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Academy 1/72 F-4J Phantom II


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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:

 

33539149421_40eaa36e14_o.jpg 

 

and, after a few trials and tribulations, managed to achieve a pretty satisfying result:

 

34166628636_702b3b7c7b_c.jpg 

 

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!

 

25677144718_4879fd0b7f_c.jpg 

 

I've found I can hardly resist aftermarket items, and have collected a few for this project:

 

24680072047_ffb87681fe_c.jpg 

 

The particular aircraft I've chosen to model is a MiG killer from VF-114, the Aardvarks:

 

39547608021_fe390c45e6_c.jpg 

 

using a sheet from Afterburner Decals:

 

38651547985_278b152ffb_c.jpg 

 

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):

 

27771329489_34921d2968_z.jpg

 

I finally bit the bullet and, using my smallest brush, re-painted the Eduard PE:

 

24680806327_b622af5561_z.jpg 

 

Here are some of the PE-enhanced interior items:

 

27771332169_8684fb8440_z.jpg

 

The cockpit goes together nicely, and with the Eduard detailing looks very good!

 

39517947382_76ea47b3e9_c.jpg 

 

(The ejection seats are installed only temporarily to check fit)

 

The pilot's office:

 

24680070877_0036d97c85_c.jpg 

 

And accommodations for the guy in back:

 

25677143108_ecdb161a6e_c.jpg 

 

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.

 

38838525704_729255cb1c_c.jpg 

 

Here's a problem! Shouldn't be too hard to fix, though.

 

27771332879_00782d4809_c.jpg

 

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:

 

39517947922_1dfa6b5ef5_c.jpg 

 

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 by billn53
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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. 

 

27838953489_20b7844e24_z.jpg

 

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.

 

27838955459_130814a9cb_z.jpg

 

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:

 

27838949439_0387877d4b_n.jpg  39586801732_df58536ac3_n.jpg

 

27838947309_9febab23ba_n.jpg  27838951969_2c9fa72fe0_n.jpg

 

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.

 

38908119944_266fdd3231_z.jpg

 

Alternatively, I could have followed Academy's instructions on how to deal with these holes (LOL!)

 

27838954249_36b4696246.jpg 

 

Anyway, before I knew it I had arrived to this point in the build:

 

39616270411_6f08da4a1f_c.jpg

 

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

27838955599_4c081c5a0c_z.jpg 

 

Likewise for a couple of other areas which are traditionally problematic with Phantom kits:

38908120044_db4384bf30_z.jpg 

 

24748140717_ac6fba5856_z.jpg 

 

Compare with this:

33511419102_f8a6c4384d.jpg 

 

The piece provided for the rear metalwork is nicely detailed and fits like a glove:

27838955979_51b21f244d_z.jpg 

 

And even includes a separate piece for the tailcone / parachute door:

38908117164_9ab15acfb9_n.jpg 

 

Details are very crisp and convincing:

38908118184_8859a34463.jpg 

 

24748138217_6ac0142ede.jpg 

 

39616269911_85a982214f.jpg 

 

The intake trunking is more realistic than with my last Phantom build (haha!)

 

25745186528_8dd1aa6526.jpg b 27838951959_afc75c4516_n.jpg

 

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:

38908118884_3c6e560045.jpg 

 

27838953989_3612e0bcbc_z.jpg 

 

Gaps where the cockpit meets the upper fuselage, especially above the pilot's IP and above the backseater's starboard side panel:

27838954319_fde5f11260_z.jpg 

 

27771333099_4ee53dac5d.jpg 

 

The nose has ever-so-slightly smaller diameter than the fuselage, creating a small lip:

27838955169_679176fbb8.jpg 

 

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 by billn53
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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:

 

39547608021_fe390c45e6_c.jpg 

 

 

 

Yeah... good choose... I like it!

I've the decal for the same plane (1/48th scale)... 

 

Good work!

 

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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:

 

39752373371_1efcd9a64f.jpg 

 

And after a over an hour of trying to get it in place, with not a little cursing, here is the result:

 

24882607217_7e7b0893eb.jpg 

 

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:

 

39752374721_d5e0b8f0bb_z.jpg 

 

27973520169_1c78504af8_z.jpg 

 

and with the PE panels installed:

 

25880705568_3092811179_z.jpg 

 

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)

 

38853656405_a2be6f379a_z.jpg 

 

I then worked on adding the PE detailing to the landing gear legs:

 

25880705718_f8f8f1321e.jpg b 25880702578_e7813c57ac.jpg 

 

and built up PE versions of the landing gear doors:

 

39752373041_65e0220211_z.jpg 

 

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:

 

39752373151_a5eacb1650_c.jpg 

 

27973520279_a2031d6657_c.jpg 

 

Here's the real thing:

 

eject7.jpg

 

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 by billn53
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  • 3 weeks later...

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:

 

39135084825_19c64c9cdd_z.jpg 

 

 28254387079_18fb43db71.jpg 

 

 

I primed the aircraft with Mr Surfacer rattlecan white and pre-shaded the underside panel lines:

 

28254389409_833a7dbb8e_c.jpg 

 

39135085415_13d3f3ae8f_c.jpg 

 

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.

 

33511416452_c108703eb5_z.jpg 

 

Moving on to the cockpit area, I painted up the Quick Boost bang seats and installed them in the tub:

 

25162203677_9a8ae68c60.jpg 28254387489_c8f2b83cd4.jpg

 

40033523931_6226e3cd7a_c.jpg 

 

I also added Eduard's PE HUD (a damn fiddly job that was, too!)

 

28254388579_9eddbe629c_z.jpg 

 

25162203857_9c0298e25c_z.jpg 

 

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.

 

39323284814_92527c5543.jpg 

 

I tried my best to trim it down but it just wasn't possible to get a perfect fit:

 

26160643258_e3929fbc71_z.jpg 

 

So out came my watch crystal cement and a couple of hefty clamps...

 

28254389019_8b1bf0c46b_z.jpg 

 

Here's the final result. Still a slight gap, but manageable:

 

40018228492_1ea0677be4.jpg  25179061457_3fd218c58a.jpg

 

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 by billn53
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With the canopy in place, I masked it off for painting. I used pre-cut masks plus paint-on masking fluid:

 

39379953964_f1f52a4ec7.jpg 

 

Then masked the aircraft and airbrushed the main colors. For this build I'm trying out Mission Models paints for the first time.

 

40091529851_cb4e66839d_c.jpg 

 

40058576192_bd072e03b0_c.jpg 

 

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:

 

39379954064_7d335df3a4_z.jpg 

 

(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!

 

25219357807_2d5aabbe67_b.jpg 

 

Stay tuned for more later...

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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 ;-)

 

39416416864_efa7e685c6_b.jpg 

 

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:

 

39416416394_eff9e2f6b2_z.jpg 

 

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:

 

39228976545_3a56298b81_z.jpg 

 

39228976475_640d09bf5b_z.jpg 

 

28347481619_4e1a0c5899_z.jpg 

 

That's about it for now.

Edited by billn53
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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 by Corsairfoxfouruncle
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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...

 

40111964522_46530fcc36_b.jpg

 

(Underside stenciling still to be done)

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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:

 

40175793712_db10e36fdf_z.jpg 

 

Which is apparently what Academy modeled. Unfortunately, what I needed is this:

 

40208602091_58f9177f1c_z.jpg 

 

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:

 

40208603941_0fb61e337d_c.jpg 

 

Compare these with the Sidewinder rails from a Hasegawa weapon kit:

 

39497414594_68ab65ff41_c.jpg

 

So out came my files and sanding sticks again. Finally, this is where I ended up:

 

39310882735_15f6c2a9bc_b.jpg 

 

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:

 

26336088958_db470dd9fc_z.jpg 

 

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:

 

28428806799_104a886b90_z.jpg 

 

Before signing off, one more thing. As luck would have it, I finally found a photo on the web of Aardvark 206:

 

26336086458_5d64180e50_o.jpg 

 

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 by billn53
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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 by billn53
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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:

 

25385670827_2866beb32e_b.jpg 

 

40256555061_cd0e9ceb2e_b.jpg 

 

40256555261_5d44b857f5_b.jpg 

 

25385670987_a35bde41e4_b.jpg 

 

38446145440_362c83e498_b.jpg

 

39545368444_0b89118b97_c.jpg 

 

26384167128_a352cf6fb5_c.jpg 

 

25385670317_c8468d786b_c.jpg 

 

40256555101_41e84d4035_c.jpg 

 

40256555171_9332dcbf7f_c.jpg 

 

And I've even cleared off my work area, ready to start my next project:

 

39310883115_5dfafccc5e_z.jpg 

 

Haven't yet decided what that might be, but I have plenty to choose from in my stash ;-))

 

40175797012_26d5027f3e_z.jpg   40175796972_271859af8e_z.jpg 

 

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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:

 

26336086458_5d64180e50_o.jpg 

 

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

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