Fujimi Phantom F-4M/FGR.2 - "Shark Teeth" (Royal Air Force) 1/72

[jrlx]

EDIT: this is the third of three entries I made in the Phantom STGB back in 2015. I wasn't able to finish any in time and then this build was stalled in the WIP area. I'll try to finish it now here in the 70's NATO vs Warsaw Pact in Europe GB.

--------------------

Hello,

Yesterday I received this:

IMAG1997

 

I guess I still have some time, so this will be my third entry into this GB. I'll do the aircraft in the box art: XV 495 from 41 Sqd, with shark teeth painted after having its nose gear repaired, while detached at Akrotiri, Cyprus, at the time of the Turkish invasion, in 1974.

 

This kit has exactly the same mouldings of the "Alcock & Brown" version. It comes with rubber tires (which I won't be using) but with no photo-etch fret.

 

The differences between the two kits are the armament sprues. This one comes with the following sprues:

IMAG2000

 

These sprues provide the proper loading for the Recce and ground attack squadrons. The one on the top of the picture has a recce pod (on the left in the sprue), which was installed on the centre line hard point. The sprue on the bottom has the parts for building the Matra rocket launchers, which were installed on the inboard under-wing pylons, as well as a recce camera, which was installed in place of one of the front Sparrow missiles.

 

The decal sheet is this:

IMAG2001

 

There is the choice of four different aircraft, from four different squadrons, all in combat camouflage (Dark Green / Dark Sea Grey / Light Aircraft Grey). As said above, I'll do the "Shark Teeth" version.

The sprues got washed in warm water and dishwasher detergent and are already drying up. I'll start working on this kit on the next few days. Since I have two British Phantoms already under construction, I hope to be able to be very efficient with this one.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[Mozzy19]

Oh hell! Another bench that's been turned into a Phantom production line...

I'll look forward to seeing all of them progress.

Sean

[jrlx]

It really is the same kit being built three times. You'll see differences when I get to the main painting. Apart from the Phantoms, I' m also finishing an Academy Spit Mk XIV in D-Day camouflage and building Red Baron's Fokker triplane.

Cheers

Jaime

[HOUSTON]

Jaime..

MY FAVORITE ....I am glad to see another PHABULOUS Phantom..

Good luck with it and hope you will post as many WIP pics as possible,thank you

HOUSTON

[jrlx]

Hello again,

I finished my Spit XIV over the week-end (RFI here, sorry for the self-publicity...), so I finally managed to start working on the "Shark Teeth" RAF Phantom.

 

I started by cutting the canopy parts off the sprues. For this I used a mini-saw, and cut the sprue branches a bit away from the parts, in order to avoid damaging them, leaving a small stub. The following picture shows two of the parts already sawed off the sprue:

IMAG2157

 

With the parts already off the sprue, I used the tools shown in the following picture to remove the excess plastic stubs. These tools were used in order, from top to bottom:

IMAG2158

 

First, I used the x-acto round blade, with a rocking movement over the stub, just shy of the part's edge, in order to remove most of the stub without damaging the part. The result is shown here:

IMAG2159

 

The remaining excess plastic was carved out using the nº 11 x-acto blade. To finish with, I used the sanding stick to sand out any remaining plastic and polish the part's edge. The final result is here:

IMAG2160

 

The transparent parts were washed, with water and dishwasher liquid, and left to dry. Then, they were dipped in Aqua Gloss, in order to improve transparency and brilliance (together with the canopy parts of the other two British Phantoms I'm building). The set-up for this is shown here:

IMAG2164

 

The parts were put to dry in the box on the right, which was covered to protect the parts from dust.

After this, I cut from the sprues the small parts for the cockpit and main and aux air intakes. They were cleaned of moulding marks and glued, with CA, to the tips of toothpicks, ready for priming and painting:

IMAG2167

 

I also dry fit the main aricraft parts together:

IMAG2165

 

The fit is very good and there is only a small warp of the fuselage halves, which is nothing to worry about. I may have to fit a spacer in the fuselage, to avoid gaps in the wing roots.

 

I filled in the hole in the rear cockpit's floor immediately, to avoid the problems I'm now having with the RN and Alcock & Brown Phantoms. This was done with a piece of plastic carved out of sprue, melted in place with Tamiya's extra liquid glue, then covered with Squadron's white putty, diluted with enamel thinner and applied with a paint brush:

IMAG2172

 

I also used putty to treat the moulding marks in the main air intakes:

IMAG2173

 

and in the wall panels of the cockpit:

IMAG2174

 

That's it for now.

 

Hope you liked it and thanks for looking.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[Tim Moff]

good technique for the clear parts, going really well.

[Hepster]

This is a lovely kit, I've built the 'shark-mouth' boxing twice now.

My only gripe with my copies was the poor quality decals, I use aftermarket - you may have been a lot luckier.

[jrlx]

Tim, Hepster, thanks for the appreciation

My only gripe with my copies was the poor quality decals, I use aftermarket - you may have been a lot luckier.

fortunately, I have aftermarket decals for the "Shark Theet" version, in case the original ones are not ok

[Planebuilder62]

Old Fujimi decals have a habit of taking forever to release from the backing paper, maybe a test with a couple you don't plan to use might be a good idea soon to avoid hold ups later. :-)

Old Fujimi decals have a habit of taking forever to release from the backing paper, maybe a test with a couple you don't plan to use might be a good idea soon to avoid hold ups later.

[jrlx]

That's a good tip, Sofusthecat. I was planning to use the newer decals for the main markings. The original decals would be used for the stencils (I think these don't come in the newer decals).

[PlaStix]

Well that a rather nice looking model you've started on and progress looks very good so far! I'm in!

[jrlx]

Welcome on board, PlaStix, and thanks for the kind words

[jrlx]

Hello again,

 

Here's a small update from the end of last week.

 

After applying putty to moulding marks in several parts, I sanded the excess.

 

In the case of the cockpit base, I also filled in the hole on the back cockpit's floor, since no control column was installed there for this specific aircraft. For that, I used the "tool" already mentioned in my previous posts for the RN and Alcock & Brown Phantoms. The following picture shows the tool next to the cockpit base, before sanding the excess putty:

IMAG2175

 

After sanding the excess, the result was this:

IMAG2176

 

The excess putty on the moulding marks of the main intakes was also removed:

IMAG2185

 

as well as on the cockpit's wall panels:

IMAG2186

 

The already treated parts were primed using Tamiya's XF-19 Sky Grey:

IMAG2187

 

Here's the cockpit base:

IMAG2188

 

the air intakes:

IMAG2189

 

the instrument panels:

IMAG2190

 

and the cockpit's wall panels:

IMAG2191

 

Thanks for looking.

Jaime

[jrlx]

Hello again,

Here's an update with last week's work.

Since I'm building this Phantom in parallel with the RN and the Alcock & Brown Phantoms, it made sense to work on the wings. This kit is exactly the same as the A&B one, so I repeated here the same steps.

I had to open the holes on the lower wing part for installation of missile and drop tank pylons. The centre line holes also had to be opened since this aircraft carried a recce pod there. The centre line ports are opened, so I built walls around them with pieces of plastic sheet (shown in the next picture) so that the hollow inside of the fuselage could not be seen.

IMAG2236

 

After opening the holes and installing the walls around the centre line ports:

IMAG2237

 

The insides and edges of the centre line port doors are red. Before painting them, I masked around the area:

IMAG2259

 

The aft fuselage auxiliary air intakes and doors are also red, so I masked around them as well:

IMAG2262

 

Since the inner faces of the air brakes are also red, I removed these parts off the sprues and glued them to toothpicks, ready for painting:

IMAG2242

 

These were primed before painting them red, of course.

 

Here are the centre line ports after painting:

IMAG2261

 

This time I managed to get no overspray on the outer surfaces of the port doors:

IMAG2260

The fuselage air intakes after painting:

IMAG2263

 

and the air brakes and fuselage intake doors after painting:

IMAG2267

 

During last week, I also painted some more details on the seat parts.

 

First, I finished painting the seat backs:

IMAG2251

 

Then, I painted the yellow rings on the seat's top:

IMAG2250

 

and the red part on the joint of the rings to the seat top:

IMAG2269

 

To finish these, I still have to paint the black stripes on the yellow rings.

 

I also glued the wing parts together:

IMAG2274

 

IMAG2275

 

These are ready to be glued to the fuselage but I need to finish painting the cockpit details first, before being able to close the fuselage halves.

 

That's all for now. Hope you liked it. Thanks for looking.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[PlaStix]

Very neat, tidy and detailed work, especially for 1/72. Lovely stuff!

[jrlx]

Hi, Stix! Thanks for your appreciation and interest!

[Hockeyboy76]

Loving your work dude.

[jrlx]

Thanks Hockeyboy

[jrlx]

Hello,

 

Last week's work update.

 

Since I was masking the canopies of the Royal Navy and Alcock & Brown Phantoms, I moved on to masking the canopies of this Phantom as well. These are made up of four transparent pieces, since I'll assemble the canopies in the open position. Here they are, next to the tools used for masking them: masking tape, scissors (seldom used, just for trimming excessively long tape stripes), x-acto with nº 11 blade, tweezers and a toothpick (useful for placing/adjusting the masking stripes without damaging the transparent part).

IMAG2306

 

I used the masking approach described in my post in the RN Phantom thread (here)

 

Here are the external surfaces completely masked:

IMAG2307

 

Since the canopies will be assembled in the open position and are relatively big pieces, I decided to mask their internal surfaces as well:

IMAG2308

 

These parts were then bathed in Aqua Gloss, to seal the maskings. After completely dry, I mounted them on blu-tack blobs and put them on toothpicks, ready for painting:

IMAG2318

 

I also cut the remaining clear part from the sprue: the gun-sight. It can be seen on the lower right corner of the sprue, in the following picture:

IMAG2315

 

To avoid damaging the part, I used a saw, followed by x-acto blades to remove the excess plastic (the same technique used for removing the canopy parts, as per a previous post in this thread). The gun-sight got an Aqua Gloss bath to improve its transparency and brilliance. The Aqua Gloss also protects the part from liquid glue vapours.

 

To be able to close the fuselage, I still had to paint some cockpit inner details.

 

I masked the cockpit's edges and the ends of the main air intakes:

IMAG2309

 

I masked the already painted grey cockpit areas, in order to paint black the area below, so that no bare plastic will be seen through the open areas of the rear cockpit:

IMAG2310

 

I also masked the rear cockpit's side wall panels, in order to be able to paint the black elements:

IMAG2311

 

Finally, I masked the cockpit base, where the side consoles and areas behind the seats must also be painted black:

IMAG2312

 

After this, I painted the canopy parts with the interior black colour:

IMAG2331

 

The black areas below the cockpit:

IMAG2332

 

The black edges of the cockpit and the ends of the air intakes:

IMAG2333

 

The cockpit base (needs just one or two touch ups):

IMAG2334   IMAG2335

 

The side wall panels of the rear cockpit:

IMAG2337

 

Having done this, I moved on to the main air intakes. These were painted off-white (Gunze H316) but the camouflage colour (Dark Sea Grey) extended inside up to a point where, in the kit's parts, there is a step (as seen in the following pitcure).

 

I started by painting the white colour:

IMAG2336

 

This was left to dry for a day.

 

Then I masked the intakes for painting the Light Aircraft Grey area. Here are the intake parts, ready for painting:

IMAG2346

 

After painting the Dark Sea Grey areas and removing the masking, I got this:

IMAG2349

 

Like in the RN and Alcock & Brown Phantoms, the gloss white area was marred by the masking tape. The same considerations done in the RN thread (link above) apply here.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Jaime

[Fatboydim]

Looking good Jaime, I've made about three of these years ago. Yours looks like it will turn out extremely well. Joe

[jrlx]

Hi Joe, thanks for your kind words. I'm now a bit nervous because I'm running out of time for finishing the three Phantoms within the GB time frame and I still have a lot to do...

Edited July 13, 2015 by jrlx

[Fatboydim]

Hi Joe, thanks for your kind words. I'm now a bit nervous because I'm running out of time for finishing the three Phantoms within the GB time frame and I still have a lot to do...

Just enjoy the builds Jaime. Don't worry if you don't get them all done, no one will think any less of you. It's better to enjoy making one or two, than put yourself under a lot of pressure and not enjoy yourself. Joe

[jrlx]

You're right Joe. I won't compromise the quality of the builds due to the deadlines but I'd like to finish at least one of the Phantoms in time. I believe I can do this and the others will be finished shortly after, even if not within the deadline.

I'm enjoying the builds and my main objective, which was to become more efficient in my builds, is being achieved :-)

Cheers

Jaime

[jrlx]

Hello again,

 

This is a short update with work from last week. Since I was focusing on the intakes of the RN and Alcock & Brown Phantoms, I didn't do much on this one. Almost just work that resulted from what was being done on the other two builds.

 

I took the landing gear parts off the sprues and applied putty to the sink marks:

IMAG2384

 

I also applied gloss varnish to the intake parts and, when dry, a dark wash:

IMAG2391

 

After 10 minutes drying time, I cleaned the wash with cotton buds and water:

IMAG2397

 

The only thing I did, which didn't result directly from work being done on the other two Phantoms, was painting matt black the dials on the instrument panels:

IMAG2398

 

As can be seen, I also painted the radar scope in the front panel, using a mix of Tamiya's desert yellow and Gunze's clear orange.

 

I still have to paint a few dials red and then dry-brush the panels.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jaime

[At Sea]

Looking good!