Spang Weasel, and maybe another Phantom too

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Two kits were looking at me from the stash for a while, one was the Buccaneer and the other an F-4G.  The Bucc finally got built, so the Weasel was left.  I kept putting it off as I wanted a Euro One scheme Spangdahlem Weasel and the colours are tricky.  I have done a  Euro One A-10 before but even then I wasn’t sure about the colours.  To sort this I thought I would invest in a Hataka set of paints and try them on the Phantom.

 

So the starting point - an old ERTL 1/48 kit.  Quite like the Hill scheme too but it’s going to be Euro One

 

Couldn’t resist the instructions picture

 

 

I have a few bits to go into this build.  The paints, resin seats, aftermarket decals, a cockpit  etch set and some bits of resin.  I have a full resin cockpit, but I got that after the etch set. So it’s going to be etch enhanced kit pit.

 

 

The kit is getting on but has nice recessed panel lines.  It started me thinking about another Phantom in the stash

 

 

Taking a closer look they have quite a bit in common….

 

 

Er, much the same kit?  Well very close anyway.  One extra sprue for the Weasel.  Actually that’s not quite true.  The ERTL kit has way more cockpit instrument panel detail, so the ESCI kit seems more basic.

 

You get an idea in the shot of the tubs

 

 

The grey Easel instrument panels have noticeable detail on them.  The ESCI ones have none.  The crea part is a resin cockpit rear panel I have a few of.  Nowhere near the full resin detail, but I have etch.  Coloured Eduard etch at that

 

 

So cleaned up panels, new resin backs, etch bits & bobs.  Should look ok.

 

Then spotted an etch F-4E/F set.  So a double build?  I had always intended the gunslinger to be a Luftwaffe one.  In Norm 72 splinter camo to go with my RF-4

 

So last question for now.  My recent builds have tended to have lights & motors.  No motors on a Phantom, but working lights?  Was thinking wing tips, nose taxi light, tail anti collision flashing light, and back of tail light.  Worth the effort?

 

Anyway looking forward to hearing your views.  By the way I think the resin pit will go in an FGR2 that is also in the stash.  I am a serial Phantom offender.  I already have 6 in 1/48

[Lord Riot]

This will be good! Especially with all the extra goodies.

 

I built a 1/48 Spang F-4G in Euro I a while ago, will be interesting seeing your build. 

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4 minutes ago, Lord Riot said:

This will be good! Especially with all the extra goodies.

 

I built a 1/48 Spang F-4G in Euro I a while ago, will be interesting seeing your build. 

Yours turned out well as I remember.   Had the kit way back then, so it’s about time I got to it

[Mark V]

Sweet, another Phantom!  Looking forward to watching your progress. 

[bar side]

Bit more playing with the cockpit today.  I was wondering about using the transparent film behind the instruments & the putting an led behind that so the light in the cockpit shines through the panel.  Something a bit like this but maybe less blurry!

 

 

The kit cockpit tub doesn’t even reach the cockpit frames, so the resin back plates will work better than my usual plasticard

 

 

Trying a test fit

 

 

I was digging through the resin bits & I have pretty much all the bits for another cockpit, plus the whole resin tub.  Should be good for a couple more Phantoms!

 

 

I have two whole resin RF-4 noses plus all of the bits to improve another as well as these.  And I already have 2 RF-4s

[iainpeden]

@bar side.

I can't tell from the photos but I recall the AMT "G" is provided with an unslatted wing and the Esci one is certainly moulded that way. Consequently you can't make  a G from either kit as all of the Weasels had the slatted wing. (and I'm not a rivet counter but it's like building a Spitfire with a Hurricane wing)

Colours are much easier to sort out.

[bar side]

14 minutes ago, iainpeden said:

@bar side.

I can't tell from the photos but I recall the AMT "G" is provided with an unslatted wing and the Esci one is certainly moulded that way. Consequently you can't make  a G from either kit as all of the Weasels had the slatted wing. (and I'm not a rivet counter but it's like building a Spitfire with a Hurricane wing)

Colours are much easier to sort out.

Good point.  Now I am quite happy chopping bits off & scratch building slats, so I assume I will need the actuator covers on the main wing and the hinges on the outer wing

 

 

The tail appears to be slatted though

 

 

I wasn’t going to have slats open so anything else needed?

[Mark V]

That’s a bummer about the wings. Some extra work indeed. There should be other good reference pictures on the web to guide you. Looking at the sprue shots, the wrong ECM pod for Spangdahlem jets is included.  Spang jets had the ALQ-131 pod. Always carried in the left forward AIM-7 missile well. 

The lighting for the Eduard instrument panels looks like a fun idea. Harder with resin I would guess. For wingtip lights and such you use fiber optic lines? 

[bar side]

Yes @Mark V bit more wing work but doesn’t look too bad.  I put the underwing straps on my RAF Phantoms too, made a paper template and made some up.  May have to scratch build an ALQ-131.  The cheapest one on eBay is about £13.  The tip lights will be micro leds.  They worked nicely on my Chipmunk tip lights

 

[iainpeden]

@bar side

I'll start my answer with the caveat that it depends on  personal levels of accuracy required; for me, if it looks nearly right I'm happy!

First, the slats on the wing; not quite so simple as it first appears but if you take the same route as Esci with their 1/72 kit it looks ok. They provided the 3 underwing actuators (different sizes) and a slat to glue to the front of the outer wing panel. Looks fine. It also needs a fence basically on the wing fold on the upper service.

 

The tailplanes are slotted not slatted (to be pedantic) - basically a strip of metal fixed along the front of the tailplane which restricted over rotation on take off. Slats move.

 

The gun was removed from the E and replaced by the bulge on at the front of the gun housing and the pod was added to the top of the fin.

 

That's the basic stuff. The radome on the G was slightly different to the E )I think) and there were various antennae.

 

Obviously it's your personal preference as to detail.

 

Colours are easy - all available by Humbrol, Xtracolor/Xtracylix - let me know if I can help further.

 

Happy researching on the most capable of Phantoms.

[bar side]

Cheers @iainpeden looks right is good enough for me!  Plan to scratch the underwing actuators.  I found these outer wing parts in my phantom resin pile - looks like the outer wing panel & some underwing brackets.  Just need to get a good top view of the slatted wing with everything closed to see how the panel lines look.  I have two kits, one ESCI E / F and one ERTL G so the gun & bulges are all sorted but I will check them

 

 

As I only have one set of resin I will make the second jet set from plasticard & use the resin as a template.  I suspect both outer wings will need cutting back to fit them

[iainpeden]

looks like you have the bits you need. Enjoy

[bar side]

No modelling done today - hope you are all enjoying the weather!

 

[Pantherhawk27263]

Any Phantom build is a build I will follow. I only have 30 left to build in my stash.

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19 hours ago, Pantherhawk27263 said:

Any Phantom build is a build I will follow. I only have 30 left to build in my stash.

I am a bit behind that score.  I have 6 1/48 built, these two will bring the tally to 8.  And I have another FGR2 in the stash.  Plus a couple of RF-4 noses that will need bodies at some point.  
 

[bar side]

Question re slatted wing options.  These are the two resin outer wing parts I have. One is significantly thicker than the other.  I wondered if the thicker one is a hard wing part, while the other sits over the (cut back) outer wing for the slatted version?  Any thoughs @iainpeden?

 

 

 

 

Testing an led down to the wingtip front.  This is a plain one but I have some red & green on order

 

 

it looks like they should have formation lights on the back end of the tip but I haven’t seen any pictures of them on

[bar side]

Got the E/F model cockpit set through today.  Really must get started on them soon.  
 

 

Got some new flashing red leds today and they look to be smaller than the last flashing ones I got.

 

 

And that means they are narrow enough to fit in the tail leading edge

 

 

I can cut the space out & then cut some clear sprue over as a lense.

 

Now I did mention a couple of resin RF-4 noses.  I picked up these bits some time back.  Will need a C model back end when I do build them.  Especially the rounded nose one.  Alconbury of course.  Not for this build but one day soon

 

[iainpeden]

@bar side

Not sure regarding the thickness question - maybe one extended, one retracted?

Anyway I have found some pictures of the slatted wing in a Detail and Scale; pm your address and i'll copy them and send them too you.

Bear in mind I'm off to Fairford early Friday so be quick!!

Iain

[bar side]

More goodies arrived today.  First my thoughts on a light behind the instrument panel.  I have a load of surplus led strip lights and wondered about using a couple of these.  They come in three colours but my 6v power supply won’t turn the blue lights on for some reason.  Red gives a passable glow though.  A 9v battery would be better but would be too much for the other leds.  And I don’t really want two circuits & two power sources

 

In other light matters I ordered some coloured leds in red & green for the wing tips.  They arrived today but they are truly tiny and fragile.  Wires are about the thickness of a human hair I suspect.

 

I tried on on a 9v source and the wire literally came off the led.  Way too much power for them.  I am really not sure I trust myself to solder these up to resistors etc.  I have ordered some more of my ‘usual’ plain white leds as a back up.  These are more robust and are happy to be painted red & green.

 

The second jet now has seats too.  Just for comparison the old style led can be seen on the bottom right of this picture, the new one in between the seats and the old style leds.  Can you see it?

 

 

Bit of a zoom in to show the scale.  The actual led looks about the same size

 

 

Really must get on with building these two soon

 

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Just saw this—really enjoy how you are integrating the lights—great job!  best, Erwin 

[bar side]

Few bits worked on today.  I cut off the outer wing forward sections on one side to see how they would look.  I did consider cutting them back and fitting the new sections on it.  I am tempted to use the cut off sections once they have been extended rather than the resin parts

 

 

With some fettling and the mini wing fences fitted they could look ok.  Underneath is good too with a nice gap to fit the hinges

 

 

I did some more fettling of the front cockpit rear plate.  It fits better so may get that in place so that I can smooth off the cockpit panels and prime the cockpit ready to start on the etch parts.  Plus cutting the light locations in to the back of the instrument panels.

 

I need to have a look at those wing tip port & starboard light locations as they seem to differ from usual Phantom wing tips

 

 

 

Any idea what this is & if it only appeared on the E/F models or if the G had them?

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Test fitting of the cockpit back wall has been good for the G model so I copied this for the E model.  Resin now glued in, seats test fitted and the tubs have gone for a grey primer coat.  When dry I can start fitting the cockpit etch in both, plus working out how best to light the panels 

 

 

The test outer wing leading edge is looking good.  Fitted roughly in place it has the right look for a slatted wing.  I will be able to fit this, fit hinges and the inner wing actuator bulges once the wing haves are together.  So I have now cut and started on the other side.  Two down & two to do

 

 

So I need to fit the leds and start work on that inner sensor or light that sits just in from the tip lights.  But isn’t part of this kit

[bar side]

On 7/13/2022 at 11:10 PM, VT Red Sox Fan said:

Just saw this—really enjoy how you are integrating the lights—great job!  best, Erwin 

cheers - I have done a few.  A Harrier, Hercules, Chipmunk and Islander.  This is the most recent one
 

 

[bar side]

Playing with the strip lights - seem to fold up into the right places

 

 

I think the best bet will be to open up the plastic of the instrument panel and fit the etch over the hole so that the light can show through.  Sort of like this

 

 

 

Got the second outer wing slat extension done too, so one jet down one to go

[CT7567]

Apologies if this observation comes too late, but I believe the difference in "thickness" between the two resin parts is because the smaller one is the outboard slat (unique to slatted E/F/G wings) while the larger is actually the *inboard* leading edge slat (basically the outer 2/3 of the wing leading edge between the hinge and the root.  Check the panel lines on the kit and note they are a match.  Going from memory the inboard slats were powered thus not typically deployed on the ground so may not be used on your build.

 

As for your initial post on this build as a test for the Euro I scheme, keep in mind that the Phantom wore a unique variation of that scheme with slightly different colors from the schemes (plural, there were other variations) on the A-10 and other types.  The A-10's scheme is FS 34092 dark green / FS 34102 medium green / FS 36081 dark gray.  In the Phantom variation, the darkest green was instead FS 34079.  In fact the pattern on the F-4 was technically the same as the Southeast Asia wraparound scheme, substituting the FS 36081 gray in place of tan FS 30219.