Phantom FG1

[rob85]

The paint has really brought your hard work together, looks like a great finish. Well done on sorting out the issues.

 

Rob

[Alan P]

Very nice! You'd never know that was more filler than plastic. Good work!

 

Alan 

[Jabba]

Thanks for yur comments, it is just a pity that the filler had to be there in the first place. All painting now finished, just a few touch ups to do then the gloss coating.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jabba]

I have started to apply the decals, starting with the larger ones. I have had a bit of trouble with the Xtradecal ones in that they do not want to move when placed on the model, with a few being torn slightly but I have managed to get them back together again.Another problem with the Xtradecals has been the tail decal in that it was too big to be fitted in the correct place, so I used the kit one which as far as I can see is fine. I had to palce a few of the kit stencils around the nose so that I could get the number at the front in the right place. Some of you may have noticed that I have applied a "Royal Navy" decal on the rear upper fuselage when I am making the "Colonial Navy" aircraft. When looking at pictures of the actual aircraft I had notice that the lads from the US Navy had painted out the "Royal" in a slightly darker grey. So I am going to do the same by masking around the "Royal" and painting it out and them applying the "Colonial" from the decal sheet. The rest of the bigger decal will be appied soon apart from ones for the nose U/C door as that has not been painted as yet, I must get around to that.

 

 

 

 

[Alan P]

Ah, a cunning plan with the ROYAL NAVY lettering, I was sure you hadn't got it wrong...

 

Airfix decals are generally very good, more that i can say for Xtradecal which seem to work for me 50% of the time...Looking good at this stage anyway 👍

[zebra]

Looking good. I like your plan for the colonial navy decal.

[Jabba]

Thank you and the plan has started. I have painted out the "Royal" on both sides with a slightly darker (Maybe too dark) Grey. I will apply the "Colonial" decal tonight. Talking of decals, as I could not apply anything to the fuselage whilst the paint was drying I thought that I would start applying some of the stencils to the outer wings. So I did and it took me about 1/2 an hour to apply these ones in the third photo to the upper parts, (the roundels were already applied). Still I have over 100 other stencils to apply to the whole model, over how long I do not know but many a day.

 

 

 

[Alan P]

Incredible how many stencils there are for a 1/72 kit! Keep you busy though 😄

[Jabba]

8 hours ago, Alan P said:

Incredible how many stencils there are for a 1/72 kit! Keep you busy though 😄

There certainly are, and the plan does not help at all as they are all over the place. Trying to find the decal number that you want on the plan is a feat in itself. Last year I built the Academy 1/48 CH-46 and the stencils were divided into areas and then numbered front to back. I do wish that other model manufacturers would look into something like this to make the placement of stencils so much easier, especially as these days they seem to include them more.

[Jabba]

I got the "Colonial" decal applied last night and to be honest I think that it looks alright. I als oaplied the walkway decal along the along the spine, which did not go so well. First of all it split a few times, plus there was an aerial about halfway down the spine which I spliced off with the decal on top of it and you can see as a white dot one the spine.

 

As I mentioned in my previous post about the Stencils, I have taken a photo of it and the stencil decals so you can see what I was on about. Yes I can hear a lot of you saying why apply them, but in the words of a quiz master "I have started so I will finish". I think that if they were easier to find on the plan, it may make a difference. I cannot find 2 decals on the plan at the moment, there maybe a few more later on.

 

 

 

 

[Lex77]

Wow that amount of stencilling!!!

Looking very good, almost there.

[Andwil]

Rather you than me!  Kudos for your perseverance.

 

AW

[Jabba]

A small update. Lots of stencils applied and lots still to apply as you can see from the last photo, where only 2 have been applied so far. I am only able to do about half an hour each night as it is a strain on my eye trying to find out where the decals go from the kit plans. 

 

 

 

[Jabba]

Well that is the decalling amost done. The only ones left are the ones for the canopies andtail hook as these are not painted yet. I had to borrow a couple from the next FG1 kit for the main nose door (put one side of originals on the wrong side of the door).This will be built as a Grey 43 Sqn aircraft and I will borrow the white stencils from a FGR2 kit that I have. The tailplanes are only loosely fitted at the moment, only fitted so that I colud fit the angle segment decal in the correct place. A coat of Klear to be applied and then some weathering to carry out. I have also got to look at the engines, U/C and ejection seats, but at least progress is happening.

 

 

 

[Jabba]

A small update. Weathering done, mainly to the undersides and a satin varnish applied. Time to start on the smaller parts, first the U/C.

 

 

 

[Alan P]

That's looking really good Mark, just the right amount of dirt and wear to make it look used but not overdone. 

[rob85]

She looks excellent and your a much better man than I, doing all those stencils! Lovely bit of weathering to boot.

 

Rob

[Jabba]

Thank you for your kind words and opinions.

 

She is now on her U/C and slowly I have been adding the associated doors. It is strange that the 40/30 yr old Fujimi and Hasegawa kits have so much more detail on the inside of the U/C doors that the Airfix kit with all the technology used on it has not. I am painting the aerials on the RWR fin top as marked on with the masking tape, and also started painting the EJ seats. Hopefully get a bit more done over the next few days, and I wil replace the last photo tomorrow.

 

 

 

[Graham T]

18 minutes ago, Jabba said:

It is strange that the 40/30 yr old Fujimi and Hasegawa kits have so much more detail on the inside of the U/C doors that the Airfix kit with all the technology used on it has not. 

Too right but Airfix are not the only guilty ones here.  I was highly disappointed with the main bays on the Academy 1/48 F-4 I built recently - utterly devoid of even a vague pastiche of what should be there!  On a related matter, I'm working on the 1/48 Revell F-101B which is of course the old Monogram kit.  The moulds have "1985" stamped on them (reproduced therefore on the actual kit!); the attention to & quality of the detail on the u/c, wheel bays, flaps, airbrakes, cockpit, ejector seats (full moulded harnesses) shames pretty well all current manufacturers.

[Jabba]

As promised a better picture of the undersides. I have also fitted the speedbrakes (air brakes), which yet again is a slightly cheap trick by AIrfix in that yet again the older kits supply the actuator for these, but Airfix have them at a fixed angle where they are mounted. As @Graham T mentioned above Airfix are not the only ones, but I do think that they are missing a trick here if they would like to be taken a bit more seriously.

 

[PhantomBigStu]

Looking brilliant Jabba  

[FortyEighter]

Looking great Jabba,

 

Your 72scale version appears to have more decals than my 48 version.

 

I like the application of the "Colonial" decal over the original "Royal", I thought about doing it that way but....

 

Mike

[Jabba]

Thanks you both, there are over 250 seperate decal on this one. A small update in that in the photos that I have seen of this aircraft there must be some NDT being carried out on the outer wing, indicated by a couple of strips of bare metal. So I painted these strips with aluminium paint unmasked so that it was not in a perfectly straight line (having striped aircraft for NDT although the area is masked of some paint stripper will get under this and also using your non-metallic scrapper you will also remove a bit more paint than intended) and then applied some Tamiya smoke to  look like the protector that would be applied between inspections.

 

[zebra]

This is looking brilliant. I'd have got sick of the decals long before I got to 250!

[Jabba]

3 hours ago, zebra said:

This is looking brilliant. I'd have got sick of the decals long before I got to 250!

So did I, but I thought that once I had started I had to carry on. It is a pity that Airfix did not clump some of the decals that are close to each other as one decal rather than seperate ones.

 

All finished now, I glued the outer wing panels back one, yet again it is a pity that Airfix missed a trick here by placing just a small location plate rather than a third of the lower wing. Then the ejection seats were , finished painting and the handles fitted before fitting into their respective cockpits. One thing that Airfix did do well is the way that the two canopies fit, in that the locatng lug is set at the correct angle when they are open. All that is missing is the operating actuator, but that with this kit is normal. Yes I could make on myself, but I think that the manufacturer should have supplied them as much older kits of this aircraft do provide them. All in all a goos kit, but could have been better with a little more ease of construction.