picknpluck

How did you get the instrument faces to look like that? Beautiful Phantom!

Got some more work in tonight. Built out the tail section. Having a separate rudder is a nice feature as Phantoms at rest often have their rudder off to one side or another. One feature I can do without is the seam going right through the middle of the swivel plate for the horizontal stabilizers. There's a lot of detail to lose if you get too happy with sanding here. I also scribed the leading edge slats. The Steel Beech part makes the slat look like it should be one piece; it's actually two pieces. Too easy. Unfortunately, the intake trunks didn't turn out

My poor construction skills resulted in a gap between the wing and fuselage as well as a step in the joint behind the wings...ugh...Lots of work fixing that. Also, the small bulges above the main gear were too pronounced in the kit parts so I had to sand and blend to make it more realistic.

Much has already been written about Academy's intake trunks so I won't repeat it here. I wasn't satisfied with the stock look, but I got an idea from another forum: cut some plain white paper to size, insert into the intakes, and let the paper down with a mixture of white glue and water, I haven't painted them yet, but so far, it looks to be a decent alternative to buying seamless intakes. I want to fine-tune them a little bit, but here's where we're at right now.

Here are the Steel Beech parts: Leading edge slats Slat actuators and the vinyl wing brace. The leading edge of the inboard slats are too short for the Academy kit so I extended them with Tamiya white putty, hardened with CA.

OK, so I'm a bit late in starting this post as this project has been underway for awhile. Like so many others around here, I'm getting back into the hobby after many years away. Anyway, for my first build back in the game, I chose Academy's 1/48 F-4J. I grew up on Monogram, and having been a huge Phantom Phanatic since being a kid, I had built several Monogram F-4s in both 1/48 and 1/72 (a few Hasegawas too). Anyway, with this being a newer kit, I figured it would be a great starting point. In reading the forums, I became curious about a number of new-to-me painting techniques, such as bl

A question for the experts: Was the VMFA-232 F-4S on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles repainted specifically for delivery to the Smithsonian or did that aircraft actually wear that full-color paint scheme for a period of time while in operational service with VMFA-232? My understanding is the standard paint scheme for Marine F-4s in those days was the 3-tone TPS. I know VMFA-232 had the full-color scheme on their F-4Js prior to the advent of TPS, but I'm referring to this specific aircraft. I've got the MAW Decals sheet with the Udvar-Hazy bird and a TPS VMFA