Zoukei Mura F-4C

[Rhino]

Hi All.

I managed to get hold of a Zoukei Mura F-4C from Japan, and I will present the build here, stage by stage.

I plan on sticking to the order of play as much as possible, but not completely. In fact, I failed right at the start, as Iwill be using True Details seats instead of the kit seats. The kit seats are good, but do not have any straps.

Onto the build.

Stage 001 is the seat construction, so not done.

 

Stage 002

This sees the start of the cockpit.

The first change from the -J model is seen here, with rudder pedals in the rear cockpit.

Also the nose landing gear bay is built here.

 

 

 

Stage 003

This stage sees the construction of the bulkheads and guide rails. Also, there is a right cockpit wall part added.

 

 

 

Stage 004

Construction of the cockpit continues.

I decided to try something different with the front IP. I thinned down the back, drilled out the instruments, and used the decal on a bit of scrap plastic and attached it to the rear of the IP. It has to be better than my painting skills.

The cockpit parts go together well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This will be all for now. So far so good.

 

Ted

 

[Christer A]

Since an ANG F-4C is high up in my pending pile (but I'm going with ac Academy F-4C) I'll follow this with great interest!

Nice start on the cockpit!

[Booty003]

That is a great idea for the IP - it looks fab, top job. 

 

I will be pulling up a seat for this one!

[baldwin8]

Following along, same kit on my bench so it's nice to see someone else's approach.  Good start.

[Rhino]

Thank you for the interest. Baldwin8, this is a good kit you should enjoy building yours.

Christer A and Booty003, thanks for looking in. I hope you enjoy this build.

 

Stage 005

This stage completes the cockpits main construction. I decided to add some pipework to the rear of the WSO's IP. At this scale it makes a difference. I got the wire from individual strands taken from an old mains cable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stage 006

This is a simple stage with 2 canopy lock handles added, and a test fit of the cockpit into the fuselage, which fitted well fortunately.

Full credit to Z-M for this of course.

 

 

 

 

 

Stage 007

This stage adds a circuit breaker panel into the port fuselage, The intake that goes to the bottom of the vertical fin, and the other 2 canopy locks.

Once these are in place the fuselage is joined, and the race to the finish is on.

Everything went well at this stage I am glad to say.

 

 

 

Stage 008

A simple stage adding the fuselage spine and the avionics door in front of it.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking in.

 

Ted

[Rhino]

Hi All

Here is some more progress with the build.

 

Stage 009

This stage adds the radome and RHAW antenna as well as the avionics intakes at the side of the nose.

 

 

 

Stage 010

Another simple stage which adds the top of the fin. Also, the light lens on the leading edge gets added here but I will leave it off until it is painted.

 

 

 

Stage 011

This stage adds the 2 engines, and we know how Z-M likes to add things that cannot be seen, though it is kept to a minimum on this build. Mind you, a small part of the engine can be seen underneath through the auxiliary doors, so I painted them.

 

 

 

Stage 012

Stage 12 adds the intake trunking.

 

 

 

Stage 013

This stage simply opens holes for the underwing stores as required.

 

 

Thats about all for now, next up will be getting wings together and fitting them.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Ted

 

 

[baldwin8]

One of my concerns with the kit is the spine panel on the fuselage top, getting it right so no filler is required, yours looks good. Nice and speedy progress.

[Rhino]

9 hours ago, baldwin8 said:

One of my concerns with the kit is the spine panel on the fuselage top, getting it right so no filler is required, yours looks good. Nice and speedy progress.

My one just slotted in. I need to do a light rub down, but the picture above is how it goes in. I think I prefer this method to a join line.

[Booty003]

That is a great way to address the upper join line especially with all the detail on the fuselage spine.  Looks perfect. 

[Harrier/ViperFan]

Are these kits truly worth the price over the Academy ones?

[baldwin8]

5 hours ago, Harrier/ViperFan said:

Are these kits truly worth the price over the Academy ones?

I own 2 of these kits, but for me I am fortunate enough to afford them. There is great accurate detail in the cockpit, wheelwell. The Academy kits are still very good, I think it would depend how much you adore the Phantom.

[Rhino]

Hi Phantom Phans

First off, I apologise for not updating sooner. Things like SMW and laziness got in the way.

I have been working on this one and this will get us reasonably up to date.

 

When I left it at stage 14, the engines were in place. The next steps sees the main landing gear bays being installed.

 

Once this is done. the top of the wing goes on. Obviously repeated on both sides resulting in this.

 

Next the landing gear door actuator is fitted. This can be left out for now, but fitting is difficult when the fuselage is fitted, so I added it now.

 

Once this is done, on with the fuselage. It is starting to look familiar now.

 

Here we see the inlet components before fitting.

 

At the rear end, there are what Z-M calls tail pipe seals to be added.

 

 

Next, the nozzles are added.

 

 

Going back to the wings, the flaps and the ailerons are added.

 

 

Next are the leading edge flaps and the outer wings.

 

The next stage is the arrestor hook.

 

 

The horizontal stabs should be next, but I will leave them off till the end to make painting easier and prevent potential damage.

 

So now we come to the paint scheme. A long time ago, I saw a picture of an F-4C in Vietnam, which had been delivered in the grey over white scheme as the US Navy aircraft were painted. This had been overpainted in situ without being primed properly, and in the harsh environment caused the paint to peel. I kinda liked this and have been wanting to do this myself.

So the first stage is the grey over white as delivered.

 

And the underside. The serial used at this stage is wrong, but added so you can see what it would be like.

 

Following this, blu tac was used to cover parts of the scheme then the SEA camo was sprayed, and the blu tac removed, and some touching up was done with a hairy stick.

This is not 100% accurate due to a lack of references, but hopefully is good enough to see where I was going on this. Opinions would be appreciated on this.

 

 

 

That's this up to date now, next up is the landing gear.

 

Thanks for looking in.

 

Ted

 

[HOUSTON]

   AMAZING build so far..

 

Love it... MY favorite build so far.

 

Keep it coming. 

[exdraken]

Nice build!!

About the painting an "weathering " effects Im am not so sure if it looks realistic or just cool

Sorry,

Cheers!!

[Mozzy19]

Gotta love a Phantom. Maybe giving it a rub down with micromesh might make the paint peeling effect look a bit less stark.

 

Sean

[iainpeden]

Trust you to come up with something a bit different! Could I suggest the vertical strips in the tail should be horizontal as the paint would have peeled with the airflow.

 

looking forward to the Japanese digital Phantom ( in 1/144) of course.😏

[Gene K]

On 11/25/2017 at 1:22 AM, Rhino said:

This is not 100% accurate due to a lack of references, but hopefully is good enough to see where I was going on this. Opinions would be appreciated on this.

 

I absolutely loved your beautiful build up to this point, Ted, but that "chipped" paint looks totally unrealistic to me. I appreciate that your chipping and weathering is not finished or refined yet, but frankly, I wish you had completed the gray/white scheme. 

 

Gene K

[Rhino]

Thanks for the interest in this scheme. The inaccuracy I refer to is the positioning of the paint tears, as I have only seen a port side photo in a book. The type of paint 'damage' is reasonable, as the paint has been torn off rather than chipped, so I will be sticking to this. I hope we can agree to disagree on this one, and I have yet to dirty up the top side, though it will only be a small amount, as the photo I saw looks reasonably clean.

 

Ted

[baldwin8]

I would have to agree with some of the comments on this one but still love the work you've put into this one. Currently the aircraft of the airline I work for are undergoing a new change in liveries and are experiencing some problems with adhesion around the cockpit. I've seen some aircraft over the years lose paint in patches and the most extreme was a CF-101 which lost massive patches of paint and was sent back to the paint shop to have it redone.

 

Carry on Rhino, thank you for the updates.

[Rhino]

Hi All

Thanks for your interest in this project. It is worth the money just for the enjoyment of building it.

 

The next stage in this build is the nose landing gear. Parts here are the nose leg, 2 parts for the scissors link, the steering gear and a pair of wheels.

 

And they go together thus. Not too bad out of the box.

 

Next 3 pics show the doors for the noise gear.

 

 

 

Next up is the main landing gear. First, the right gear is assembled, then, believe it or not, comes the left gear. Clever eh. Then the doors are fitted.

 

 

 

 

The engine aux doors comes next. Also at this point the speedbrakes get fitted but I had already fitted them to assist with the painting earlier.

 

 

Next up comes the final fitting of the cockpit, with the seats, cockpit coaming and gunsight.

 

Finally the fit of the canopies. Again these are a nice fit, there is also a one piece canopy if you want the lids closed.

 

 

 

 

This stage completes the construction of the airframe. Next up will be the loadout. As this airframe is a MiG killer I have decided to do an air to air loadout this time. This will be AIM-9B and AIM-7E's plus fletchers.

More on that in the next installment.

 

Thanks for looking in.

 

Ted

 

 

[Duncan B]

Great to see a WIP for this kit, you are really showing off the detail level of the Zoukei-Mura F-4 Kit.

 

I have a batch of these arriving next week (you can pre-order them now) and am sorely tempted to take one for myself as a "test sample" but would like to do it in the Air Defence grey scheme if there are decals out there.

 

Duncan B

[Rhino]

1 hour ago, Duncan B said:

Great to see a WIP for this kit, you are really showing off the detail level of the Zoukei-Mura F-4 Kit.

 

I have a batch of these arriving next week (you can pre-order them now) and am sorely tempted to take one for myself as a "test sample" but would like to do it in the Air Defence grey scheme if there are decals out there.

 

Duncan B

There are definitely decals for ANG ADC grey schemes, and it would be a cool choice. I'll try and get a list together for you.

A quick search on Hannants web site gives us:-

Caracel 48036 171 FIS Missouri ANG

                       123 FIS Oregon ANG

                       199 FIS Hawaii ANG

Plus an F-4D

 

Experts Choice 171 FIS Missouri ANG

Superscale 48-1158  171 FIS Missouri ANG

 

Looks like the Missouri ANG schemes are very popular.

 

Next up from Z-M will be the F-4D. Looking forward to that one.

 

Ted

[Duncan B]

1 hour ago, Rhino said:

There are definitely decals for ANG ADC grey schemes, and it would be a cool choice. I'll try and get a list together for you.

A quick search on Hannants web site gives us:-

Caracel 48036 171 FIS Missouri ANG

                       123 FIS Oregon ANG

                       199 FIS Hawaii ANG

Plus an F-4D

 

Experts Choice 171 FIS Missouri ANG

Superscale 48-1158  171 FIS Missouri ANG

 

Looks like the Missouri ANG schemes are very popular.

 

Next up from Z-M will be the F-4D. Looking forward to that one.

 

Ted

An Oregon F-4C or a 57th FIS F-4C would look great together as would a Michigan ANG, I can see I might have to have a few "samples" from stock and thanks for the info. I will be getting each release of the ZM F-4 as they come (I have already sold out the F-4J and the F-4S is heading that way too).

 

Duncan B

[whiskey]

Or you could do what I am working on slowly. F-4C 63-7589 was a MiG killer out of Ubon with 555th FS and served with a multitude of units afterwards including the 57FIS, the Michigan ANG, and my favorite, the 111th FS with the Texas ANG. The last 3 units she was with she wore ADC colors. I've been doing so much research, kit and a/m allocation, plus photo gathering that I have almost enough to put together her whole service career spanning 4 units and about 7 different markings lol. 

[Duncan B]

6 hours ago, whiskey said:

Or you could do what I am working on slowly. F-4C 63-7589 was a MiG killer out of Ubon with 555th FS and served with a multitude of units afterwards including the 57FIS, the Michigan ANG, and my favorite, the 111th FS with the Texas ANG. The last 3 units she was with she wore ADC colors. I've been doing so much research, kit and a/m allocation, plus photo gathering that I have almost enough to put together her whole service career spanning 4 units and about 7 different markings lol. 

That sounds like an interesting project. Any thoughts of starting a WIP thread to share your work so far with us? 

 

I can't think of the Texas ANG markings off hand, will have to go and Google that one.

 

Duncan B