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


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In the meantime, I have other things to play with other than painting. Here's a sneak peak at one of the new additions, which is a SUU-21 bomb dispenser made for the F-104 Starfighter, but with a few modifications, it will be perfect for this particular F-4E in 1980.

SUU-21-1.jpg

Thanks again guys for all the support!

Looking AWESOME, if you don't mind my using that overused word! I've got tape flags on my knives too now, thanks to whoever made the suggestion. Chuck, when you cut the rear off the SUU-21, remember the shorter bomb bay on the pod goes to the front.

Scott W.

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i had the same thing happen to be but the knife rolled off the table and went straight down and landed in to the top of my foot about 1/4 inch that hurt

Thanks again Guys! I don't want to be a Drama Queen, but something happened last night that I think only you modelers would understand so I thought I'd share, even if it's not build related and a little gory. :P

Tonight my wife went out with her friends for dinner. PERFECT!, I think, so I can model all night long without so much as a whimper that I'm ignoring her! :yahoo: So anyway, once she has left I attack those red stripes behind the slatted wings as indicated earlier. For this step I'm using red paint and not decals for 2 reasons:

1) I need to paint a whitish band forward of the red line for the inboard slats anyway

2) There is no red stripe decal option for the outboard slats (decal suppliers dropped the ball on this one) and with the slat actuators in the way for most of it, decaling would be almost impossible without making a big mess.

The solution is to use very thin, fine and STRAIGHT masking tape to mark the edges of this red stripe, so I used some special tape I had for just this purpose, which I cut into thin strips with my #11 knife and masked off what I thought would be the right position and thickness for this feature. After painting, I proceeded to remove the masking tape while the paint was still a bit wet to avoid a dried mess later. You never know what's up underneath masking tape until you pull it off.

To do this I used the tip of this same knife to carefully slip under the tape at the ends and pull it off without scratching the paint. Now I'm not sure exactly what happened, but during this procedure I heard something roll off my desk/workbench towards my lap, so like a thousand times like I’ve done before, I very quickly closed my legs to catch the object before it hit the floor. BIG MISTAKE!!! The object, as it tuned out, was that very same #11 knife which I caught squarely between my legs at 90 degrees, jamming the entire pointy (VERY POINTY!!) end into my right thigh. THIS, I immediately thought, is not good!

After the shock of what I had done had passed (~ 20 seconds), my jeans became very red as the blood started to gush out of the new hole I had formed with my stupidity. I held it tight and got to the bathroom where I was able to access the damage. Apparently I didn’t hit a main artery or I would have called an ambulance, so with some pressure and one of those “Breathe Right†nose strips cut into a sort of “butterfly stitchâ€Â, I was able to stop the bleeding. Good thing my wife wasn't around or we would have gone straight to the hospital, which in Canada means 8 hours of waiting for a doctor to even look at it. Man I feel dumb and today I have a baseball sized bruise around a tiny cut and a very sore leg.

Moral of the story? If you hear a knife rolling down to the ground, get out of the way and let it fall! I must admit I’ve caught this same rolling knife in my lap a few other times in the past, but the tip was always pointed forward and no harm was done. Based upon the general location of where the knife fell, things could have been a LOT worse, hey Guys?!!

Anyway, not all was lost last night, because the red stripes turned out terrific after a lot of work masking and re-painting touch-ups. When I get the rest of the slatted wings painted, I'll post an update. Until then, here’s a sneak peak of the red stripes behind some other red stuff. :o

Yikes1.jpg

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There are a few errors with the pod, but easily fixable:

1. the aft bomb doors should go further back (like the fwd doors, nearer to the cone)

2. the 3 dots just above the doors should be higher and lined up with the dots higher up

3. the scribed in rectangles are actually supposed to be instructional decals - in other cases the instructions were painted on

4. not applicable in this case but the tail cone actually has two section

Jari

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There are a few errors with the pod, but easily fixable:

1. the aft bomb doors should go further back (like the fwd doors, nearer to the cone)

2. the 3 dots just above the doors should be higher and lined up with the dots higher up

3. the scribed in rectangles are actually supposed to be instructional decals - in other cases the instructions were painted on

4. not applicable in this case but the tail cone actually has two section

Jari

Jari, do you have any good photos or drawings of the SUU-21? My best photo is that one I posted earlier in this thread of the 512th F-4E with the BDU-38 on the centerline and an SUU-21 in the background. I'd love to see better photos if you have them.

Scott W.

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Jari, do you have any good photos or drawings of the SUU-21? My best photo is that one I posted earlier in this thread of the 512th F-4E with the BDU-38 on the centerline and an SUU-21 in the background. I'd love to see better photos if you have them.

Scott W.

PM sent.

Jari

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There are a few errors with the pod, but easily fixable:

1. the aft bomb doors should go further back (like the fwd doors, nearer to the cone)

2. the 3 dots just above the doors should be higher and lined up with the dots higher up

3. the scribed in rectangles are actually supposed to be instructional decals - in other cases the instructions were painted on

4. not applicable in this case but the tail cone actually has two sections

Jari

Thanks Jari, I was afraid of that, but better to find out now than later! Got any detailed pics or instructions Buddy?

Thanks again to everyone else for the words of encouragement. I'm a real sucker for praise. :P

Since my air brush took a bath in the washing machine and was damaged, about the only thing I can spray with it right now is wide broadcast strokes. Well, since I'm pretty much good to go anyway, how about a nice shiny coat of Future/Pledge to prep this bird for decals? If you thought the paint job was too bright before, watch out!....

Future1.jpg

Future2.jpg

Future3.jpg

Future4.jpg

Future5.jpg

Now how the heck did that get in here!? :whistle: Sorry Guys, I just LOVE that Hornet!- which is about 4 feet away from my desk for inspiration.....

Whatthe.jpg

Edited by chuck540z3
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http://s1185.photobucket.com/albums/z341/wardog10/?action=view&current=DSCN9235.jpg



Chuck,great work on your F-4. Just recently became a member of this site and have really enjoyed reading about your project. Nothing better than a well illustrated and documented work-in-progress build. In reading through the build portion of the slatted wings, i couldn't help but be reminded of similar struggles i faced when building my 48th scale slatted wing F-4S. Although i used the Paragon set on my F-4, the parts look virtually the same as the set you used except for the scale. Pulled out plenty of hair on that build. I noticed you had some concerns over displaying your a/c with the slats deployed (much like i did) and wanted to give u props for going with the "deployed slats" look. Although it may not be correct, they do look great deployed. I did the same thing and love the way it looks. Way too much to see there to keep it all hidden. I attached a link to my F-4 that i completed back in 2003. I hope i attached the link properly as I'm pretty lame with computers and i didn't want to just plaster a full blown pic of my jet on your thread. I'll apologize in advance if i goofed it up. cant wait to see this phantom ready. Good luck.
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http://s1185.photobucket.com/albums/z341/wardog10/?action=view&current=DSCN9235.jpg

Chuck,great work on your F-4. Just recently became a member of this site and have really enjoyed reading about your project. Nothing better than a well illustrated and documented work-in-progress build. In reading through the build portion of the slatted wings, i couldn't help but be reminded of similar struggles i faced when building my 48th scale slatted wing F-4S. Although i used the Paragon set on my F-4, the parts look virtually the same as the set you used except for the scale. Pulled out plenty of hair on that build. I noticed you had some concerns over displaying your a/c with the slats deployed (much like i did) and wanted to give u props for going with the "deployed slats" look. Although it may not be correct, they do look great deployed. I did the same thing and love the way it looks. Way too much to see there to keep it all hidden. I attached a link to my F-4 that i completed back in 2003. I hope i attached the link properly as I'm pretty lame with computers and i didn't want to just plaster a full blown pic of my jet on your thread. I'll apologize in advance if i goofed it up. cant wait to see this phantom ready. Good luck.

Thank you Sir- and your F-4S rocks! Very nice indeed. Although I can't see it in your pic, one thing I found interesting about Navy F-4S's is that the wing fence is quite a bit longer than the Air Force one. I wonder why?

Keeping the inner slats in their deployed position wasn't really that hard of a decision, once I found a few of them left that way on American F-4E's while parked- although this appears to be very rare from photographs. The German F-4E's seem to leave them that way all the time while parked and the really intricate details of the inner slat actuator hinges would be a shame to hide. This also allows me to show off the red and white stripes as well as camo paint scheme under the slats.

Chuck, thanks for the truly inspiring update! The slate actuators look real... almost a pity to glue the slats over those. Walkways look good also.

Marcel

Thanks Buddy!- and ditto the above on the slats. I learned how to do those walkways from an expert (you)!

With my airbrush in need of repair, I've turned my attention to the wing tanks and inner pylons, from which I'll be hanging a SUU-21 bomb dispenser on each side as indicated above in Post # 621. As Jari (Finn) indicated in Post # 628, they need a lot of work to make them look more accurate (they are really screwed up) and I've been scribing panel lines and rivets on the pylons which are missing and I've made some nifty little sway braces- all of which I'll show later when I'm done. At the back of these pylons are flare and chaff dispensers, which have just square holes at the back and no detail at all. Searching for some information on these dispensers, I found a great link in this forum from 5 years ago that have some excellent photographs of these items, including a fairly rare shot of the back posted by Dave Williams:

http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=136611

Now some questions for the experts:

1) Would these dispensers have been used during TAM 80 (Tactical Air Meet- 1980)?

2) If so, should they look exactly like the pic in the link above? (ie: a square grid vs. a circular/tubed one)

3) What is the color of the flares vs. chaff within each dispenser?

4) What would the color of each dispenser be on the outside?

Of course I could just ask Scott, Jake or Jari offline, but then you guys wouldn't learn anything while I do, which is a big part of what this thread is all about! :thumbsup:

Edited by chuck540z3
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Now some questions for the experts:

1) Would these dispensers have been used during TAM 80 (Tactical Air Meet- 1980)?

2) If so, should they look exactly like the pic in the link above? (ie: a square grid vs. a circular/tubed one)

3) What is the color of the flares vs. chaff within each dispenser?

4) What would the color of each dispenser be on the outside?

Of course I could just ask Scott, Jake or Jari offline, but then you guys wouldn't learn anything while I do, which is a big part of what this thread is all about! :thumbsup:

The chaff and flare dispensers were the ALE-40 system. The chaff dispensers were on the inboard side of the pylon, the flares outboard. Loaded chaff cubes were silvery gray, the flares were red or red-orange. The ALE-40s were always painted white or 36622 light gray until much later than 1980. For sure they were on the TAM-80 jets, see this photo:

http://www.airliners.net/photo/USA---Air/McDonnell-Douglas-F-4E/0195348/L/&sid=e02858cba92748b8873b51f377ad740d

Here's some photos I took of ALE-40s on an F-4E at Red Flag:

ALE-40chaffMarch1982NellisAFBScottRWilson.jpg

ALE-40FlaredispenserMarch1982NellisAFBScottRWilson.jpg

A page from a tech order telling more about the ALE-40:

ALE-40.jpg

DoD photo of chaff and flares on an A-10, the flares are smaller than the ALE-40 flares the F-4 carried but the color is the same:

DF-ST-98-06211.jpg

Rear view of ALE-40s on an F-4F:

ALE-40s.jpg

Edited by Scott R Wilson
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Chaff/flare pics are on page 147 of the Modern Phantom Guide, chuck, and are how yours should look for a 1980 jet. Flares are red, chaff is white. The thread you linked to shows the F-4G at the USAF Museum with empty buckets.

Jake

edit: I didn't notice Scott already answered this a few minutes before me. Sorry for the duplicate post!

Edited by jmel
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Thanks Scott and Jake, that information is terrific!

Jake, sorry I didn't see those great pics earlier when I searched your book last night. I guess that's why my wife says that I have "Man Eyes" when I can't find anything when it's right in front of my nose.

Edited by chuck540z3
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Yesterday marks the one year anniversary of the commencement of this WIP thread! Although that seems like a long time and I know that many of you complete several models during a year, my tardiness has everything to do with a preference for more and more detailed modeling as I grow in this hobby that I started only 4 1/2 years ago. I've also found that what was "good enough" a year ago doesn't quite cut it today, so I've had to go over certain aspects of this model and re-do a few things behind the scenes, which adds more time.

I also like to try new techniques, many of which I've learned from many of you, and like to try a few new things that pop into my head along the way. Some ideas work really well, while others crash and burn, but I learn a lot in the process of trying. I think a few of the things I tried below are in the "worked fairly well" column, but I'll let you guys be the judge.

Here's a pic of the exact bird I'm trying to replicate, which is 68-0393 during a Tactical Air Meet in 1980.

http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=816548

It has everything I want for this build, like a SEA paint scheme, slatted wings and a shark mouth, which is a fairly rare combination after the Vietnam war ended. That big "D" on the tail is not very attractive, but this huge letter was placed there to distinguish this particular F-4E from others who participated in bombing and other exercises. There are pics of other F-4E's that look almost identical with "A, B and C" on their tails as well. Since the AirDoc decals are for this bird, that's the one I'm going to do.

When I first saw these pics I wondered what the heck those inner "tanks" were hanging down from the wings, since they sort of look like the outside gas tanks and not big bombs. With queries to both Scott and Jari (Finn), it turns out that they are actually "SUU-21 Practice Bomb Dispensers", which hold a number of small bombs within. The only source for one of these dispensers in 1/32 scale is from a resin distributor in Belgium, which is actually a "MN-1A" bomb dispenser made for an F-104. Although it is called a different name, the main parts of the dispenser are identical to the SUU-21, so I ordered 2 of them.....

SUU-21-1.jpg

Jari, who used to work on CF-104's and CF-18's, immediately noticed a few errors on this dispenser when I posted the pic earlier. He has been so kind to provide me- and now you- with a detailed schematic of just what this sucker should look like, complete with dimensions as follows....

SUU-21Details.gif

Not only are there details for the regular SUU-21, but he has some details for the "Blunt Tail", which is the one I need, and for the MN-1A version as well. Thanks Jari!

Checking out the new resin parts to the above schematic reveals a number of issues, which Jari pointed out earlier and I found a few of my own. The most notable issues are:

  • All small rectangular panels are actually labels, so they should be removed and replaced with decals
  • Rear bomb door opening on the bottom should be moved back to more or less mirror the front door opening
  • "3 Dot" rivet patterns on the bottom should be moved up and line up directly under the rivet patterns at the top
  • At the top of the dispenser, the rear mounting pin should be moved forward and there should be a large panel scribed here. There are other details at the top missing, but since you won't be able to see them when mounted, they probably aren't worth doing

I also found that the dispenser was only 120 mm long, when it should be 124 mm long according to the dimensions above, so I cut off the rear cone a bit longer to compensate, otherwise it was a bit too short at the back under the pylon. Here's my attempt to get close to Jari's diagram, with the unaltered dispenser below (other than cut-off rear cone). I filled the incorrect panel lines and rivets with CA glue, then made some corrected ones. For the mounting pins, I use steel rod for strength and by leaving the position of the front pin alone and moving the rear one forward, it now matches the holes of the pylon it attaches to in the correct position....

InnerPylon11.jpg

About the only way to make it look better would be to fill all of the panel lines and rivets and start from scratch, but I don't think it would be worth it, especially since it's a fairly rare item that others are unlikely to recognize as flawed.

As shown earlier, I totally re-did the panel lines and rivets for the inner pylons as per the F-4 Crew Chief handbook here on page 46:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31294674/f-Rf-4c-d-e-Crew-Chief-s-Handbook

The bottom pylon was my first attempt at getting all the panels and rivets as correct as possible, but I simplified the central busy area on the second attempt at the top, because you'll never notice the difference and to tell you the truth, the real rivet pattern looks too messy and chaotic anyway. You can see that I also added some Eduard photo-etch detail to the bottom of the pylon (which you're unlikely to see) and some sway braces made from 0.02" rod and the end circular parts from the Eduard set that I doubled up to give them some thickness. Those sway braces should be painted in a steel color, but I'll do that when I finish painting the pylons. This is just a quick coat of paint to check for errors. As I found out later when applying the chaff and flare dispensers, most of that rivet detail at the rear of the pylon will be buried anyway....

InnerPylon2.jpg

The square cut-outs on the bottom were filled with CA glue then drilled out to accommodate the pins on the SUU-21 dispenser....

InnerPylon3.jpg

For the chaff and flare dispensers, I chose to go with a "good enough" approach, because I don't know of a supplier for these items in 1/32 scale and there's no way I could scratch build something credible on my own. Checking out my stash of detail bits, I came across some decent looking chaff and flare dispensers from the Tamiya F-16CJ kit, which gives you extras depending on the configuration you chose. This set has rectangular flare chutes in a 5 X 3 pattern like those the F-4, but the chaff dispensers are in a 6 X 5 pattern rather than the required 8 X 4 pattern. Oh well, most people won't recognize this error and it's sure a LOT better than just leaving the kit parts empty. Rather than having a recess like the kit parts, the dispensers are flush to the top, so I filled in the recess with thick CA glue and laid the trimmed dispensers on top, filling in the sides with more CA glue to get a more flush look to the cavity on the sides. Here's how the new flare dispenser looks next to the unmodified one below. Not too bad.....

InnerPylon4.jpg

And the chaff dispenser. Not as good as the flare dispenser obviously, but buried underneath on the inside of the pylon, I doubt anybody will notice that it's "incorrect". One thing of note is that there is a big gap at the rear of the dispenser to pylon join on both sides that shouldn't be there, so I made a shim out of styrene that you can barely see at the bottom to fill this gap when it is glued on ......

InnerPylon5.jpg

I'm going to leave these dispensers off the pylon until I paint them properly, then glue them in place. Here's a pic of everything put together, other than the main mounting braces at the top of the pylon. Those sway brace feet are friction fitted into the holes, so that I can push them down flush onto the bomb dispenser without gluing them.....

InnerPylon12.jpg

From the side. You can see another reason why the rear cone had to be shortened, other than to avoid interfering with the retraction of the landing gear.....

InnerPylon9.jpg

With the missile rails attached, however, you can't see much of this sway brace detail, but I still know it's there!

InnerPylon10.jpg

This work took me quite a while to just get one side done, but now that I know what I'm doing and have a plan, the other pylon should go much quicker. I also have a nice surprise coming in the next few weeks that I think you'll like, so stay tuned!

Thanks again for your continued interest in this build.

Edited by chuck540z3
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Looks really good, as always you do some amazing work. Glad your leg is healing okay by the way.

The ALE-40s came with the Tamiya kit? Your chaff and flares look plenty good enough in my opinion, especially considering the magnification of your photos. I sometimes have to stop and remind myself just how small in real life some of the stuff you've done is, and I'm amazed all over again...

The Revell 1/32 F-4E and RF-4C come with ALE-40s without the chaff and flare canisters, which is how we flew our jets 99.9 percent of the time. Chaff and flares on the ALE-40s counted as live ordnance and were very rarely carried back in the day for safety reasons. Because of this restriction we'd occasionally see one of the aircrew members step to the jet with a big plastic bag full of chaff. He'd put handfuls of chaff inside the speedbrakes which were immediately closed after engine start. One pilot or WSO told me that by cracking the speedbrakes open just a little then closing them immediately they could sometimes get three or four bursts of chaff. The chaff was very, very thin strips of what looked like aluminum about 1/16th inch or less wide and an inch or so long. I remember one aircrewman showing me that the metal was so thin that you could rub it between your fingers and it'd rub away to nothing. At my current place of employment they sometimes put 24 karat gold leaf on the fire trucks in stripes and other designs, and it's that thin as well. As you rub the gold leaf between your fingertips it just rubs away to nothing, just leaves a gold tinted stain on your fingertips.

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Thanks Jake and Scott for the kind words.

Scott pointed out something that has been both a bonus and a pain with this and other WIP threads I've done, which is that the fairly extreme close-ups of some of my photography reveals every little error and flaw. I can't count the number of times I took a shot to post here, only to find out that I had a major boo-boo that only jumped out when I viewed the close-up pic, so it was "back to the drawing board" to get it right. That doesn't mean that my work always comes out perfect in the end as a result. Far from it!- as you can see in the above and other pics, but even with my magnifying glasses on and viewed from 6 inches away, I can't see a lot of the flaws revealed with the camera macro lens. The chaff/flare dispensers and the rivet detail on the pylons are a good examples. I can't see any flaws with the naked eye, but there are several of them in the above pics. Sometimes it's worth fixing them, sometimes it's not. I'm calling these items "good enough", especially since they'll come out looking a lot better when properly painted and weathered.

Although they are a lot of work, that's what makes these WIP threads worthwhile for me, notwithstanding some whining I've done in the past. They force me to make the model better since it's now under the microscope for fellow experienced modelers to see and judge- like you guys!

Edited by chuck540z3
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Every time looking forward for your next posting...it's just pure fun watching your progress! Thanks for sharing!!!

That Crew Chief Handbook is awesome!

Sorry for hijacking your WIP Chuck for a question, but maybe you can help...Is there something close to that handbook for the Tomcat? I would like to add some rivets and panel lines to my next build but I'm not sure if the drawings in all the books available are correct. Daco, Squadron...they all differ and comparing them with photos they look very simplified.

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Sorry for hijacking your WIP Chuck for a question, but maybe you can help...Is there something close to that handbook for the Tomcat? I would like to add some rivets and panel lines to my next build but I'm not sure if the drawings in all the books available are correct. Daco, Squadron...they all differ and comparing them with photos they look very simplified.

No problem at all. Although I'm sure there is the equivalent handbook out there for the F-14, the main source I used for detailing my last Tomcat was the excellent walk-around pics of "Christine" in Prime Portal. Most of the rivet and panel line detail found here is about all you'll ever need:

http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/bill_spidle_f-14d/f-14d_159600_christine_parts/

For F-14 weapons and pylons, this site is good, but you won't find rivet detail:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14313_ch15.pdf

Maybe others know or some better ones?

Cheers,

Chuck

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Hi Chuck, I've really been enjoying your updates on this Phantom, looks fantastic! I while back I saw your post about how you lightly put down a first coat for an F-14B and then did some salt weathering and dark washes. I've been considering doing an low-viz F-14 as my next project and I was curious about how you did that type of weathering, what type of washes, etc. Did you used different shading of the gray? or were you able to get that effect solely from the washes?

Thanks

Dan

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