A tale of 3 1/48 Phantoms

[oortiz10]

Hey there modelers!

Alright, so I got sucked into building a Hasegawa Phantom…

I bought Hasegawa’s QF-4N second-hand from a seller on another board.

I’ve never built a Hase kit (gasp!) or a Phantom (gag!), so I figured I’d try my hand at this one since I got it for a steal. The seller included some resin bits and a couple of other nice extras. (Thanks Dan!) Don't know if I'll use 'em though, but they're nice to have. We'll see. He did tell me when I bought it that he had sanded down the cockpit sidewall detail because he planned on using an AM cockpit set. Well he never got around to it and sold it to me, sans the cockpit set.

I figured it was no biggie since I build my kits with closed canopies. My thought was that no one woulda seen the sidewall anyway, so it really wouldn’t be missed.

So I went to my LHS after work yesterday to pick up a few odd-n-ends for the build, when lo and behold, what do I see? The same kit sitting on the counter! There’s a Post-It note stuck to it saying it was for sale. I asked the clerk about it, and apparently a private seller was looking to get rid of it. It was being offered well below retail, so I snatched it up. Now I have two Phantoms to build! (What am I getting myself in to…?)

When I get home I crack open the second kit and…TADA! There’s a surprise in there for me! A copy of the old Microscale sheet, 48-73, with two Navy and one USAF jets on the sheet.

It’s a no-brainer! One of my Phantoms is gonna be a VF-111 Sundowner. No, has to be! I just hope the decals hold together. Who knows how old these things are? I don’t, but I’m guessing they’re pretty old. The price sticker on the decal sleeve says $2.25!

The Spring semester doesn’t start until Jan 25, so I gotta get as much done on these builds as I can before then. Time will be thin once school starts. With that in mind, I start building…

I learned that the USN/USMC didn’t have flight controls in the back seat of their Phantoms (So much useful info on ARC!), so out came the Dremel and away went the control stick mount. Then I scabbed over the area with a small square of styrene.

I know wunna yous is gonna ask, “Why’d you bother with the control stick if you didn’t bother with the side panels or the Navy vs USAF cockpit?†Answer is, because a hole in the floor is more obvious (to me at least, and that’s all that matters) than the slight difference in/lack of instrumentation.

I spent the first day of 2010 working on the cockpits. I got one done but ran into a problem when I went to dry fit it in place.

First, the finished cockpit:

It’s mostly OOB except for the lead foil seatbelts. I know the belt pattern isn’t accurate, but I was going for “representation†not “duplication.†Besides, since my cockpits are always closed, they’re simply an effort to “busy up†the office. You know, something to draw the eye.

Now, the first problem of the new year…

As I handled the assorted parts from both kits, I noticed a slight difference in the fuse halves. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I really looked closely.

The fuse halves from the first second-hand kit I bought, was not only missing the sidewall detail (which I expected), but also part of the cockpit structure.

CRAP!

You can see the fuse half missing the structure taped to a fuse half that has the structure. (Apparently, you can also see how dirty my camera body is. YIKES!) Oh well, building has stalled at this point until I can figure out how to engineer a replacement part. Not a big deal, it’s just that I didn’t expect that. Hmm…

Anyway, that’s my first installment. I don’t have to be back at work until Tues, so I hope to get more done and posted before then.

Thanks for looking! Don’t forget to drop your two cents in the bucket on the way out.

Cheers!

-O

Edited May 25, 2010 by oortiz10

[GreyGhost]

Nice start, have fun with your first Phantom builds ! :lol:

Gregg

[Youngtiger1]

Cool project. I'll be looking forward to the drone build :lol:

[Jonathan_Lotton]

If you ever get around to building that ND ANG F-4D might wanna check some refs on that particular airframe. I've seen quite a few photos of the Hooligans F-4D's that didnt have the under-nose IR sensor housing.

[silverkite211]

That repair that you point out will be a simple one, using some sheet stock, just replicate what is there on the one fuselage half on to the other.

Coat those decals with some liquid decal film before you use them and I think that you be alright.

[oortiz10]

If you remember, one of my second-hand Hase Phantoms had all the cockpit sidewall detail sanded off for an aftermarket ‘pit. Since I’m on a pretty tight modeling budget, I opted to use the kit’s ‘pit. I also decided to add the pilots to the office to hopefully distract anyone from noticing the missing detail. In my first attempt at modeling some figures, I thought I’d take a little extra time and try a few other firsts with the pilots.

I started with some solder and fine copper wire (taken from an old electrical cord)…

and wrapped the former with the latter to create new oxygen hoses.

(Disclaimer: Sorry, but since the wife had the camera for the day, I was unable to take some in-progress shots of the following sequence.)

I also hacked up the back-seater’s arms and posed ‘em in a more relaxed position (i.e. holding on for dear life). On the driver, I used some arms I had in my spares box that allowed him to hold the stick & throttle better than the kit provided arms. Some white Milliput filled all the gaps on the crew. After the guys were painted up, I brushed some Future onto their bone-domes and visors. The glossy finish gave me the right look and helped with the next step. I used some spare red decals to create their helmet art. I busted out an old-school hole-punch (sadly, no punch-n-die set for me) to get a dot of red, and then cut that in half for the semi-circles. Then I cut thin strips for the “rays.†Once in place, a little bit of Solvaset got everything to snuggle down nicely. After the decals were dry, I brushed on a little more Future to seal and shine everything up. The pilots were then set in place and next came the hoses. I CAed those to the masks, and since the solder was nice and flexible, I was able to position ‘em right where I wanted ‘em. Finally, I cut some thin strips of masking tape for seatbelts; three strips per figure. They each have a lap belt and a shoulder harness. I know the pattern isn’t accurate, but it does make the crew look like they’re strapped in and ready for action. I left the belts the tape’s original color. I thought it contrasted nicely with their green flight suits.

Seat backs and tray tables in their upright and stored position:

Back-seater:

Driver:

cont...

[oortiz10]

Beyond that, I was looking at the Hase kit and realized that, with a little work, it can be built as –B model. I decided to build the –N of VF-111, then build one as a –B and use Superscale’s VF-84 decals. I know, people are sick of the bones, but I really like the look of their early “pirate flag†scheme.

So to start, I filled the back end of the –B’s tail ECM with Milliput. Since it’s hollow and gonna be sanded off, I needed something back there to fill the void.

While the putty dried, I took the time to clean up the three canopy sets and dipped ‘em in Future.

Wait. What? Did he say three?

I did.

While out walking the dog early yesterday morning, I run across a house having a yard sale. The family asks if they can meet my pup, and while they do, I take a sec to have a look-see. Guess what I find…

Now I have something to dress up in VMFA-333 colors! (I also pick up Revell’s 1/48 F-15E. Each for a buck!)

Since my Hase Phantoms are in between subassemblies, I start on the Revellogram –J.

And that’s where I stop.

So, what? That makes three Phantoms now? *gulp* Wish me luck!

Again, thanks for looking. Feel free to comment. Stay tuned for part three!

Cheers!

-O

[JackMan]

Nice Work! I really like what you did with the Sundowner pilots

[Paulo Jose Simas]

Nice work ...

Keep it up

[slick95]

Excellent work!!

SLICK

[HOLMES]

I think the Pilots look AMAZING....great work on them....

Keep up the good work... :)

[oortiz10]

OK gang, I took advantage of a few free evenings I’ve had this past week and got some modeling done. Not much, but some.

Since all three cockpits are pretty much done, I started to glue fuse halves together. I began with the -111 jet. It was the one that was missing the cockpit structure. It was an easy fix once I decided that I wanted to use one single piece, versus two halves like the original molding. (Thanks for all the suggestions!) First I glued a small piece of 90-degree styrene to each fuse half. This gave me little shelves to rest my replacement “part†on. Then I cut two scrap rectangles matching the kit’s parts profile and glued ‘em together, then onto the shelves. The mounting hole for the canopy’s actuator was added too. Even though I’m building this jet with the covers closed, I’m still gonna add the actuators for visual purposes.

Before:

After:

It was mentioned to me that I should paint the pilots “bare hands†because pilots never flew without gloves. I gave it some thought but decided not to because I liked how the bare hands broke up the monochromatic (green) look of the pilot’s uniform. Who besides the hardest of the hard-cores is going to know anyway? Maybe he took ‘em off because his hands got sweaty…

The Sundowner jet is the only one of the three that won’t have the intakes capped off with FOD covers, so since I couldn’t use the resin intakes that were supplied with the kit and my budget doesn’t allow me to buy replacements, I decided to fudge it. No IPMS judge is ever gonna peer down the intakes with a pen-light, so I didn’t bother with replicating the trunking.

Instead, I thought I’d try a little forced-perspective modeling (Thanks Janne!). I painted a black spot on the back wall of the intake area then feathered it outward until it faded into the surrounding white. Hacking up a donated fan face (Thanks Ken!), I glued it over the spot.

I haven’t glued the intake sides onto the -111 jet yet, because I wanted to try something a little different. The intakes are glued onto my -84 jet, but since the -111 intakes won’t have covers, I needed to mask for paint first. I figured it’d be easier if I did that before gluing the intakes to the fuse. I dry-fitted the assembly to the fuse to make sure I could do it and still get away with minor/no seams. It looked good, so I proceeded. I did some minor assembly of the intake interior and exterior, and finally laid some tape. Now that the intakes are taped, all I gotta do is glue them on, plug the intakes with some foam or tissue, then spray some paint.

Then I turned my attention to the Revellogram –J. The pit was installed and the fuse halves joined. One thing I noticed was an ugly gap at the back of the cockpit area. It seems that Revellogram intended the rear deck of the cockpit assembly to fill this void, leaving two small gaps at the edges for the tabs on the canopy to fit in to. Well, it didn’t work that way for me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my parts to line up the way they were supposed to.

I knew leaving that huge hole was going to be a little obvious, so I came up with an idea on how to fill it.

First, I took a little Milliput and pushed it into the void. While it was still really soft, I took my canopy and pressed its tabs into the putty.

I removed the canopy to allow the Milliput to dry, but once it did, I reinstalled the canopy to begin shaping.

Using a bit of tape to hold the canopy in place and protect it, I began to sand the Milliput to match the contour of the spine and canopy.

After a couple of minutes of careful sanding…SUCCESS!

Just a little silver paint to check my work…

Now all I gotta do is replace all the raised detail I lost during the process. Luckily, that won’t be as difficult as it sounds.

I have another free night to model tonight. Hopefully I’ll have another update soon.

Thanks for looking and don’t forget to comment!

Cheers,

-O

[xavi84]

looking good so far, keep up the good work O

[Aigore]

Heh, neat idea with the milliput! :unsure:

Looks awesome...like the extra touch with the rising sun on their helmets !

Having a real phantom production line going there!

Cheers!

[jester292]

I hope you enjoy your builds! I know the hasegawa F-4s are nice, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by what a sharp build the Monogram kit is. I always enjoy both kits. Good luck with the rest!

Aaron

[oortiz10]

I hope you enjoy your builds! I know the hasegawa F-4s are nice, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by what a sharp build the Monogram kit is. I always enjoy both kits. Good luck with the rest!

Aaron

Thanks for the encouragement Aaron! So far, these three have been fun...even if I haven't gotten a whole lot done. And with that...how about an update?

Work continues on the Phantoms, albeit much slower than that first gang-busters week. I got a few small details done. Stuff that I wanted to knock out before the major subassemblies got stuck together.

Since one of the Hase jets is going to be built as a –B, I needed to remove some extra plastic from the fin. Out came the Dremel and away went the bumps!

I removed the forward and rear fairings from the tail and luckily only lost one minor panel line.

-B on the left & the –N on the right:

In hindsight, I also jumped the gun a little with my Revellogram –J. I was a little to anxious to try Archers resin raised detail, so I went ahead and started replacing the raised detail I sanded off during construction. (More on that a little later.) I say I jumped the gun because I also decided to try my hand at replicating the light on the front of the fin. (Thanks for the inspiration Jan!) It involved some rough handling and I learned that the Archer detail can be a little fragile.

Anyway, I started on the light by taping off the area that was going to be removed.

Then, using my Dremel…

I roughed out a notch.

Some small files cleaned up the space.

Then, I glued a piece of clear sprue into the hole. A little gap filling CA helped blend everything in.

Lastly, I sanded it flush, polished it up and brushed another coat of Future. Here’s a back-lit shot showing how it looks on one of the Hase Phantoms.

Now, I just have paint ‘em up…

In one of the previous posts, the one where I show how I filled the gap behind the GIB’s canopy, you can see how much detail I lost during the shaping and sanding of the Milliput. Even with protection from some masking tape, I lost a little bit of detail. Also, the seam along the jet’s spine needed some cleaning up, so I lost some detail there too. Including the small round panels. Those were easy enough to replace. I just rescribed some circles on the spine. To replace the panel lines and the rivets, I used Archer’s products. I’ve never used ‘em before, and I gotta say, they’re awesome!

I tried using Solvaset to get the lines and rivets to snuggle down, but I found that an undercoat of Future, with the details laid on top while the Future’s still wet, worked best. I brushed on another coat of Future over the top, just to help seal them in and protect them. The over-coat really helps strengthen the bond. Before I had brushed on the second coat, I found that the details were easily damaged and/or knocked off. (Took me a couple of reapplications to learn that.)

Practically all the lines and rivets beneath the silver paint were replaced.

In this pic, you can see the lines and rivets both painted and unpainted. Again, about 75% of the detail beneath the paint has been replaced with Archer’s details.

If I were to do it again (when I do it again), I’d leave off replacing the raised detail until just before the paint goes on. You know, to protect it from my fumbling thumbs.

Anyway, that’s all I got for this update. Hopefully the next one will be a little more exciting! Feel free to let me know what you think.

Thanks for looking!

-O

[oortiz10]

Progress, not matter how small is, still progress, right? Well, if that’s the case, I’ve made some.

I had some furlough time away from school a couple of weeks ago but as luck would have it, I didn’t get much done on my builds. Then, three weeks ago I went in for an emergency appendectomy. I was off from work and school from the 2nd to the 17th, but even with all that free time on my hands, little progress was made. Turned out it was too uncomfortable to sit upright for long periods of time. All the time I wanted but no desire to sit at the bench…

Anyway, since my last post, I’ve gotten the fuse halves and wings assembled on all three jets. When I mated up the fuse, I didn’t glue the seam that ran under the wing assembly. I remember hearing from different builders that I may have needed to spread the fuse halves a bit to get a tight seal at the wing root. As a matter of fact, I had to do just that with all three builds.

Here’s what the Hasegawa wing root looked like:

Instead of using a sprue “spreader bar†like some builders have done, I decided to use a small piece of scrap as a wedge…

As I pushed the “wedge†forward, it spread the fuse halves enough to give me a nice tight seal at the wing roots.

I used the same procedure for all three jets.

The Revellogram Phantom had its share of fit problems beyond the wing root. One of its issues was a huge gap just forward of the nose wheel bay, where the wing assembly joins the fuse.

I used some scrap card to fill the gap. Once it was trimmed and sanded, it looked fine.

Another gap I ran into was on the right intake. In order to avoid a step where intake mates to the fuse and wing assembly, I had to fill a void where the splitter plate joins the fuse.

I sanded it flush with the contour of the intake, and once covered with paint it’s hardly visible. What you may notice is that I left the splitter assemblies off the kits until after paint. That way I can get paint coverage in the area back behind the splitters.

After I learned that Revellogram’s stabilators had the strengthening plates molded on, I had to sand ‘em off since the real jet didn’t have ‘em. A nasty side effect was the elimination of all the raised panel lines.

As a fix, I drew all the lines back on with a pencil…

Then used Archer’s details to restore what was erased.

I’m sure that if I knew what I was doing with Archer’s panel lines, I could make it look like the kit’s original detail. We’ll see how it looks under paint.

(cont.)

[oortiz10]

The wings and fuses were finally assembled on all three jets. Then, I pulled a Homer.

While working on the builds, one of the Hase jets, the one that will be a –B model, got snagged on the sleeve of my sweatshirt and took flight from my bench. Since I couldn’t make any sudden movements (stupid surgical staples), all I could do was watch the jet fall to the floor. At first I didn’t notice any damage, but then I saw that the tail had a big chunk chipped out of it.

Since it was the –B version, I didn’t have to worry about replacing the oval ECM pod. So, figuring that I could do without the conical fairing along the top of the tail, I carved out a nice 90 degree corner along the top of the rudder line…

And faired in a piece of styrene with CA and green putty. (Under paint it doesn’t look too bad. Not perfect, but not bad.)

I tackled one last detail before the jets got their primer coats. On the Hase Phantoms, I trimmed off the canopies locating tabs, and filled in their corresponding slots with some stock.

This helped everything line up a little bit better.

Finally, the major assemblies got some paint. All three were primed and painted with MM enamels. Here they are just after the primer went on. The left and middle jets are the Hase –B and –N respectively, and the right’s the Revellogram –J.

Unfortunately, I ran into a small problem after the masks came off. On the Hase jets, some of the white from the control surfaces got peeled off. On the –B, it was on the rudder…

Left side:

Right side:

And on the –N, it was from the wings…

The strange thing is all three jets were primed and painted the same way. The Revellogram jet didn’t lose any paint, and the two Hase jets lost paint in different areas. Huh. Go figger.

I was hoping to make some progress on the Phantoms this weekend, but it looks like I’ll be taking a small step back. Oh well, no biggie. I have spring break next week and the wife’s heading out of town to visit some friends, which means I’ll get some good bench time in the evenings after work. (I hope.)

Anyway, that’s it for now.

Hopefully next week I can get a little more done and some more progress posted.

Be sure to drop your two cents in the bucket on your way out!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,

-O

[oortiz10]

Howdy fellow modelers,

I was on Spring Break last week and was able to get some work done on my Phantoms. Some good progress, might I add.

First, I was able to repair the damage to the paint, although while masking to paint the exhaust area, I had a small dot lift off one of the Hase jets. It’s not too bad, well, it’s not as bad as my last paint issue. I was able sand and feather the larger damage, and the resulting touch-ups aren't even noticeable. This recent smaller flake I'm just gonna use a brush and spot repair.

Since I got the flaking paint issue (pretty much) resolved, and the exhaust areas done, I was able to start on the decals. I’m using CAM decals 48-003 for the VF-84 & -111 jets, and CAM decals 48-026 for the VFMA-232 build.

So far they’ve reacted really well to MicroSol & Set, and have snuggled down with no problems. The only real problem I’ve had is with the shark’s mouth on the Sundowner nose. I had some minor wrinkling. I was able to carefully sand down the creases with a 3600 grit sanding pad. I figure once the weathering and top coats go one, you won’t even notice it.

One thing I’ve noticed with the CAM sheets is the fonts seem to be a little off. Checking the relative sizes of the some of the markings against pictures of the real jets illustrate a few differences.

Another thing I noticed about the fonts is the style CAM used on the VF-84 lettering.

Here you can see the differences in the fonts between the CAM decals and the old Superscale sheet.

I’m not sure which is correct because it’s hard to make out the font style in the pictures I’ve seen. To my untrained eye it looks like Superscale got it right.

For the VMFA-232 jet, I cut the squadron code from the Bicentennial tail markings included in the CAM offering. The jet I’m building didn’t have the stripes on the tail, the squadron badge, or the “76†emblem.

Instead, I used the squadron info and the stencils.

Anyway, that’s it for now. As the decaling goes on, I continue to work on all the fiddly bits that remain. I’m pretty excited to see some color on the builds. It’s given me that spark of inspiration I needed. It won’t be too long before I can post some pix in the Dispay Case or Critique Corner!

Thanks for looking! If you’ve got something to say, I’d be happy to hear it.

Cheers,

-O

[phantom]

Coming along nice!

[Cunumdrum61]

Looking good, three F-4's at once ! I have trouble getting motivated building one!

[HOLMES]

SPECTACULAR work here.....

Just a wonderful delight and treat to have not one but THREE PHANTABULOUS PHENOMENAL PHANTOMS being built....

[twhite80]

Wow! I am really impressed with how you were able to recreate the raised panel lines and rivets. Brilliant!

[Aggressor Supporter]

Those Phantoms are looking sharp with those high viz markings. Keep up the good work.

[oortiz10]

OK ARCers,

Not much has gotten done lately. I'm still trying to get through all the stencils on these jets. After the stencils I'm going to start the final assembly. Working toward that end, I've been able to piece together the ordnance that's going on these birds. Here's a shot of the bunch. Keep in mind that they still need some more weathering and flat coat.

The VF-84 jet's gonna have two Sidewinders on the outboard rails of the inboard pylons, two Sparrows in the aft wells, and its belly tank. The Sparrows are from Academy's F-14A kit.

The VF-111 jet will have its three fuel tanks with empty inboard pylons and Sidewinder rails.

And the VMFA-232 jet's gonna have a full load and wing tanks. It's gonna look like this. (I hope...)

The MER was taken from a Revellogram F-105, separated from its pylon, and rigged to a Hasegawa pylon. The Mk 82s are from Hase's weapons set, and the Zuni's and rocket pods were generously donated from Hase kits.

I added a little "singe" to all except one of the rocket pods. Let me know what you guys think. (I was going for something that looked like this.)

Anyway, the semester's winding down so things are pretty hectic. Lots of assignments to finish and exams to study for. If I can find time to work on 'em between assignments and exams, I'll post some more progress. Otherwise, the build will have to wait until after finals.

Thanks for lookin’. Be sure to leave your two cents in the bucket on the way out.

Thanks!

-O