Hobby2000 Phantom FG.1(Late) +++FINISHED+++

[Ray S]

Hello all. I was in Antics this morning and they just happened to have received their first batch of Hobby2000 Phantoms, so in the spirit of Enzo, I bought one to add to the Airfix one I have running in another thread.

 

The kit looks simpler than the Airfix one, and certainly doesn't have quite so many stencils, so I should be able to complete it within the GB timeframe.

 

I'll use another of the Xtradecal markings, this time for the Tremblers squadron, 111. The one with the black spine and fin and the yellow fin flash, always wanted to do one of those.

 

I'll post the start up photos in a couple of days, I'm busy over the weekend at the Jet Age museum in Staverton, Gloucestershire with my model club having a display and build event.

 

Ray

Edited November 2 by Ray S
Edited Title

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Hello and welcome to the buid Ray. 

[Ray S]

Hello all, and thanks @Corsairfoxfouruncle for the Welcome.

 

This is the Hobby2000 boxing I selected. I could have chosen 'FG.1 Early' or 'Late', and I chose this one:

 

 

I couldn't believe the price of it, only £21.99. It was almost tempting to get another, but I chickened out. The parts:

 

 

 

Traditional, non-fancy instructions:

 

 

Three scheme options:

 

 

The stencils, but not as many as supplied by Airfix:

 

 

And the transfer sheet, looking pretty well packed, along with a masking set:

 

 

Finally, the main scheme will hopefully be this 111 Sqn aircraft resplendent in grey with black spine and fin and accompanying yellow flashery courtesy of Xtradecal:

 

 

Just one question if I may. The kit instructions show that there are 'winglets' either side of the fin - were they on all of the Phantoms (especially this one) or were they just upgrades fitted later? It looks like they were there on the Decal placement guide from Xtradecal, so I think I would have to add the fin flash then trim the transfer and fit the winglets afterwards. Any advice would be much appreciated. Don't worry about this, a simple Google search showed me everything I needed to know.

 

I've searched and searched the kit and I cannot find any hint of the intake louvres above and below the main intakes, but I hope I am wrong.

 

I am looking forward to starting this over the next couple of days, I'll be building it in tandem with my Airfix version which is in another build thread.

 

Thanks all for looking, Ray

Edited September 23 by Ray S
Added extra info

[Jabba]

Welcome along. The winglets that I think you are talking about are the ILS aerial(?). These aerials were 9 times out of 10 fitted as part of the mod that also fitted the RWR square fin top. You can find pictures of one without the other, but they are rare. The aircraft that you are going to make had these fitted, as I made one of these many a year ago.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

WooooHooo a Treble One phantom !!! 

[Ray S]

I'll show some progress on this tomorrow hopefully but first, a question. In my update I'll show some warpage of the fuselage, this has caused issues, and when I test fitted the wing assembly, I could drive a tank through the gap between wing root and fuselage - it was getting on for about 5mm! Has any one else had this problem with Fujimi or the Hobby2000 issue? I've cut out a thick chunk of plastic rod to act as a spacer up front and it now fits, but I'm going to leave it out for a few days to let the fuselage glue cure properly, I could foresee the seam coming adrift otherwise.

 

Cheers all, Ray 

[Ray S]

Hello all. I have made some progress to this FG.1, starting with the cockpit, just for a change! There is plenty of detail in there and some very finely moulded control columns. I have added those fore and aft, whether that's correct or not, I don't know. Some were twin sticked, some weren't apparently. There was raised detail for the side consoles and I had the choice of painting them or using the Cartograf-printed transfers, so I used them. They settled down very well with Micro Set and Sol. As for the main instrument panel, I decided to paint them instead with a cocktail stick because the transfers looked too big, and didn't correlate with the moulded detail. I've done my best:

 

 

The cockpit is going to be closed up when I get that far, so I think it will pass observation on my display shelf. I mentioned in my introductory post that I couldn't see the louvres for the intakes, well, I obviously didn't look too hard because:

 

 

There they are, so all is good and well. Upon closer inspection of the kit I also found that they had moulded the tiny louvres just above the exhaust cans too which was another one that Airfix forgot which I didn't know about until it was explained in my post for that build, so well done Fujimi. I had to fill some ejection pin marks on the inside of the intakes:

 

 

A few spots of Perfect Plastic Putty solved that to my satisfaction. Once that had set and been worked, I gave the intakes and splitter plates a spray of Grey followed by white primer. With the main interior just about done, I decided to have a go at dry-fitting it into the fuselage and see if it closed up better than the Airfix one. Something didn't seem right as it would not close up near the nose. When I taped the tail together, I saw the problem:

 

 

I had a cute pair of tongs! I could hold the middle, squeeze together and pick something up by the nose, release it elsewhere and they would be ready for action again! At the time, I was oblivious as to what might happen next. I carefully glued the cockpit interior to one side and let it set for a while, and then, working from rear to nose, I glued up the fuselage. I needed to twist the nose slightly to get the forward locating pin in place but eventually it was all buttoned up with tape and setting nicely. I let it have a rest while I assembled to wings. These were much easier to get together than the Airfix kit, as the cranked outer wings were moulded in one piece with the rest of the upper half. Then I tried to join the wing to the fuselage:

 

 

Gulp! My initial reaction was 'what have I done wrong?' (I have history on that!). I checked and rechecked but no, I had done everything correctly. I must stress that the fuselage has been pushed over so it is in contact with one wing root so what you can see is the total gap, at least 5mm I think. Then I remembered that warping and twisting. I had heard of modellers using spreaders to counter this type of thing, so:

 

 

That seems to have solved the problem to a greater degree, there will just be a thin smear of filler along the roots now rather than a major trench filling session. I have now test fitted the splitter plates and outer intake walls and they seem to fit very well indeed so the spreader hasn't caused unintended problems.

 

That is it for now, hopefully there will be more soon. Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Nice save on the gap

[roy107]

On 30/09/2025 at 12:08, Ray S said:

Gulp! My initial reaction was 'what have I done wrong?' (I have history on that!). I checked and rechecked but no, I had done everything correctly. I must stress that the fuselage has been pushed over so it is in contact with one wing root so what you can see is the total gap, at least 5mm I think. Then I remembered that warping and twisting. I had heard of modellers using spreaders to counter this type of thing, so:

 

 

That seems to have solved the problem to a greater degree, there will just be a thin smear of filler along the roots now rather than a major trench filling session. I have now test fitted the splitter plates and outer intake walls and they seem to fit very well indeed so the spreader hasn't caused unintended problems.

 

Ray, I had exactly the same issue on my Italeri ex-Fujimi Phantom and arrived at the same conclusion as you - nothing made sense at the dry fitting stage until I put in a piece of plastic to spread the intake end of the fuselage. That said, it looks like yours was even more warped than my Italeri rebox!

[Ray S]

Hello all. There has been quite some progress on this. The wings went on well as did the intakes and splitter plates, although I did need to sand the lower cut-out on the intakes to get it reasonably level up top. It was when I was looking at the kit and thinking 'This is going well' that I had my come-uppance. Guess who forgot to trim out the flashed over slot for the fin winglets? Despite marking on the instructions 'TRIM BEFORE CLOSING FUSELAGE'. Thankfully, there was an external surface mark where the cut out was, so

 

 

And eventually I had something presentable:

 

 

Phew! You can also see that some filler was needed along the wing roots, but somewhat less than if I hadn't used the spreader up front. I have since seen and been told about this issue for quite a few other modellers. I then fitted the crew seating:

 

 

 

I'm reasonably pleased with the instrument panels and seat firing handles even if they are not strictly accurate. After those photographs were taken I added the intakes and splitter plates followed by the undercarriage legs. No weight was added upfront this time, having learnt. I've brush painted a couple of coats of Humbrol 166 Light Aircraft Grey overall to act as a general base coat for the upper surfaces. I added a strip on masking tape inside the intakes (hindered by a probe either side supplied by Fujimi/Hobby2000) which had another strip of folded-over tape stuck underneath which hopefully will help be remove the tape later. This is where the Phantom is at the moment:

 

 

That's it for now, thanks for looking and for the comments, more soon with luck,

 

Ray

[Jabba]

Looking very good. Good job in getting the hole in the fin for the ILS aerials.

[Ray S]

59 minutes ago, Jabba said:

Looking very good. Good job in getting the hole in the fin for the ILS aerials.

Thanks @Jabba, amazingly I managed to get it so when the winglets went through, they were horizontal - I nearly fell off my chair when I found out 

 

Ray 

[lyn]

nice well done😀

[Ray S]

Hello all. Progress on this has been a bit slow but painting has been going on. The undersides were brush painted with Humbrol 166 Light Aircraft Grey enamel for a couple more coats, then the fuselage and outer wing sections had two coats of ColourCoats Barley Grey (an absolute joy to brush on by the way) and then the inner wing sections had two coats of ColourCoats Medium Sea Grey. Having taken heed of my mishap with the Airfix 43 Sqn FG.1 I thought I had better look at the cockpit glazing early this time, so I got the closed version masked (the masks were supplied in the kit) and they seemed to go on well.

 

 

I remembered to add the HUD and paint the coaming then added the glazing, and the fit was much, much better this time

 

 

 

I am continually amazed at how similar the three greys are in this scheme. The cockpit frames have again had Humbrol 140 enamel brushed on. I'm now just letting the glazing glue set before masking for the black upperworks colour along the spine and tail fin. That's all for now, thanks for looking,

 

Ray

[Ray S]

Hello all. More progress on this Phantom. I masked and painted the black upperworks, I used Revell acrylics this time, again brush painted. It seems to have come up okay:

 

 

 

I then remembered from my hitch with the 43 Sqn Toom and removed the masking. What I had feared, happened! They left a sticky mess on the glazing:

 

 

They did their job well though and there was very little seepage of paint under the masks. I've got to try and work out how to get that excess mask adhesive off now. In the meantime, I added the Xtradecal main markings:

 

 

She's looking the biz now! I have been concentrating on the 43 Sqn since, but now the way is clear for this. so, soon it's 'stencil time' again. Gulp

 

Thanks for looking and for the likes and comments

 

Ray

[Jabba]

This one is really coming alive, especially with the decals on. That Black is very good indeed.

[lyn]

great work 😍

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Looking real good, Im pretty sure I have this set in 1/48th. 

[Ray S]

On 19/10/2025 at 16:49, Jabba said:

This one is really coming alive, especially with the decals on. That Black is very good indeed.

 

Thanks @Jabba. I was quite pleased at how the black came out, and I think I may even have got the masking symmetrical!

 

On 19/10/2025 at 23:14, lyn said:

great work 😍

 

Thanks @lyn

 

On 20/10/2025 at 00:52, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Looking real good, Im pretty sure I have this set in 1/48th. 

 

Thanks @Corsairfoxfouruncle, it would look pretty spectacular in that scale, wouldn't it?

 

One thing I forgot to mention last time was that I used the Hobby2000 markings for the lightning bolts and sheild up front as the Xtradecal set was mis-printed and the yellow outline was missing from the top of the emblem. Thankfully the ones in the kit were identical to the Xtradecal ones even though the kit scheme didn't have the black spine.

 

Stencilling has continued apace, well, as apace as stencilling can:

 

 

 

There is only one slight, teeny weeny snag though. Observe the stencil instructions:

 

 

 

After having cleared all of that lot (with the exception of just a few held back for later, I still have these left:

 

 

These are for the fuselage, the stencil instructions are okay for the upper and lower sections and just for the upper fuselage, not the fuselage sides. I've been able to work out a few using my 43 Sqn Toom as a guide, but I'm stuck on these. As usual, there was no grouping of similar positioned stencils numerically, and as the printing is white on a pale blue backing sheet, even a magnifier will not show me what's printed although once on the model, they are legible. I'm not sure if another stencil guide was missing from my kit. The main colour scheme guide shows stencils in place but not numbered, and they don't appear to have the same shapes as the transfers. Any ideas? Of course, there is one idea that just possibly might spring to mind (leave them!) but it looks odd without the markings on the fuselage. I'm going to trawl Scalemates and see if there are any instructions for Fujimi or Hobby2000 Phantoms on there and see if I have any luck.

 

I did read somewhere that the transfers in this kit are printed by Cartograf. If they were, they are behaving VERY differently to the Cartograf printed Airfix markings. They come off the backing easier even in cold water, are much thinner and stick like a limpet if they are positioned wrongly. Nonetheless, they are still good, and with the Humbrol Clear Gloss as my 'setting solution, none have silvered that I can see.

 

That's it for now, please wish me luck with the stencil hunt,

 

Ray

[Beard]

On 19/10/2025 at 15:50, Ray S said:

I've got to try and work out how to get that excess mask adhesive off now.

If you haven't already worked out how to do it, there are some useful tips here:

(At your own period, obviously.)

 

BTW, the Phantom is looking very smart.

 

[Ray S]

7 minutes ago, Beard said:

If you haven't already worked out how to do it, there are some useful tips here:

(At your own period, obviously.)

 

BTW, the Phantom is looking very smart.

 

 

Thanks @Beard. I tried one of the suggestions from that thread, and it worked. I then promptly forgot to mention it in my last post so thanks for reminding me. I used the WD40 idea. I sprayed some into a milk bottle lid and used a cotton bud to wick some of it up and rubbed that over the residue on the glazing. In short order, the glazing was perfect again for me. I then used the same trick on a beaker I had been given where the price label left an even stickier residue which was impervious to hot, soapy water, white spitit and methylated spirit but which too succomed to good old WD40. Once again, the Britmodeller collective came up trumps as it does so often when someone is in a spot of bother. Thanks too for your kind words above,

 

Ray

[Ray S]

I sometimes wonder about what I term my brain does. This afternoon I was working myself up into a bit of a lather with those undocumented stencils. When I was having my evening meal, I remembered that I had the stencil diagram for a grey aircraft left over from my 43SQN build, so it could help with placement. After tea, I went and got it from another Phantom box, and there, snuggled in with the guide, was the corresponding set of grey Phantom stencils. I will now use this discovery to finish off the fuselage for this one. Phew!

 

Ray, who seems to have a brain like a sieve without the wires 

[Jabba]

A good find (rememberance) and hope that getting these on go es well.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

I use about 2/3rds of the stencils on my phantom builds. With the shear amount a phantom carries, no one notices the lack of all of them. 

[lyn]

great work😍