The Kit
Hasegawa 1/48 F-4E Phantom II 09361
Additions
- Aires F-4E/F Phantom II
cockpit set 4126
- Aires F-4 Phantom II Exhaust
Nozzles 4118
- True Detail F-4 Wheel Set
48043
- True Detail Martin Baker MK-7
Ejection Seat
- Cam Decals Phantoms forever
48-102
- Hasegawa 1/48 Weapon Set C
The Start of the build
At the time I brought this kit
back in 2002 it was the only Phantom available at my local hobby store.
I knew by the look of the box that I would need to purchase some decals.
When I got the kit home and opened it up I found that the instructions were
for that of a Japanese Air force Phantom with weapons and decals, however none
of the weapons or decals were supplied in this kit. A second decal
instruction sheet for the Bicentennial decals was supplied instead. So I knew
I had to get some decals after giving the kit and instructions the once over I
decided that I would also have to get an after market cockpit. With that in
mind I sent Craig at Aeroworks an E-mail and put and order in for some decals,
an Aires Phantom cockpit set and the Aires Phantom exhaust nozzles.
When my order of goodies arrived I set to work, starting with the cockpit.
Aires have supplied a well detailed cockpit with lots of fiddley parts,
the only problem I seem to find with the Aires cockpit are there ejection seat
belts I just couldn't seem to get the seatbelts to fit right and whilst trying
I made a mess of one of the ejection seats. So I sent another E-mail to Craig to
place an order for True Detail Phantom ejection seats and while I was at
it I ordered the True detail Phantom wheel set. When they arrived I was back
in business and continued assembling the cockpit. The Aires cockpit
detail is exceptional and with the colours added it looks magic. Once the
cockpit was assembled and painted it was time to get the fit right in the
fuselage, I had to sand the fuselage wall of the kit quite thin to get the
cockpit to sit into place, this took some time and there was a fair bit of
plastic that had to be removed from the inside wall of the kit. Once
completed I placed the two fuselage halves around the cockpit and
glued the halves together, With the cockpit in place and the glue now dry
on the fuselage it was time to fill any gaps. First gaps were the one's
on the side wall of the fuselage which once the putty was dry I used the
old nail polish remover on a Q-tips another trick I pick up from the tools n
tip section to thin the putty out and remove any unwanted putty from the cockpit.
The rest of the kit build was straight from the instruction sheet, little
putty was required in the remainder of the build. I mentioned that I had got a
set of Aires exhaust nozzles for this kit, well I made a mess of them I could
not seem to get the fit right so they were scraped and the kit one's were used
instead.
Painting
I used Model Master paints
for the camo scheme and that of Humbrol light grey for the belly.
Since I'm still a novice with my airbrushing and that I have not had the
best of luck with camo schemes in the past I decide to try out a few
technics, such as using blu-tac to get the shape of the camo. I've been
known to avoid painting camo schemes on aircraft if I have the chose of
another two tone scheme, but in this case camo was the only option.
So placed out the blue-tac for the first colour and airbrushed it on,
once it was dry I added more blue- tac for the second colour and covered
the first colour applied with masking tape. I found it to be a little
messy but it seemed to work for me but, if any body has a better way of
achieving this than I'm opened to suggestions. Once the colours were
applied it was time for a gloss clear cote. |
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Finishing touches
With the colour now applied it
was time for the decals, I found these decals of Cam to be quite strange in
the way they applied themself to the kit.The decals needed quite a lot of
decal solution to get them to fall into the panel lines, but the decals did not
seem to be that thick unlike Taymia deacls. Once the decals were set and
dry another clear cote was applied to the kit followed with the pastel wash to
high light the panel lines, with the finishing cote of dull clear to give the
kit that matt look. After the paint was dry I attached the landing gear & wheels
with the doors and that of the weapons, the only weapon added was the
AGM-45's. Then it was a matter of placing the ejection seats and cockpit
window to the kit and hay presto the kit was complete. This F-4E Phantom represents
the 469th TFS, 388th TFW Korat RTAFB, Thailand 1970.
Thanks
Thanks to
Craig at Aeroworks for supplying the add on's for this kit. Craig can contacted
on this E-mail aeroworks@iprimus.com.au if
any body wants any additional parts, decals, paints etc.
Alan
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