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1/32 Tamiya F-4E post-Vietnam- Kicked up a notch.


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Thanks Scott. I'm glad I asked because I was tempted. As for the later F-4 pics, I like the overall camo-scheme of the first jet, but those shark mouths are a little too intense. I think my best overall option right now is something close to the pic you showed earlier of 69-7551 in 1982. It has the SEA paint scheme, good looking shark mouth like the Two Bobs decals, formation lights, slatted wings and I won't have to worry about removing any reinforcement plates because they likely were on that bird by then. If I can get decals for the appropriate squadron code on the tail (whatever that is), I could be laughing. With all the myriad of F-4 differences and subtle details, however, there's no way I'll get it perfect anyway.

Thanks again for the kind words everyone.

Afterburner Decals did outstanding decals for F-4Es from the 3rd TFW, Clark AB, Phillipines and 51 TFW, Osan AB, Korea, both units having similar sharkmouths to the shot of 7551 I posted. But unfortunately they only did them in 1/48th scale. Maybe if you beg enough they'd do one or the other in 1/32nd. I personally think there would be a market, but Scott Brown of Afterburner seems to think 1/32 scale decals just don't sell well enough to justify the investment. Still, never hurts to ask (beg, cry, whine...)

Scott W.

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Chuck, wow, I am absolutely loving following this build! I'm learning more than I thought was ever to learn about the Phantom... itching to start mine.

We'll call them "Marcel Walkways"

:thumbsup: thx for the kind mention!!

It's nice to see my name out there in these dry times of modelling from my side.

Marcel

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Chuck, wow, I am absolutely loving following this build! I'm learning more than I thought was ever to learn about the Phantom... itching to start mine.

:salute: thx for the kind mention!!

It's nice to see my name out there in these dry times of modelling from my side.

Marcel

Hey Buddy, thanks more for the tip! We all benefit from your "experiment that went right". <_< Mine usually bomb! :o

Two things special about this relatively new thread is having Jake's book on hand for reference and Scott's excellent input. How can we modeling goofs go wrong!?

Meanwhile, I just bought a Revell F-4E "Mig Killer" on ebay today for $39.99. Hopefully, it has the required parts. :unsure:

Edited by chuck540z3
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I like this very much! :jaw-dropping:

As with your Hornet, I had no idea there was so much extra that can be done to enhance a kit that is considered to be pretty good from the start. Thanks for all the hints and tips so far!

And congratulations on the magazine, I have no doubt you will produce some very informative articles considering your contributions to this site. :)

Cheers,

Anders

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WOW, Chuck this is just simply superb. I hope that with the Kinetic Prowler I will start building soon I can get it as accurate as you are with your Phantom. Can't wait to see more! Thanks man!

Jeremy

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Chuck,

Dude your walkways are off the chart.. :rofl: I might do that on my other phantom build but I just got the CAM Slats and the Paragon slats to do me an F-4S in 32 scale. Grant it I haven't build a Tamiya Phantom in almost 15 years I would say. You build has given me some insight again on these Tamiya birds. Keep up the Excellent work buddy I really enjoyed your Legecy Hornet you just finish which I have on on deck too. As you say "Go 1/32 or go home!" I will have to agree with you totally.

Stanton

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Thanks a LOT guys for the encouragement!

I haven't done much modeling lately while I attend to other things mentioned earlier and I await the arrival of the Aires pit and the Revell F-4E kit I recently bought for parts. I did, however, receive some much anticipated burner cans I recently ordered, which is the purpose of this update.

First, the fine print: I do not personally know the person mentioned below, I did not receive any favors from said person and I will not receive any favors for any future sales of his products. I submit this information for everyone's benefit, his and yours, so don't shoot the messenger! :woot.gif:

Everyone familiar with the Tamiya 1/32 F-4 kit knows that the burner cans are too small and lack detail. The alternatives, however, also have problems, as summarized below:

- Tamiya kit. Too small, no detail

- Revell kit. Correct size, no detail

- Aires resin. Too small, detail rocks!

- Cutting Edge resin (If you can find them). Too small, detail much better. I have found a few who thought the size was fine, so this may be casting run specific.

- CAM resin (If you can find them). Correct size and very good detail

and

- Joe's resin. Correct size and very good detail

Never heard of "Joe's resin"? Well either did I until I bought a couple of sets of burner cans off a guy on ebay called "fox3tornado". This is Joe Lortie, an ex F-4 pilot and modeler who made these resin sets for his own Phantom builds, then started selling them on ebay a few years ago. I had read a few good reviews about his kits, so I bought 2 sets of them, one for the shorter J79-GE-15 engines and another for this build, the J79-GE-17 engines. Also, and you'll just have to trust me on this one, these are NOT CAM knock-offs!

Reviewing a bit of what I've shown so far, here's a pic of the Aires vs. kit nozzles...

Engine4.jpg

Even the Aires nozzles are bigger than the kit ones, but I know from experience that they're still a bit too small in diameter at the base. The Aires kit has a very nice fan and front screen, however, and a seamless flame tube (is that the correct term?), but it lacks that honeycomb rough detail to the sides like the pic below of the real deal...

Engine9.jpg

Here's a pic of Joe's nozzle compared to the Aires one on the right. Aires wins for detail, but Joe's are pretty close. Details on the super-white resin are hard to photograph, like the tiny rivets which are there.

Burner1.jpg

Joe's flame tube. NOW we're talkin'! Look at that side detail. The Aires tube has smooth corrugations.

Burner3.jpg

The new nozzle compared to the kit part....

Burner4.jpg

And compared with the Aires nozzle at the base where it counts. I added a bit of wash at the front of the petals to bring out some of the detail, but I think I just made it look dirty....

Burner2.jpg

Here's the shorter version, the J79-GE-15 can. I jacked up the contrast to better reveal some of the detail...

Burner6.jpg

Here's what you get with each set, including a multi-blade fan. Again the pic doesn't show just how many fan blades are present, which is a lot...

Burner7.jpg

If you want a set of these nozzles, contact Joe at:

fox4wwforever@gmail.com

Price is about $22 insured or $15 non-insured, DELIVERED to your door! I'd pay that just for the flame tube!

I just ordered another couple of sets for the stash.

Edited by chuck540z3
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Beautiful work as usual, Chuck! Great info on the Joe's resin burners, too. I've seen them on Ebay often but never knew anything about them. I will have to pick up a set or two.

For what it's worth: I used the CAM set on an F-4E that I built a few years back. Nice detail, but they were full of air bubbles.

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As more parts arrive, I'm still in research mode with no real modeling, which is OK because I'm very busy at work these days anyway.

The first "part" is really a book, recommended by "Hammerhead" in post #90 which I bought from Amazon.com. THANK YOU KAI! This book is awesome!

Book1.jpg

In it there are at least 10 pictures of 69-7551 in several slightly different paint jobs, including one that has the paint well within the intakes! (Page 55)- so my painting so far is "accurate" for at least one time period for this jet. The reason for so many pics of this particular F-4 is because this was the jet the author flew in and they match the decals (Don Logan is on the rear cockpit as WSO). There's also LOTS of other pics of F-4E's in all sorts of load-outs during the Vietnam war, so I really have no choice but to keep this bird true to that era and forget about the slatted wings. I'll save that for another future build, maybe an F-4S or F-4G.

I also ordered the Avionix pit for the F-4E, which I already knew had a seat problem, because they are really Navy versions of the Martin Baker Mk-7. The solution is to get every seat I could find. Those pics on the left are all of 69-7551 in Don's book....

Book2.jpg

The resin cockpit has 37 tiny parts and the fuselage needs a lot of careful cutting and trimming, so this will take a LONG while!....

Pit1.jpg

Now a head to head seat comparison. For those who may have followed my other builds, you'll know that I tend to overbuy stuff and this time is no exception. I have 5 seats to compare as indicated below....

Seats1.jpg

The kit seat on the far right didn't have a chance, so I didn't bother building it. The next one to it's left is a mystery seat I had in my stash (Verlinden maybe?), the finely detailed Quickboost/Aires seat is next, a TAC Scale that looks pretty good is next, followed by the Avionix seat that we already know is wrong. The mystery seat looks just weird, so it leaves me with the TAC and Quickboost seats as the finalists for this build. Here's the back to back comparison of these seats from every angle....

Seats2.jpg

Seats3.jpg

Seats4.jpg

As finely detailed as the TAC seat looks, many of the parts look like they were just "made up" and most are not to scale. Just look at those large discs on the back of the seat and the parts on the sides of the seat. The Quickboost seat looks terrific, but it lacks some details like the ejection handle on the lower front for some reason. Fortunately, the Eduard photo-etch kit has this part, so I think I'll go with the Quickboost. BTW, I didn't know these were made by Aires. Why the different name I wonder?

Now I need to wash the resin, trim it, glue some of the pieces together, paint it, cut the fuselage and get everything fitting together nicely. See you in a month!

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As i said it will be a master piece mate

the more research you do the more reference we get!!!

cannot wait to see how you will convert the wings as i ma probably goin gto do the same in my Tamiya F-4E, later...........after seen you the MASTER!

:)

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the mistery seat is the verlinden seat, i have a set and its the same colour resin

It must be a later Verlinden seat then. I bought the RF-4C detail set from Verlinden when I did my Revell 1/32 RF-4C. The Verlinden set came with a nicely done recce radar, canopy and cockpit sill photo etch, and two fairly poor seats. The seat lumbar support cushion was a separate piece, and there were no seatbelt or harness straps molded in at all, except for the fine little straps at the sides of the parachute pack. It's been awhile but I think the parachute pack was also a separate piece. The parachute pack is slightly too wide left-to-right and too narrow front to back. It's still better than the kit seats so I used them. My budget was too tight to buy anything else.

If anyone else is interested in Don Logan's books, if you find his website and buy directly from him he'll autograph the book for you. He once e-mailed me the story of his being shot down and becoming a POW in Vietnam, I wish I still had it in e-mail, but I printed it out and deleted the e-mail, otherwise I'd post the story here for you.

I did notice Don mentioned the red star painted "on the splitter" in one of the photo captions so maybe it was just us maintenance guys who never used that term. As I said way above, use whatever terminology (splitter or vari-ramp) you prefer and we'll both know what we're talking about.

Scott W.

Edited by Scott R Wilson
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After a break I'm back on this magnificent thread!

About the seat comparison: I'm no expert so I canno tell which are the details that are not accurate or out of scale or made out of pure fantasy. But I'd like to throw in my 2 cents. I think that once the aircraft is finished and parked on its shelf, the one thing that stands out the most from a cockpit is the bang seat. I guess most of you will agree on that. But not all the seat is actually visible. What you will see 99% ot the time is the top of the seat and the seat belts. That said I think that I do agree that the best looking in the group are the TAC and the QB seats, but I find the TAC belts much more 3-dimensional and appealing. The QB seat belts are a little flat/boring (now I'm being picky I know!). So here's my conlcusion: would it be possible to modify the TAC seat or are the belts also exagerated or not properly done?

/Kristian

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As finely detailed as the TAC seat looks, many of the parts look like they were just "made up" and most are not to scale. Just look at those large discs on the back of the seat and the parts on the sides of the seat. The Quickboost seat looks terrific, but it lacks some details like the ejection handle on the lower front for some reason. Fortunately, the Eduard photo-etch kit has this part, so I think I'll go with the Quickboost. BTW, I didn't know these were made by Aires. Why the different name I wonder?

Now I need to wash the resin, trim it, glue some of the pieces together, paint it, cut the fuselage and get everything fitting together nicely. See you in a month!

Chuck,

Quickboost is Aires' "economy line". QB seats are the same as Aires seats except QB seats have cast on belts while Aires belts are supplied as PE. On a single seater jet, I would use QB because they're cheaper and I don't have to bother with PE belts. On a two seater like the Phantom, I prefer Aires because the PE belts give you some control to make them look different, while QB seats' cast-on belts make them look like carbon copy of each other.

Question for you: how do you plan on painting the spiral yellow-black pattern on the seats' pull rings?

Cheers,

Terry

Edited by loftycomfort
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Question for you: how do you plan on painting the spiral yellow-black pattern on the seats' pull rings?

Terry

All these questions are ruining all my future surprises! :monkeydance: To help answer some of them, here's a pic of the Verlinden seats in my last F-4J build a few years ago. Not bad, but I can do a LOT better this time around....

Seats1.jpg

and the seats parked into the cockpit..

F4J-6.jpg

Although I didn't do a bad job of the pull rings using a thin Sharpie felt pen on yellow painted rings, the real deal is usually much darker and almost orange/black. I'm going to try another "Marcel Trick" and twist black and orange thread together, pull it into a small ring, then CA glue it to the ring mount at the top of the seat.

For the QB seat I'm going to use a combination of the seat belts cast on the seat and replace some of them with Eduard ones found on the above pic, which I think really look good and add a lot of realism. I think between the excellent casting of the seat and the Eduard parts, these seats could be the foundation of my best seats ever.

Edited by chuck540z3
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As finely detailed as the TAC seat looks, many of the parts look like they were just "made up" and most are not to scale. Just look at those large discs on the back of the seat and the parts on the sides of the seat. The Quickboost seat looks terrific, but it lacks some details like the ejection handle on the lower front for some reason. Fortunately, the Eduard photo-etch kit has this part, so I think I'll go with the Quickboost. BTW, I didn't know these were made by Aires. Why the different name I wonder?

Thx for posting the seat coparisons... very telling indeed, it's quite amazing how different they are.

On the pull handles, don't try to stick the handles to the seat right away... first dab some superglue on the intertwined threads to form one thread. Once dry, you can proceed with the sticking. This will all be pretty fiddly but...

Cheers,

Marcel

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Chuck isn't a mere mortal, he is a modeling God.

Whoa! geedubelyer (Guy) and chuk might qualify as a "modeling Gods", but I am merely one of their disciples!

One thing I really like in a WIP thread is one that shows HOW a modeler did this or that. Consecutive shots of progress are interesting enough and I'm not trying to knock that style, but I have a lot more interest in seeing how others attack modeling challenges and problems. For those who've seen my previous WIP threads, I get into a few dark alleys along the way and I show how I fought my way out. I will try to do that in this build as well.

The Avionix/Black Box cockpit is like an old friend and enemy. I love the detail but I hate trying to get the sucker into the fuselage cleanly. I have, however, learned a few tricks along the way through much pain and suffering, so you may want to try some of the same methods. For resin cockpits, there are a few rules that seem to be common to all of them:

1) The instructions suck. You're lucky to get a legible diagram, much less step by step instructions.

2) With the side panels installed, they are always way too wide for the fuselage. You need to trim a lot of stuff on the kit parts and the pit resin to get a good clean fit.

3) Dry fitting and trimming is done at least a hundred times to accomplish this.

4) A Dremel tool is your friend. It is not used for everything, but for large cuts and grinding, it's a must.

5) Take lots of time. If you're going to do things right, you can't rush.

6) Paint as many of the tiny pieces off the cockpit tub as possible. The concave shape of the tub makes painting a challenge and paint shadows are common if you don't.

7) The pain and suffering is worth it when finished! :wub:

Before you even think of assembling anything, you need to cut the fuselage as per the crappy instructions. I happen to have a spare fuselage from an other kit to show you what needs trimming....

Pit2.jpg

Pit1-1.jpg

After trimming.....

Pit3.jpg

According to the instructions, you just glue the side panels on the sides of the tub after painting, sort of like this. Don't do it!

Pit5.jpg

There is NO WAY they will ever fit that way, so I cut off all the resin that overlaps the tub and I make it fit inside instead.....

Pit6.jpg

Now things will fit properly, with lots more dry fitting and trimming. The fit here doesn't look as good as it will be when finished, because nothing is glued yet, especially the side panels. I'll show you how I get everything together at the same time (2 tubs and 4 side panels) in a future post.

Pit4.jpg

Next step is to review the resin parts for accuracy in Jake's book. This will likely result in some parts being deleted and others added. We'll see- and thanks for your continued support!

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