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


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Thanks for the kind words Guys!

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

Thanks Jari for the tip. Hopefully I did what you suggested, although I'm not too sure about the "firing lead". Let me know.

As good as the kit gun looks all painted up, it now has to be stuck inside the fuselage nose, hiding about half of the detail. Oh well, at least I know it's all in there somewhere.....

Here's the first step before adding the lower gun faring. Note the hinge from the rear door was cut off and re-attached to the fuselage in the bottom right of the opening......

Gun20.jpg

Now with the faring glued in, the gun door attached with tape and maybe some of the plumbing Jari has suggested? Note that the gun faring was thinned just like the rear door to match the scale of the real deal....

Gun25.jpg

A variety of other views. Based upon pics, it would appear that grease and nitrates make the interior of the door very dirty. This I can do!....

Gun21.jpg

Gun22.jpg

That yellow lubricator even got a square decal this time around. Looks like I still need to do some clean-up of those vents.......

Gun23.jpg

I'll add that "bug screen" over the vents later after I paint the lower half.....

Gun24.jpg

Make sure you paint not only the gun compartment white, but the sides that go on either side of the front gear at the top of this pic....

Gun26.jpg

Here's where you can see the front of the gun barrels I drilled out and the slotted vents I scribed into them. Well, sort of. This front gun faring will be left off until the end to make painting easier.....

Gun27.jpg

Say goodbye to all the detail at the top and sides of the shell drum......

Gun28.jpg

I also adjusted that gun purge vent at the top of the fuselage as per some suggestions from Scott. More on that later- and thanks for your continued interest and support!

Edited by chuck540z3
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The firing lead, it's the wire on the left that goes to the plug, the direction of rotation arrow even points to the plug.

Jari

It looks like I got the wire installed sort of OK, but now I need to add the "plug" and a few other tiny details.

Thanks Jari!

great work mate!why dont you leave out the faring so you can see the barrels? might be a bit late now?

Too late! Besides, I think it would look a bit unrealistic, even though it does happen once in awhile. At least with the vents cut out you can still see the barrels within the faring.

Edited by chuck540z3
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INSANE !!!!!!!!!

now if i can make my 1/32 F-16 gun look 1/10000th as good as yours it would be a great progress of my skills :woot.gif:

Love your work

Now your going to have to sit this guy on a mirror so the judges can drool over the details

Keep it up

Cheers

Neo

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Awesome build Chuck, talk about detail!

Can't believe I missed this thread, I must be loosing it, here's a link to a "walkaround" of my Martin Baker Mk.H-7A. It's out of F-4E, the same F-4E the receptacle featured earlier in the thread came out of ;) The seat is pretty much complete, less rocket motors of course, and in a post-vietnam USAF configuration (latest mods up through the mid 90's). The colors are original as well harness with proper USAF hardware... Take a look see, I know it's late in the game but maybe still helpful. Again sorry I didn't make this available earlier. Maybe I should submit this as a formal walkaround as well.

Ahui hou :cheers:

Mark

www.flickr.com/photos/33559895@N03/sets/72157625343659527/

Cut & paste the link with a good old http:// up front. I tried posting the complete link but that started a slide show. I don't want to eat up too much bandwidth, and not sure if it's legal to post slide shows here :D

I hope it works, let me know if it doesn't for some reason.

Edited by Buck
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Thanks for all the encouragement Guys! I really appreciate it.

Awesome build Chuck, talk about detail!

Can't believe I missed this thread, I must be loosing it, here's a link to a "walkaround" of my Martin Baker Mk.H-7A. It's out of F-4E, the same F-4E the receptacle featured earlier in the thread came out of ;) The seat is pretty much complete, less rocket motors of course, and in a post-vietnam USAF configuration (latest mods up through the mid 90's). The colors are original as well harness with proper USAF hardware... Take a look see, I know it's late in the game but maybe still helpful. Again sorry I didn't make this available earlier. Maybe I should submit this as a formal walkaround as well.

Ahui hou :cheers:

Mark

www.flickr.com/photos/33559895@N03/sets/72157625343659527/

Cut & paste the link with a good old http:// up front. I tried posting the complete link but that started a slide show. I don't want to eat up too much bandwidth, and not sure if it's legal to post slide shows here :D

I hope it works, let me know if it doesn't for some reason.

Awesome seat and pics Mark. I wish I had those pics a few months ago when I did my seats, but I always tweak stuff at the very end anyway, especially stuff in the cockpit. It would appear that my seatbelts may be the wrong color, but then again, your seat looks very new and you never know how some of the colors may have changed through the years.

Here's what they look like today. Not too bad, but I don't like how those pull handles at the top of the seats turned out, so they are going to be changed along with some of the details provided in your pics.

Thanks and Mahalo!

Seats7.jpg

Seats9.jpg

Edited by chuck540z3
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Chuck those seats look pretty sweet to me, and I wouldn't worry too much about the strap/harness color. Those parts were replaced on a frequent basis (when in service) and the colors I've seen vary quite a bit. In fact in our birds (non-ejection seat a/c), the seat harness can be blue-green, blue-gray, brown-violet, OD, or weathered-white (buff?). Sometimes the shoulder harness is one color, the lap belt another... No method to the madness ;) The only thing I'd like to point out, to give you a good steer, are the inertial reel straps, they should be attached to the chute raisers. That's how the chute raisers also work as the shoulder harness on most seats :D A quick & easy fix if you haven't already got it covered.

_MAS1482

Again an awesome build, I'm really looking forward to seeing the completed model!!! :worship:

Ahui hou :cheers:

Mark

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Hi Chuck,

Great progress on this apparently to be stunner. ;) I think you have all the credentials to be a contest winner especially after being through that latest contest experience. I hope now you're all armed to face a new contest being well prepared. ;)

Cheers and happy modeling!

Alexander

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Hi Chuck,

Great progress on this apparently to be stunner. ;) I think you have all the credentials to be a contest winner especially after being through that latest contest experience. I hope now you're all armed to face a new contest being well prepared. ;)

Cheers and happy modeling!

Alexander

Thanks Alexander for the kind words. I'd like to say that I'm building this model, "just for me and I don't care about contests", but that would be a lie. I did learn a lot about modeling contests and what judges are looking for in my first competition, so I now model with that stuff in mind, just in case I enter the model in another contest. The key, I think, is to have no deductions for anything and then let the model win or lose on it's own merit. As I found out last time, lot's of resin work doesn't trump easy deductions for the judges to see like poor wheel alignment.

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:gr_eek2: Need my fix....need my fix....need my fix....need my fix......

RYAN.

Me too! Unfortunately, this build has come to almost a grinding halt due to a hundred other things at home and work getting in the way. For the next 4 weeks, I likely won't get much done at all, but after the beginning of October, I plan on getting this bird in top form. I've got some front windscreen work up next, so maybe I'll get a chance to post something before then.

Incredible work on this build, you have out done yourself.

And I like you CF-18 image, the wheels look great.

Hi Gary. Thanks for the compliment. I took the pic of the CF-18B after I fixed the wheel alignment in another build thread and I now use it to remind myself to never cut corners, just in case I ever enter the build in a modeling contest. Who knows, I may drag the now repaired Hornet and maybe this F-4E up to Edmonton to your contest next June for your perusal. I'm not sure just how good the F-4E will eventually turn out, but I can guarantee you one thing, the wheels will be straight! :P

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Beautiful build Chuck!

The blogs here on ARC really are inspirational. I don't often get to look at them much as I'm usually on the Jet and General Boards, but I'm definitely going to follow these in progress boards much much more.

The cockpit is looking very impressive, and hats off to that gun! The internal details your adding are just brilliant.

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Truly impressive work, Chuck. I've been watching this thread since the beginning, but have only now decided to finally register. This is shaping up to be one impressive Phantom!!

Question, now. You reference "Jake's book" fairly regularly. I feel like something is obvious, but I don't know what that means. I assume it is a book you're using for reference. Do you have a picture of it? Or maybe a link so I can check it out? I'm just now getting back into modeling and am after some good reference books.

Thanks Chuck!!

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Truly impressive work, Chuck. I've been watching this thread since the beginning, but have only now decided to finally register. This is shaping up to be one impressive Phantom!!

Question, now. You reference "Jake's book" fairly regularly. I feel like something is obvious, but I don't know what that means. I assume it is a book you're using for reference. Do you have a picture of it? Or maybe a link so I can check it out? I'm just now getting back into modeling and am after some good reference books.

Thanks Chuck!!

Thanks,

Jake Melampy's book, "The Modern Phantom Guide", is found here:

http://www.reidairpublishing.com/products/RAP06.html

These valuable guides are often sold out, so grab a copy while you can.

Chuck

Edited by chuck540z3
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  • 3 weeks later...

Finally! Some modeling! Not a lot, mind you, but some good solid progress nonetheless.

The nose to fuselage fit is actually fairly bad, so you need to do a lot of tweaking and sanding to get things looking right. Before I go there, however, I have to show you the huge gap along the sides and especially the front of the glareshield. You can't see all these gaps once the windscreen is in place, but you can still see enough that remedial work is required.....

Glareshield1.jpg

To fix this gap, I used an old trick that I used with the Tamiya F-16 kit, which has a big gap at the front as well- White glue. By sticking some styrene card in the gap at the front, you can ooze in some white glue to act as a sort of putty. By using a moist Q-tip, everything is quite smooth before it has a chance to dry- and shrink.....

Glareshield2.jpg

Shrinkage in this case is desirable, because all we want is to remove the open gap and then paint the dried glue flat black like the glareshield itself.....

Glareshield3.jpg

Add a little dry-brushing and the heads-up display, and voila! That camera on the top of the shield that I scratch-built earlier is on all F-4E's to record gun action and the dusty look of the shield doesn't really look that way in person. Sometimes the camera lies....

Glareshield4.jpg

I'm pretty proud of what I've done to the heads-up display glass to give it that thick greenish tint without just coloring it with green-tinted Future, which isn't very accurate. All I did was to paint the thin edges with acrylic clear green and the fiber-optic nature of the plastic does the rest....

Glareshield7.jpg

While I was at it, I also added those vent tubes that look like a cut-off hockey sticks on each side of the windscreen. I need to add more detail like the canopy ejection handles, but I'll do that later when I really detail the windscreen itself with all sorts of stuff....

Glareshield8.jpg

Here's how everything looks with the windscreen dry-fitted....

Glareshield9.jpg

As mentioned earlier, the front doesn't fit so well, but with some work it looks pretty good right now. I initially wasn't going to put rivets on that central panel, but upon further research I've found that they do exist but they aren't removed very often, which is why they don't show up in many photographs. I'll add them later, but note that the seam line between the front and back fuselage does not go all the way to the top, so I filled it in with CA glue....

Glareshield5.jpg

Same on the other side....

Glareshield6.jpg

This Phantom is really coming together now!...

Glareshield10.jpg

Edited by chuck540z3
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Not to forget the bottom, here's how the gun bay looks attached to the fuselage. Those little wings that go back on either side of the front gear well are tricky to get fitting right...

Gun31.jpg

Another shot to show the front of the gun without its cover, which I'll add later....

Gun30.jpg

Now for something totally unrelated, but kind of cool to me. When I finish a model it sits in a sort of "Place of Honor" until the next model takes its place. Since these big 1/32 birds take me so long to build, this usually lasts for about a year. At a model show recently I bought the CF-18 print in the back, which is rather gaudy and unrealistic, but parked behind my last CF-18B model it looks pretty cool to me. Note the glass shelving I have up top all around the ceiling of my Man-Cave for finished models...

Showcase2.jpg

A closer look.....

Showcase1.jpg

Thanks for indulging me, since only modelers "get" this stuff. My wife sure doesn't! :P

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Looking really good. By the way, a minor extemely pedantic comment... F-4Es of that era didn't have a Heads Up Display. HUDs show speed altitude, Gs, heading, horizon and other assorted info. On the F-4E is was called an LCOSS (pronounced ell-koss), Lead Computing Optical Sight System. It displayed a gunsight reticle, target range info, break-X when you were too close to the target and not much else. You couldn't use it to fly the jet on instruments without looking into the cockpit like you can with the teen fighters. The recent updates by the Greeks and Turks may have a HUD system, it's too early in the morning to dig out my references to check.

Keep up the good work, as always I am in awe of your skills.

Scott W.

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