Andrew

Hi Pappy, I'm enjoying your updates and seeing your progress on this build. Having seen your Thai Viper recently, I know how well you can wrangle the Hasegawa kit into a wonderful outcome! Thanks for sharing your improvements and techniques. Andrew.

Okay, I found a picture on Twitter of notes on a whiteboard that appears to be what you're referring to. I remain unconvinced that Fine Molds are doing thin-wing Phantoms (or the "entire F-4 family" for that matter) at this point. Thanks for sharing your analysis of the industry. Nevertheless, my comment was addressing what you wrote, not what you meant. And strangely, despite the back and forth, I would still like to see Tamiya release an F-4B in 1/72. For the sake of relevance to this thread, I will be super chuffed if Fine Molds do one too. I would genuinely buy one (at least one) of each.

Do we know that Fine Molds is venturing into thin-wing Phantom territory? I'll happily buy one if they do, and one from Tamiya as well if they see fit... Presumably for the same reasons that they've elected to produce a kit of that variant in 48th. Might have something to do with substantial numbers based in Japan with USN and USMC units.

Gah! Please, no.... ! I hope the fact that Tamiya has released new kits in 72nd scale in recent times is an indication that a Tamiya F-4B will eventuate. Although Hasegawa's kit 01566 is still available, it's basically the only thin-wing Phantom in town (I'm not counting the Fujimi kit because it seems quite hard to locate), Academy only did an F-4J in this scale and we've not seen an indication (yet!) that Fine Molds will follow their initial short-nose Phantoms with a -B/N variant. I may be letting optimism get the better of me, but I think that it's a bit premature to discount the possibility of a Tamiya 1/72 F-4B.

Ooooh, yes please!

Hi Steve, I think that @Tailspin Turtle (Tommy Thomason) has addressed the reason for the difference between the two photos in his Tailhook Topics post on crush points... I'm not sure that it answers your question about the underside of the slat, but it shows well that the surface of the wing normally covered by a retracted slat was not always red. My take on the underside colour of the slat would be white, but that's just my guesswork. For more of Tommy's great Skyhawk work, please see this post for information on the treatment of A-4 leading edges.

Joe, This is the Aerocraft set that Steve refers to - it's very nice and even includes an insert for vents situated aft on the airframe, above the exhausts.

oops, sorry for missing that! They look good and I see you also have the long carb intake. I'm looking forward to your nest steps and I hope to follow suit soon. Andrew.

hi @phat trev, I wonder if the now-out of production 3D-Kits conversion set for the Spitfire Mk IXc/e could help with your cunning plan? It has narrow blisters, a four-blade prop and six-stack exhausts (plus a free tall rudder!). The Kiwi firm Jays Hobby Products seem to even have a few in stock... Another suggestion for shaping the narrow blisters might be to start with half-round styrene strip, then shape the outline, as Mark suggests above. I'm assuming that there'd be some need to add curvature to the underside of the blister to match the top surface of the wing, but I doubt that there's too much bending/persuading necessary. Either way, this is an interesting project - keep up the great work. Andrew.

Gah! You're right of course.... [grizzle, mumble, grumble...]. Apparently I blinked during the millisecond that Metro Hobbies had the IIIEA/EBR boxing in stock and therefore missed it, but by the catalogue listing I would have paid $55. I could handle two or three of the IIIO for 'close-to-that' price...

Ummm... @Pappy.... Should we petition a certain local retailer to import the odd crate? I know that MetroHobbies stocks this manufacturer, so I can only hope!

Yes please, but especially an F-4S, given that in my optimism I imagine that Tamiya will release an F-4B/N in 1/72.

I think that these lumps/bumps are part of a radar warning system applied to Dutch Starfighters late in their career [Thanks to Rob for his information that only Volkel-based jets received them]. It's not just the one fairing; there's two under the nose and one aft under the fuselage. There are photos of the forward fairings in the walkaround images on this page - look about one-third of the way down the page (for the walkaround of D-8061. "...This particular aircraft has small fairings below the nose and tail for ECM antennas. Photographed July 2013 by Meindert de Vreeze (C) Copyright IPMS Nederland") and for pictures 81 & 83 in particular, which show the two forward fairings. I couldn't see one of the aft fairing. Rob's already posted a link to his build and added better information than mine (I'm so slow to type these posts...). Edit: Daco Productions also include these bits on one of their upgrade / improvement sprues in 1/48. Here's a cropped image from the Daco website with the ECM bits circled: Daco F104sprue3C1g Daco list these four pieces as 'ECM Holland' parts, which reminded me that the external evidence of the ECM kit wasn't just the fairings; an NACA-style intake on left-hand side of forward fuselage must have been part of this upgrade too. Check out photo 48 in the walkaround linked above.

Good thinking and gently does it with the motor tool... the coarse Squadron sanding stick should also be very useful in removing material at the edge. I hope it goes well for you!

Is there any adjustment you can make to the outboard junction of the lower and upper wings (I think it takes place on the outboard panel line)? By removing material from the outer edges of the lower wing, you should be able to bring the upper wings much, much closer to the wingroots.

Good observation! I agree and work hard to 'equalise' the rendering of detail on my models, or at least minimise the obviousness of my poorly handled details! Lovely progress by the way...

Absolutely! Eduard was clever to offer the modeller the choice of installation options, but I can see why you'd adopt that approach - the seams are just too apparent.

Thanks so much for this explanation, David. You'd shown pics of the Eduard wheels in an earlier update and I was wondering how they would attach; I thought it unlikely that the Eduard pieces could co-exist with the moulded wheel/brake housing elements. I also need to dig out the Airfix Model World build you mention... Andrew.

The figure rattling around in my head for that shortened, centreline-only tank is 242 gal, which converts very neatly to 1100 litres. Ray W, your progress on this kits is a joy to behold. As for the right olive drab, Tamiya's XF-62 looks to be a good choice... ?

What Kinetic has provided looks fine for the 110 gallon (550 l) supersonic tanks used on the IIIO. They are a thin-looking tank (as befits the 'supersonic' claim I guess) and much slimmer than the 1300 litre tank also used by the IIIO. There's no 600 litre tank used by Mirages that I'm aware of. Oh, Ray speaks the truth about elevons, but forgot to mention that the inboard surfaces (i.e. those closest to the fuselage) are known as pitch dampers.

I think that Chris was referring to the small elliptical vent moulded on that insert; the vent should be oriented to the lower right corner, as Chris has done. Having built one or two of these kits, I also remember having to apply some filler to that panel. Here's a photo of an F-4E nose from Graeme Molineux's walkarounds site, showing the vent roughly in the middle of the image. You can even make out a panel line that corresponds with Hasegawa's insert:

Great start @zegeye! I like your extra work in the wheelwell and look forward to more of your progress. Andrew.

Hi Chris, Nice choice of subject and I look forward to seeing your progress. Good luck!

Great post as usual Stefano and thanks for taking the time to illustrate your process for achieving a satisfactory colour outcome (which you most certainly have!). I admire your dedication as well; it wouldn't have been easy to repaint the upper colours.

If you're limited to using paints from Tamiya's X/XF range, then I'd recommend adding some XF-55 Deck Tan to the XF-20/white mix as suggested by Pete - perhaps up to equal measure with the other two paints. To my eye, Light Gull Grey is a pale, brownish grey and it needs that extra brown/yellow tint. For what it's worth, here are two other mixes using Tamiya paints (collected a long time ago from sources now forgotten, apologies for the lack of attribution): 36440 Light Gull Grey (link goes to the Colorserver rendition) *Mix 1 -- XF-19:1 + XF-80:1 + XF-2:2 *Mix 2 -- USN LIGHT GREY -- XF-19:2 + XF-2:1 (add a tiny drop of yellow)