billn53 Posted January 7, 2018 Share Posted January 7, 2018 (edited) Just last February I returned to this hobby after a very, very long absence. To refresh my skills, and learn some new ones, I began by taking on this old kit: and, after a few trials and tribulations, managed to achieve a pretty satisfying result: The Phantom is by far my favorite aircraft, and having finished a few other projects over the past year, I think it is about time to build another Rhino. This time, though, with a more modern kit! I've found I can hardly resist aftermarket items, and have collected a few for this project: The particular aircraft I've chosen to model is a MiG killer from VF-114, the Aardvarks: using a sheet from Afterburner Decals: Assembly begins, as typical, with the cockpit and here I ran into my first problem. Not anything to do with the Academy kit, but instead with Eduard's pre-painted PE. The color Eduard uses for the Phantom's interior gray is completely wrong! Instead of dark gull gray (FS 36321), it is instead a light blue much like RLM 65 Hellblau. In the photo below, I show the kit's cockpit side panel painted with gull gray (top center), Eduard's light blue panel (lower right), and my first attempt at mitigating Eduard's error using a light gray wash (lower left): I finally bit the bullet and, using my smallest brush, re-painted the Eduard PE: Here are some of the PE-enhanced interior items: The cockpit goes together nicely, and with the Eduard detailing looks very good! (The ejection seats are installed only temporarily to check fit) The pilot's office: And accommodations for the guy in back: Checking fit in the fuselage. Note to self: Don't add the bang seats until after the cockpit is installed, else the cockpit won't go in. Here's a problem! Shouldn't be too hard to fix, though. Color choice aside, the Eduard PE for this kit is superb! For example, Academy's ejection seats are very nicely detailed, but the PE adds a whole lot more: I haven't yet decided whether to use the kit's seats (with PE details), or go with a resin aftermarket item. Stay tuned! Edited January 7, 2018 by billn53 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted January 10, 2018 Author Share Posted January 10, 2018 (edited) Wow! I'm been working this build on-and-off, and I'm surprised that it's coming together so quickly. I'm almost at the point where I can start serious painting. Not to say there's not a lot of things still to do (landing gear, stores, etc.). But before I get to showing my current status, I have a bunch of photos of my work along the way. I have to say I am seriously impressed by how well the Academy Phantom is engineered, and the level of detail included in what is, almost, a snap-together kit. That said, not everything is perfect. I'll be showing you both the good and bad. First up, I installed the Eduard PE for the forward landing gear bay. The kit's bay has a lot of molded-in detail (ribbing, etc) which had to be cut/scraped/filed/sanded clean before I could add the PE pieces. Eduard also includes PE for the various cabling & lines in the forward bay. I'll defer adding these until near the end of the build. I also built up and painted the Brassin resin exhausts. But the kit's exhausts are very nice, and in retrospect the added detail of the AM probably isn't worth the cost. Here are some comparison pics: Academy also includes full intake trunking, which was a key reason I selected this kit. A minor annoyance, however, is that there are holes in the forward intake for an ECM fairing, which isn't appropriate for early F-4Js. I filled in the holes with sprue. Alternatively, I could have followed Academy's instructions on how to deal with these holes (LOL!) Anyway, before I knew it I had arrived to this point in the build: Excellent! Now, for the good and bad... The good: Fit overall is, generally, very very good: Almost no gap along the wing-to-fuselage join Likewise for a couple of other areas which are traditionally problematic with Phantom kits: Compare with this: The piece provided for the rear metalwork is nicely detailed and fits like a glove: And even includes a separate piece for the tailcone / parachute door: Details are very crisp and convincing: The intake trunking is more realistic than with my last Phantom build (haha!) b Now, what's not so good: Fit is not perfect everywhere, and there is putty in my near future. In particular, there are significant gaps where the engine intakes meet the fuselage: Gaps where the cockpit meets the upper fuselage, especially above the pilot's IP and above the backseater's starboard side panel: The nose has ever-so-slightly smaller diameter than the fuselage, creating a small lip: Okay, now I admit I'm nit-picking! Bottom line is, so far I'm enjoying this Phantom build immensely more than my last one (granted, it was an ancient kit). I do hope Academy uses this kit as a basis for more F-4 variants. Keep on modeling! Edited January 10, 2018 by billn53 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matteo44 Posted January 11, 2018 Share Posted January 11, 2018 On 1/7/2018 at 4:35 AM, billn53 said: The particular aircraft I've chosen to model is a MiG killer from VF-114, the Aardvarks: Yeah... good choose... I like it! I've the decal for the same plane (1/48th scale)... Good work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted January 18, 2018 Author Share Posted January 18, 2018 (edited) Wow, almost a week since I last posted on this project. I've been working more or less steadily but I don't feel I'm making much progress. There are lots of little detail items to get control of before I can get back to the main effort. In the last status report, I had been working on the landing gear bays. That's a good place to start off with this update. The Eduard PE set includes cabling and such for the nose and main gear bays. Here's the piece for the nose gear bay: And after a over an hour of trying to get it in place, with not a little cursing, here is the result: Next I turned my attention to the main gear bays. First thing I discovered is that some surgery was needed. The kit's bays have square receptacles for attaching the doors, and the PE won't fit with those in place. I wish I had noticed this before gluing the wings together! Here's the Before and After: and with the PE panels installed: While working on the main gear bays I noticed that, when I had glued the wings together, one of the clamps must have slipped, depressing the wing surface and causing a significant step behind the leading edge. Putty to the rescue! (Also visible in this pic is the PE insert for the airbrakes) I then worked on adding the PE detailing to the landing gear legs: b and built up PE versions of the landing gear doors: One last item before I close this status report. I have a decision to make regarding the ejection seats. To be precise, I have four options to choose from: The kit's seat, with PE detailing added, and three resin aftermarket items (Aires, Quick Boost, and True Details). Here's what they look like side by side: Here's the real thing: Academy's seat, besides lacking the detail of the resin alternatives, needs some reshaping especially on the headrest (much too wide at the top). That is easily corrected and with the PE it should build up nicely. Aires has the crispest details and includes a PE fret with seatbelts, ejection handles, and other items. Quick Boost is almost as nice as the Aires seat, seatbelts are molded in (a plus in my book), and includes a resin ejection handle. On the down side, the headrest looks to be a tad too small. The True Details seat is probably the least attractive. Besides being soft in details, it is definitely "top heavy" with a strange, downward sloping top. It also doesn't include the overhead ejection handles characteristic of the Martin Baker seat. Of the four, I'm leaning toward using the Quick Boost seats on this build and saving the Aires seats for a later build where I'll be able to have an open canopy (Academy's canopy is one piece). But just for grins, I might go ahead and detail out the kit's seats to see how they compare. Edited January 18, 2018 by billn53 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan B Posted January 18, 2018 Share Posted January 18, 2018 Very nice work on the wheel bay inserts, very fiddly in 1/72 scale I'd say. I'd go with the QB seats too. Duncan B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Booty003 Posted January 18, 2018 Share Posted January 18, 2018 Lovely work and a great comparison of seat choices - something good for other F-4 builders to take note of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 3, 2018 Author Share Posted February 3, 2018 (edited) It's been a couple of weeks since my last update -- things have been very busy both at home and at work, and I've only had sporadic opportunities to get to my hobby bench. Nonetheless, I've been making progress and thought I'd show how far along I am on my Phantom build. Continuing to work the underside details, I've mostly completed the landing gear and Eduard PE airbrakes: I primed the aircraft with Mr Surfacer rattlecan white and pre-shaded the underside panel lines: My preshading is much neater than what I did a year ago when I first returned to the hobby. I'd like to say that my airbrush skills have improved immensely, but to be honest it's all because I bought a better airbrush than my old Paasche H. Moving on to the cockpit area, I painted up the Quick Boost bang seats and installed them in the tub: I also added Eduard's PE HUD (a damn fiddly job that was, too!) At this point I was ready to install the canopy. A test fit showed that there is small gap along the fuselage join, caused by Eduard's PE panel for the backseater being a bit too high. I tried my best to trim it down but it just wasn't possible to get a perfect fit: So out came my watch crystal cement and a couple of hefty clamps... Here's the final result. Still a slight gap, but manageable: Note how clear the kit's canopy is. All I did was give it a quick polish and a dip in Future. I'm now very close to where I can get the primary colors on... with a little luck I should be able to get that done over the weekend. Edited February 3, 2018 by billn53 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 5, 2018 Author Share Posted February 5, 2018 With the canopy in place, I masked it off for painting. I used pre-cut masks plus paint-on masking fluid: Then masked the aircraft and airbrushed the main colors. For this build I'm trying out Mission Models paints for the first time. The Mission Model paints sprayed fine, but I had a problem with the black not wanting to adhere to the Mr Surfacer primer. I had sprayed the black on the nose first, then masked it off for the light gull gray. When I removed the mask, all of the black was gone! In the end I resorted to hand painting. Next I painted the Phantom's natural metal exhaust area. For this I used Alclad II metallics over a gloss black base: (The horizontal stabs and engine nozzles are only dry-fitted here... I still have some detailing to do on those items.) Finally, I've begun decaling. This will take a while as there are a bunch of stencils to apply. Ughhh! Stay tuned for more later... 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 7, 2018 Author Share Posted February 7, 2018 (edited) Decals are on, at least the major ones. To be honest, I'm inclined to skip adding the multitude of stencil markings, and move on with this build. This is supposed to be fun, or at least rewarding, and after all, it's my plane and I can do what I want with it ;-) Speaking of decals, Academy's offerings for this kit are almost totally useless. The printing is low resolution, the decals are thick, and they refuse to conform to curves. They are also impervious to even the strongest decal solvent solution. You can see the problem in the photo below, where the top of the national insignia on the port engine inlet doesn't adhere to the curved surface: So I scrapped almost all of the kit decals and instead used various items from my spares box. The only kit decals I used are the jet intake warning, rescue triangles, and related stenciling below the canopy (all of which are one big decal). On a more positive note, the canopy after unmasking is the cat's meow :-)) I'm pumped up about how clear the glazing is. Here are some pics: That's about it for now. Edited February 7, 2018 by billn53 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 (edited) If it helps i usually do about 30-50% stencils just to make it busy enough. In real life some of these are stickers and they would peel off. Sometimes they got painted over for corrosion control. Either when the planes were deployed in a combat zone or on a carrier. The rule of thumb was keep it flying, then maybe make it look presentable if you had extra time. Edited February 7, 2018 by Corsairfoxfouruncle 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomthounaojam Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Very nice, love the things you have done to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 8, 2018 Author Share Posted February 8, 2018 22 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said: If it helps i usually do about 30-50% stencils just to make it busy enough. In real life some of these are stickers and they would peel off. Sometimes they got painted over for corrosion control. Either when the planes were deployed in a combat zone or on a carrier. The rule of thumb was keep it flying, then maybe make it look presentable if you had extra time. Thanks for the encouragement! Once I actually got started, I found it hard to stop... (Underside stenciling still to be done) 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 Nice AARDVARK Phantom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 11, 2018 Author Share Posted February 11, 2018 (edited) Time for another update on my Aardvark's progress. I'm done with decaling and have moved on to finishing off all the little things that hang off the bottom of this bird. Landing gear, pylons, weapons, etc. On this particular aircraft's MiG killing mission, the stores load consisted of a centerline tank, two AIM-7 Sparrows on the rear fuselage positions, and a pair of AIM-9 Sidewinders on the inboard pylons. The outboard fuel tanks were not mounted but the pylons for them were in place. My understanding is she also carried an empty TER on the inboard pylons. The kit's Sidewinder rails turned out to be more work than expected. The rails, when mounted, are not at right angles to the pylon but instead slope downward, forming an inverted 'Y'. Having never seen anything like that on a Phantom before, I thought Academy had made some huge mistake. But on doing some searching I found this pic: Which is apparently what Academy modeled. Unfortunately, what I needed is this: After some effort I was able to get the pylons mounted horizontally, but then I discovered another problem: The pylons are too long and stick out ahead of the AIM-9's nose. Instead they should end just about where the forward fins begin. Here's the problem: Compare these with the Sidewinder rails from a Hasegawa weapon kit: So out came my files and sanding sticks again. Finally, this is where I ended up: Each inboard pylon also carried an empty TER. The kit includes a TER and bombs, and the detailing (although not as nice as some aftermarket items) is serviceable enough. The majority of Navy TERs were painted white, but I've seen a few pics with TERs in natural metal, and since there's a lot of white already going on with this Phantom's underside I decided to mix it up a bit for interest's sake. This also gave me a chance to try out a new metallizer product: AK's True Metal is a waxy paste that comes in various shades. It's very similar to Rub N Buff, which can be found in craft stores. I used Dark Aluminum on my TERs, here is how they came out: Before signing off, one more thing. As luck would have it, I finally found a photo on the web of Aardvark 206: There are a couple of details that I didn't get quite right. For example, the antenna fairing above the rudder is painted gray (mine is orange, like some of VF-114's other F-4Js). Also, there are a couple of bumps forward and aft of the main dorsal antenna. I don't know what these are or exactly what they look like (if anyone has details, please send them to me). Next time I post I'll probably be done, and ready for a RFI. Until then, keep on modeling! Edited February 11, 2018 by billn53 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 11, 2018 Author Share Posted February 11, 2018 (edited) FYI I found this great blog which answers my questions about the mystery antenna on the F-4J I'm modeling: http://phantomphacts.blogspot.com/p/shoehor.html The first two antenna on the dorsal spine (also, a blade antenna I'm missing on the plane's belly) are for the AN/ALQ-91 IFF countermeasures set (an IFF Interrogator set for Soviet frequencies to allow the F-4 to engage North Vietnamese MiGs based on their IFF emissions). The aftmost antenna on the F-4J's back is for TACAN. :-) Edited February 11, 2018 by billn53 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 14, 2018 Author Share Posted February 14, 2018 She's all done! I'll post a RFI as soon as I can get some good photos. In the meantime, here are some I took on the workbench this evening: And I've even cleared off my work area, ready to start my next project: Haven't yet decided what that might be, but I have plenty to choose from in my stash ;-)) 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackson Duvalier Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 Really nice build. The clarity of the canopy is amazing. Your best option going forward is the FJ-3M, so you can iron out the pitfalls before I start gluing mine up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 14, 2018 Author Share Posted February 14, 2018 Thanks! I actually have a Fury in my stash. But there was a great build done just recently on here. It was so good that it was intimidating! So I think I'll go in a different direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matteo44 Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 I like VF114 Well done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Courageous Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 Love your canopy, lovely and clear. Also love the wheel wells, didn't know that they done PE pipework now. A lovely example of a Phantom . Stuart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vultures1 Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 Great WIP and a great result - well done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 15, 2018 Author Share Posted February 15, 2018 RFI is now posted. Find it here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235033906-beware-the-aardvark/ 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 Well done Bill, That's a great result and a fine conclusion to an enjoyable progress thread. Congratulations! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 On 2/12/2018 at 5:38 AM, billn53 said: Before signing off, one more thing. As luck would have it, I finally found a photo on the web of Aardvark 206: There are a couple of details that I didn't get quite right. For example, the antenna fairing above the rudder is painted gray (mine is orange, like some of VF-114's other F-4Js). Also, there are a couple of bumps forward and aft of the main dorsal antenna. I don't know what these are or exactly what they look like (if anyone has details, please send them to me). Next time I post I'll probably be done, and ready for a RFI. Until then, keep on modeling! NOT the same aircraft though. It's entirely possible that the photos of 7249 and whatever was used to design decals for 7260 are from different periods and the extra antenna are on a replacement "206" Shane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted February 15, 2018 Author Share Posted February 15, 2018 You are correct, Shane. The a/c serial numbers are different. I had just noticed this earlier today while I was posting the RFI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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