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Hasegawa 1/48 F-4G


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Dan... plexicard plastic (in various thicknesses) is relatively cheap so making mistakes is not costly ;-) At any rate my method is pretty much to make mulitples of what I'm trying to build and then eye the result and pick the best looking. So even with the burner cans on the F-4G I had about 30 very small 3mm x 2mm pieces around the outside lip. I must admit I must have cut out about 60 of them, then I lined them up and only selected the best 30 that looked the most similar in dimensions from the lot and discarded the rest. At such small sizes even being half a millimeter off can be very noticeable or the angle of a side may be a bit off ... after all, even the sharpest and smallest of exacto blades is difficult to work with at such small sizes... so I'm not sure it's about practice, but rather trail and error ;-P

Best,

-Greg

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wowww this is a jaw dropping phantom !!!!! i am LOVING your scheme!! it's nice to see an f-4 without the SEA/israeli colors. everything about this is just aghh!!! :D pleasure to my eyes! this is incredible! keep it up! your f-15 looks sharp, too :)

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  • 1 year later...

:( Need I say more, that Phantastic Phantom is just too phreakin awesome!!!!, although the Eagle is no slouch, let's give the older sibling some due props.

Edited by Angels49
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Some shots from the bottom...

IMG_0507Medium.jpg

A beautiful job and one you should rightly be proud of. I hope you don't mind my pointing it out though, but there is one thing you might consider correcting. The inboard main wheel hubs on USAF Phantoms were left unpainted and were always a dirty rust color. I think you might still be able to correct it on your model. Here's a photo I took a long time ago, sorry the colors aren't all that clear. The wheel rim is silver, probably bare aluminum. The only USAF Phantoms with painted hubs are museum displays.

LeftMLG.jpg

I know a lot of the guys here thought the shaded painting on the exhaust blast panels looks good, but I can't say I like it even though your technique was certainly innovative. It just doesn't look like that on any Phantom I ever worked on, saw or photographed. If you want to call it artistic license, that's okay by me though. Here's a nice DOD photo of a 52 TFW F-4E in Euro-1 that shows the blast panels pretty well:

DF-ST-85-11179-1.jpg

If you're trying for a really accurate F-4, next time you might not want to make the top fuselage walkway quite as wide. It should go to the inboard side of the upper UHF antenna, and not all the way out to the panel line. I've been comparing your model photos to photos I took of real F-4E backbone walkways and it appears Hasegawa may have made the backbone panels not quite wide enough. The walkway sides follow a row of screws about halfway between the centerline of the fuselage and the panel line. I think Hasegawa's placement of the panel lines are what made the placement of the walkway sides confusing for you. No matter where the panel lines are, though, the side of the walkway was definitely just inboard of the upper UHF antenna. Here's two photos of real F-4Es, unfortunately this 57th FIS bird didn't have the upper UHF antenna TCTO done yet when I took this photo so the upper UHF antenna was still inside of the fin cap. On the 23 TFS Euro-1 bird the UHF antenna was on the centerline since it had ARN-101. The F-4G walkways were identical.

F-4E57FISADCgrayScottWilson.jpg

ARN-101antenna.jpg

Please don't think I'm trying to tear your model down; it's far and away better than anything I've ever built. Except for a few things it would be near perfect. I am only hoping that I can help you or someone else be just a little bit more accurate in the future.

Scott Wilson

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Very constructive comments there Scott. Sometimes technicalities are over looked by some to simply the build. You can also thank the research done by some of the model manufacturers for inaccuracies in colours called out. I was not aware that the wheel hubs were left unpainted. Something to note when I start building the squadron of F-4 kits I have in the stash!

The model looks nice to me as well and I am sure some artistic licence has been used in the very nice paint finish which some modellers like to do. The moral of the story is to never build a model of something you used to maintain, you will go crazy trying to fix everything the kit manufacturer didn't get right :D

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A beautiful job and one you should rightly be proud of. I hope you don't mind my pointing it out though, but there is one thing you might consider correcting. The inboard main wheel hubs on USAF Phantoms were left unpainted and were always a dirty rust color. I think you might still be able to correct it on your model. Here's a photo I took a long time ago, sorry the colors aren't all that clear. The wheel rim is silver, probably bare aluminum. The only USAF Phantoms with painted hubs are museum displays.

I know a lot of the guys here thought the shaded painting on the exhaust blast panels looks good, but I can't say I like it even though your technique was certainly innovative. It just doesn't look like that on any Phantom I ever worked on, saw or photographed. If you want to call it artistic license, that's okay by me though. Here's a nice DOD photo of a 52 TFW F-4E in Euro-1 that shows the blast panels pretty well:

DF-ST-85-11179-1.jpg

I am most interested to know when they officially took Shrikes AGM-45's out of the active inventories, the reported date is no later than '92. Even the ones shown had to be long in the tooth as some say; even with a long shelf life.

Edited by Angels49
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Scott... thanks for your input... BUT where were you during the build? ;-P Hehe, seriously your advice would have been immediately put to good use during the build but alas it is too late. But the info is invaluable to me and others as we build other F-4's...

"The inboard main wheel hubs on USAF Phantoms were left unpainted and were always a dirty rust color. I think you might still be able to correct it on your model."

Interesting... I have a number of photos of the inboard wheel hubs and I always thought they were just dirty and not left unpainted. All my photos are in shadow of course so it is hard to tell. Still an excellent observation...

"I know a lot of the guys here thought the shaded painting on the exhaust blast panels looks good, but I can't say I like it even though your technique was certainly innovative. It just doesn't look like that on any Phantom I ever worked on, saw or photographed. If you want to call it artistic license, that's okay by me though."

Yes, I knew that going in. Frankly I was going for a very 'interesting' and eye catching technique more then a real reproduction.

"If you're trying for a really accurate F-4, next time you might not want to make the top fuselage walkway quite as wide. It should go to the inboard side of the upper UHF antenna, and not all the way out to the panel line. I've been comparing your model photos to photos I took of real F-4E backbone walkways and it appears Hasegawa may have made the backbone panels not quite wide enough. The walkway sides follow a row of screws about halfway between the centerline of the fuselage and the panel line. I think Hasegawa's placement of the panel lines are what made the placement of the walkway sides confusing for you. No matter where the panel lines are, though, the side of the walkway was definitely just inboard of the upper UHF antenna. "

Excellent point and well illustrated by your photo but alas the dimensions of the walkways were taken from the actual decal sheets that I used on this project so I assumed the homework was done by the manufacturers.

"Please don't think I'm trying to tear your model down; it's far and away better than anything I've ever built. Except for a few things it would be near perfect. I am only hoping that I can help you or someone else be just a little bit more accurate in the future."

No worries at all Scott. Your points are all excellent and wonderfully illustrated for us all to use as reference going forward ;-) I guess it does take a very keen eye to spot these items as I had shared my build photos with a couple of former gents who worked on these weasels and they didn't catch those items either. Thanks Scott.

Best,

-Greg

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