Da Nang chivalry: F-4B Phantom II "Black Knights"

[corsaircorp]

On ‎1‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 8:28 AM, amblypygid said:

Thanks, Jari, nice pics! Interesting to note the drop tanks as well, I wasn't sure whether/where they might be carried with a napalm load.

 

I strongly suspect that my mojo will wilt in the face of ordnance once the airframe is finished and a new kit beckons, so I've decided to start the ordnance now. The kit comes with slick Mk 82s, but I would think that they'd be an odd thing to carry with napalm, and perhaps I should be putting snake-eyes on. I'll search the stash; primary suspects are an A-6 and A-7, but if not then I guess it'll be more resin. (Seems a waste, doesn't it? Using resin for something as mundane as a Mk 82.)

Totally agreed ! I do the same since a few months.

Then it's just a matter of hanging it on the finished kit !! Just like IRL in fact !

The best way is to stick to pure logics about the ordnance carried

In CAS, rockets, napalm or even a SUU on the centerline pylon.

Mk 82 and sneakeyes are the most common load.

Usually one or 2 'winders since the chance of a MiG encounter was almost down to zero in the South...

Now, the range of their missions was limited so sometimes, no or just one fuel tank is carried.

It's up to you and your envy of the time, now if you need some Mk 82, PM me, I can send some ...

Sincerely.

CC

[amblypygid]

On 1/22/2019 at 10:49 PM, Finn said:

Here are the squadron reports from VMFA - 314

 

Splendid resource, Finn, thanks for all the work on elucidating the codes as well. 

 

On 1/23/2019 at 8:53 AM, corsaircorp said:

now if you need some Mk 82, PM me, I can send some

 Thanks, CC, but I'm good on the Mk 82s. There's a bucket load of ordnance in this kit, including some that is thoroughly inappropriate for the kit markings. 

 

Having prepped some ordnance, now awaiting paint, I shifted focus back to the airframe yesterday. First thing I spotted was that I've misaligned the front lower fuselage section, resulting in a small gap where it joins the rest of the fuselage:

 

The front is equally misaligned, so I'll either have to put a shim in to keep the nose aligned, or else shave off the excess. As the nose is black, I'm going to attach that after painting, which also means I can check for weighting up to the end. Right now there's no problem with it tail-sitting.

 

What else? Well we have a tail and heat shield:

 

And I brush painted the cockpit surrounds dark grey (tyre black).

 

Wing tips on (like the way Academy have made the dihedral easy here), and tail on (the anhedral not quite so easy, but no real problems), and we have something that looks a lot like a Phantom:

 

The rudder will be painted white; again, I can add that after painting separately to ease masking. The intakes are awaiting their coats of white at some point this weekend, time permitting.

[corsaircorp]

Hello,

Don't you worry too much, I've got the same issue.

For the next one I'll put some plastic sheet to level the belly.

But my main twist came from the inclusion of the resin cockpit...

I must do another nosewheel well...

And still fight with spine of the beast !!

A bit of filling around air intakes otherwise it's a good kit !

Sincerely.

CC

[amblypygid]

Work has been brought to a halt by the fact that I cannot find my pot of Lt Gull Grey anywhere. Though since I can't remember when I last used it (certainly years), it's possible that it got chucked out for being gloopy. My wife finds it very hard to believe that there is a shade of grey that I don't have. Anyway, a new one is on its way, along with some Mirage blue as I fancy tackling either the Special Hobby Mirage F.1 next, or the AMK Kfir (in Colombian colours). I need only to get some paint on the area behind the intake ramps as of course that will be inaccessible once the intakes are on.

[Christer A]

I recognize that hideous gap! I haven't glued the wings onto the fuselage yet, but with great amounts of force it is possible to close it I hope.

 

No Light Gull grey? But there must be lot's of them, somewhere?

Brush paint or airbrush by the way?

[amblypygid]

Oh, I'll be airbrushing this one except for detail work (e.g., I've brush-painted the cockpit sills). Even setting aside the hatred that I have for brush-painting white on large areas, I'm a convert to airbrushing for speed. The only real problems I have are ventilation (I live in an old house where windows, if they open at all, are tiny) and compressor noise, which pretty much restricts me to weekends only for anything that takes more than five minutes. 

 

I think the only previous model I've finished in light gull grey over white was an Airfix Scooter. But I have another Academy F-4 to build (the Eduard Rockin' Rhino boxing) that'll be in USN colours, and a couple of Intruders, one in 1/48 and the other in 1/100.

[amblypygid]

The light gull grey went into action and so this morning I attached the intakes. Starboard one pretty good but an irritating gap to port.

 

[amblypygid]

With gaps filled, I felt the urge to get some paint down. I have never really tried pre-shading, but in the spirit of trying new stuff, I thought I'd give it a go. So, some likely looking areas received some dark grey, then I laid down some white to see the effect. It's subtler than I'd expected.

 

 

 

What do you think, dear readers? Should I be laying down a stronger pre-shade?

[Christer A]

It doesn't really show up int the picture...But perhaps its easier to postshade with different greys?

[amblypygid]

Thanks, Christer. I will be post-shading too, this was principally an experiment to get some variation into the base white. Not especially successful; it's subtle even in the morning sunlight.

[Harry Callahan]

Hi Chris

I will follow your progress, because i am big fan of the Phantom, no matter what version, but surely my favourite is the F-4F.

 

 

 

Horrido

[amblypygid]

Vielen dank, Werner. Hard to argue that the addition of a Vulcan cannon wouldn't improve most aircraft. I was building a Revell F-4F many moons ago, but the cockpit tub went awol at some point, which rather hampered progress.

 

I'm in the process of laying down some of the base colours, but I'm taking it slowly. The Vallejo Model Air LGG is a ... for clogging the tip of my Iwata, even when thinned down considerably.

[Harry Callahan]

Yes welcome Chris

 

I got some problems too with the Vallejo's, thats why i use only Gunze and Tamiya still.

 

 

Happy modelling

[amblypygid]

Phew. Several sessions later and I have something that looks a lot more like a gray/white Phantom. I'll shortly be losing airbrush access, so my plan is to varnish this base coat and start on the boatload of decalling that needs to be done. The metal areas around the tail are, I think, going to be painted later on, to avoid the risks of masking over them while the varnish gets sprayed about.

 

Took advantage of some early spring-like weather to get some natural light for photos:

 

 

 

 

And, for good measure, evidence of impending spring:

 

[DarylH]

Da Nang F-4s are a favorite subject of mine. I'm glad to have found this thread.

 

Edited February 20, 2019 by DarylH

[amblypygid]

Hi Daryl, nice to have you along. You probably know a lot more than I do, so please let me know when I go astray!

[BadKarma75]

Looking very good, always got a soft spot for phantoms one of the first kits I butchered as a kid, looked more like a mon cal star cruiser with all the tube glue I got everywhere 🙂 

[amblypygid]

Ah, stencilling. What fun! I've put quite a lot on; other than those on the dangly bits, the whole of the underside is done. I can't claim that they're all in the right place, and I'm pretty sure that the decal sheet doesn't quite have the right number of some stencils. But there it is, and who's really inspecting it that closely?

 

[Christer A]

That's a scary number of decals there all right!

Good job!

[amblypygid]

Thanks, Christer. It took a week's worth of modelling, mainly because it seemed to take about five minutes before the decals would separate from the backing paper. That's a lot of sitting around and waiting, but I did not dare to have more than one on the go in case of confusion.

 

I'm taking a mini-break from stencilling before I tackle the upper sides. Last night I dealt with the bombs, including repainting the napalm in aluminium, since I'd randomly decided to paint them olive drab along with the Mk.82s. The latter have been stencilled and I hand-painted the yellow stripes; Academy supply decals for this (though the double-stripe variety that would indicate a thermally-protected USN bomb), but I tried one and it didn't really wrap around neatly in the right place. A slightly wobbly hand-painted stripe is something I hope to get away with, though I think I might need to make them a bit wider than they are. Perhaps I should stop being lazy/miserly and use some masking tape!

I also slapped on a load of panel line wash (MiG's dark grey) and used some of the excess to add some grubbiness to the unrelieved whiteness of it all. Next step is to start getting the dangly airframe bits on.

[TheBaron]

Very smart looking indeed Chris!

[amblypygid]

Not a great deal of progress this week but I found time to do some of those odd irritating jobs, like decalling the AIM-7 and varnishing the rest of the ordnance. This morning I hit the drop tanks with their first coat of white, and glossed the undersides. Later on I'll gloss the upper sides and then it can be more decalling fun!

 

Here it is with ordnance (the AIM-7 is just placed there).

[amblypygid]

I'm still going, despite some close calls on the mojo, though I did waltz off with an Eduard MiG-15 so that I could do something that wasn't a tiny decal. I have now finished stencilling. YAY!!!

(This is not true, but please leave me with my fantasies. I have yet to apply any of the stencils that go on the landing gear doors.)

 

Last night I hit the topsides with a coat of that bizarrely named Gauzy Coat gloss varnish. Lo: I have an interesting mix of slight orange peel and pebbledash as a finish. And the decal film shows up very clearly under the coat, which is kinda weird. I'm not sure how easy it is to remove this varnish without obliterating the decals beneath. Although this isn't the first time I've had difficulty spraying Gauzy Coat, this is probably the worst it's been. Any tips on how to spray it successfully would be welcome! Anyway, I've opted for the usual modeller's solution: change tools! I've ordered some Alclad Aqua Gloss as everyone seems to rave about it. Hopefully I can get better results with that on a mule and then I'll try to even the varnish coat out as much as possible, I think.

[Lootenant Aloominum]

On 1/22/2019 at 10:15 PM, Riksbar said:

I take it you've read Phantom Over Vietnam by John Trotti?

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Phantom-Over-Vietnam-Fighter-Pilot/dp/0891415998

 

It's about VMFA-314 at Da Nang and has some interesting stories in it, the maintenance test flight is a doozy!

Affirmative on that. Coincidentally, I am also building this kit, but a different one in the same squadron (by altering some decals). In addition, the weapons load out on mine will be markedly different. Having said that, I can see already that mine is well below the standard of finish of amblypygid's model.

 

In case any Phantom phans reading this have not yet read John Trotti's book, here is my review:

https://everardcunion.com/book-reviews/phantom-of-the-operator/#top