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


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Nice detail and love out the burners and all the titanim :punk:

Folding the wings could look nice not much people do that

Cheers

Neo

That would be a little tough at this stage Neo. These resin wingtips are already glued to the wings with edited panel line and rivet detail....

Outboardwing29.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thanks guys for the encouragement- and your patience!

Sorry I haven't had any updates lately, but in our short Canadian summers, you have to take advantage of them when you can. Vacations, golf, and other stuff get in the way of modeling. Our winters, however, seem to last forever, which is when the real modeling happens- at least with me. I recently got back to this project with the front fuselage gun area almost completed, so I hope you'll like what you see when I'm done. I am VERY happy with the results so far, so maybe you guys will be too.

Thanks for your continued interest in this build- and I'll post an update soon.

Edited by chuck540z3
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Chuk,

just like Pierre, Your work is EXCELLENT and very finely tuned in with detail work... :worship::worship:

You Sir, are the number ONE cheerleader of all our efforts. On behalf of all of us, Thank You Holmes! We really appreciate it.

Edited by chuck540z3
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Some of those extra panels were added to the sheet because the cutting edge seamless intakes are missing some panels. The panels on the intakes are popped on and are slightly raised. Now in scale they are a little thick but it is better than the tamiya raise plates and better than not being there at all. The raised panels are applied on my F-4J.....Super Phantom!!!!

pis105.jpg

Pic from ARC walkaround

f4g_6.jpg

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Thanks again Guys for the encouragement, but I'm really have a tough time getting near this model due to all sorts of other stuff you don't want to hear about. Slowly, I will post an update on the aforementioned front gun area, which is taking longer than expected due to time constraints and a lot of extra work I'm putting into details.

Some of those extra panels were added to the sheet because the cutting edge seamless intakes are missing some panels. The panels on the intakes are popped on and are slightly raised. Now in scale they are a little thick but it is better than the tamiya raise plates and better than not being there at all. The raised panels are applied on my F-4J.....Super Phantom!!!!

As discussed a few times earlier in this thread, those raised panels aren't always raised. They become raised with sealant, which is variable in thickness and application and therefore vary from aircraft to aircraft. The Nautilus sheet mentions nothing of Cutting Edge intakes (which are now long gone) and there's a bunch of other panels for the rest of the fuselage supplied as well. I see no reason to sand off the kit panels and then stick one of these panels back on. Like, why? :huh:

Nice F-4J. I made one myself a few years ago....

F4J-10.jpg

F4J-15.jpg

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The actual sheet was done by the owner of Na. for a few of us a while back. One guy needed the strap for an F-4s. I and some other guys were doing some f-4s using the (then new) cutting edge seamless intakes, which were missing the panels. He added the raised plates to fill up the sheet as there was space left over. He only put this on his site as we suggested many guys would want the strap. Other wise the sheet would not even be available. O the wing tip and tail jig was also born during this local contest LOL. Your phantom is very sharp indeed!

Rob Colvin

Edited by Rob Colvin
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The actual sheet was done by the owner of Na. for a few of us a while back. One guy needed the strap for an F-4s. I and some other guys were doing some f-4s using the (then new) cutting edge seamless intakes, which were missing the panels. He added the raised plates to fill up the sheet as there was space left over. He only put this on his site as we suggested many guys would want the strap. Other wise the sheet would not even be available. O the wing tip and tail jig was also born during this local contest LOL. Your phantom is very sharp indeed!

Rob Colvin

Thanks for the info, so please let me ask you a question about the wooden wingtip jig. I cannot, for the life of me, make that sucker fit my F-4 models. If the wingtips are square the tail part doesn't fit at all (and vice versa). I finally just tore the fuselage part off and I only use the wing part jig, which is all I really need anyway. Have you had this problem?

Thanks

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I have not used mine in a while. I remember cutting the horizontal stabs in half, glued the afterburner coming in had the main wing glued on with out the wing tips. I applied the parts wing tips and tails to the kit as it sat in the jig. I will see if I can find it. I have moved since my last use. If it turns up I will post a pic.

Rob

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Finally a bit of modeling and an update. Before I show what I’ve done, I’d really like to thank Scott Wilson again for his feedback both here in this thread and offline where he has tried to keep me on the straight and narrow of F-4E accuracy.

Since the most unique part of the F-4E that sets it off from other Phantoms is the gun in the nose, I thought I should open things up here and provide some detail of this weapon and access door. The Tamiya F-4E and F-4EJ kits have a nicely detailed gun due to the clear nose option where you can see it within, so you have a great start with the kit parts.

When looking at pics of parked F-4E’s, you notice that the rear gun access door is almost always opened up, hanging at various angles just in front of the front gear. According to Jake’s book, this is done to not only access the gun for servicing, but as a safety feature so that you know when the gun is live or not. Jake’s book has many pics of this open door and the gun itself, most of which were taken by none other than Scott Wilson. If you look back at Post # 239 earlier in this thread, you’ll find many of these same pics posted by Scott like the one below….

gunbaydoorinterior1.jpg

The kit does not have this door as a separate part, so you need to cut it off the front gun fairing. Here’s a pic with the cut almost complete…..

Gun1.jpg

After you get the part cut in half, you need to cut off the hinge of the door and reattach it to the bottom of the fuselage (more on that later). One of the Eduard photo-etch kits I’m using has a few parts for the gun and the vents. The problem with the vents is that they are shallow and they don’t look like the curved vanes of the real deal. Meanwhile, the kit part is too thick for scale.....

Gun2.jpg

A better option, I think, is to carefully cut out the vents of the kit parts, retaining some of the thickness of the vanes. To do this, I thinned the plastic behind the vent to get it closer to scale, then carefully cut out the individual vent openings with my #11 knife. Here’s how it looks on the gun door, just before I cut out the other vent…..

Gun3.jpg

Looking at Scott’s pictures like the one above, you notice that there are 4 cross braces, reinforcement plates with large raised rivets, a large pin-like protrusion at the top of the door, 2 large hooks to secure the door with a central pivot rod that is spring loaded and even a “bug screen†to keep critters from climbing in the vents. Here’s my attempt to replicate same from various angles, using soda can aluminum, copper wire, Evergreen card and a small piece of my metal coffee filter (please don't tell my wife! :o )...

Gun4.jpg

Gun5.jpg

Gun6.jpg

Now for the gun itself. The Eduard kit has a nicely detailed cannon belt, but it’s too small and there are no shells. The kit part has the shells, but there’s no detail, so I kit bashed the two, cutting off each individual brass shell link, modifying it slightly, then gluing it to the plastic kit part to roughly replicate what the real deal looks like. Here’s how it looks almost half way through…..

Gun8.jpg

Meanwhile, since the business end of the gun is visible in the front gun faring, I drilled out the barrels to give them a bit more relief….

Gun7.jpg

Assembled and painted, the M61 Vulcan gun looks fairly impressive. Too bad you will only be able to see the rear bottom and the front of the gun when it’s placed within the front fuselage.

Gun15.jpg

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A close up that shows the shell belt better. You can also see the back side of the hose on the other side, which I wrapped with thin copper pipe to replicate the flexible hose it is. Once installed, you can’t see it from this angle….

Gun16.jpg

But you can from the bottom, which should be orange. There’s also a gizmo solenoid-like thing on the bottom that should be painted bright yellow….

Gun17.jpg

The front of the barrels have some slotted gas vents, so I scribed some where they will show. They are really tough to see in this pic……

Gun18.jpg

Before I plug the gun into the front nose, it needs some work as well. The top area just in front of the windscreen has a lot of rivets, but the kit parts have almost none. Here’s how things look right after gluing the two front halves together. Boring! That windscreen vent should not be in a panel depression either. BTW, those small dots in the pic tell me that it's time to clean my camera sensor again....

Gun9.jpg

Here’s how it should look, more or less, after smoothing things out with CA glue and doing some panel and rivet work. I also cut out the windscreen vent….

Gun10.jpg

Another angle from the port side. That tiny gun vent at the side will have to do. There’s no way I can cut little vents in that without making a mess. I also filled the gap in the main intake join, which was too large, with CA glue and then I re-scribed the panel line with something more subtle…..

Gun11.jpg

An important gun detail that is missing from this kit, is the “Gun Scavenge Door” or “Gun Gas Purge Door”, which is always open when the jet is at rest or when the gun is fired, according to my excellent sources (that would be Scott again! :P ). There’s a little panel scribed there, but no door, so I made one out of Evergreen card. It sort of looks like a gun hood scoop and it should be painted red inside…..

Gun12.jpg

Gun13.jpg

Gun14.jpg

Thanks for your continued interest in this build, even though it seems to be taking FOREVER! After October 1st, I should be able to pick up the pace a bit.

Edited by chuck540z3
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Nice detail on the gun Chuck.

BTW, the Discovery Channel aired a program a few weeks ago about breaking down German F-4's for parts. I was thinking of your build and the descriptions you and Scott Wilson have provided, as I watched the program. They really added to me having a better understanding of the aircraft as the parts were being disassembled and removed. :thumbsup:

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Hi Chuck,

good to see you back at this but bad news I'm afraid. You are no longer permitted to take any kind of vacation during a build. Instead, you must work tirelessly to bring us more of these excellent updates! :P

That gun looks beautiful and really deserves to be mounted on a stand next to the model, airshow style. :worship:

Lovely work on the gun door too. These little details bring so much life to a model.

Great update, thanks for taking the time to feed the hunger. ;)

:cheers:

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Wow! Chuck, you are totally up for modeling! No respite, no delay, just keep on going! :thumbsup:

Good luck with your new "baby". Although I'm not a Phantom fan but I will follow your thread with keen interest that you could accomplish this time. :)

Cheers and happy modeling!

Alexander

:o

Just what do you mean "not a Phantom fan"?

Edited by RRTRENT
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Great work as always Chuck. For the gun, the yellow object is a lubricator that pumps in oil to the gun. In the pics in post #239 you'll see the tube that runs into the gun. The plunger is at the other end of the lubricator. Don't forget the firing lead as well, it's the wire with a plug between the lubricator and feed chute in the pics.

Jari

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Chuck,great updates! Nice work all round. Good of you to cut out the vents on the gun door, looks so much better than brass or just giving it a dark wash. The gun looks great, nice paint-job as well! Glad you didn't miss adding the gun gas purge vent, but of course you wouldn't.

:thumbsup:

Marcel

PS Thx for the Flanker comments. My family has now finally caught up with me and the weather is really nice, so there will probably not be any updates from my side for a couple of weeks...

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Looking really good. Chuck, you never cease to amaze me, I'm glad I can contribute to this awesome build in whatever ways I can. For those who are interested, the gun bay door is pretty much always open when the jet is on the ground because before anyone does maintenance on the aircraft all the safety devices have to be installed. That includes the gun safety pin and another safety device called the "gun holdback tool." Each maintainer is supposed to verify for himself that all the safety devices are installed before starting to work on the bird. Leaving the bay door opened up made it easy to see that the gun safeties were installed. Normally the gun bay door was just left hanging by it's hinges, but for loading ammo or for other reasons the door could be swung further open and locked against the right side air conditioning intake.

During normal training sorties the pin and holdback tool were left installed for the flight to make sure the gun didn't accidentally discharge and hurt someone. When one of the aircrew did his walk-around inspection, he'd tuck the Remove Before Flight streamers inside the gun pod and close the door. If they were planning to use the gun at the range or for air-to-air target practice, the crewmember would close the door with the streamers hanging out a little bit. That was to tell the end of runway inspection crew to arm the gun. The only time the safeties were removed prior to the jet taxiing to the end of the runway was when the jet was put up on alert status.

Scott Wilson

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