of restored warbirds.
I’ve always used cockpit green for most of my WW2 Allied subjects. I also weather the crap out of them for realism.
 

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