Hasegawa F-4S misadventure

[Kurt H.]

A little over a year ago,  the ZM F-4S was soon to be released. At that point, I found several Hasegawa F-4S kits on ebay, and figured it would be fun to build one.  I won an auction and the kit came, I took a quick look in the box, and left positive feed back and forgot about the kit while I had some other priorities.  A few months later I got the idea to throw lots of AM at the kit, as something of a dress rehearsal for my ultimate RF-4C project. I have the Eduard Big Ed set, Rhino intakes,  Aires burner cans, and master pitot tubes.

I looked into the kit and realized it was missing the photo etch fret with the belly strap, and worse, the clear sprue was missing. Damn!  I contacted the seller to see if he still had it by chance, but he could not help me, and apologized.  Pretty much all recourse was gone so, there was nothing else to do.  Steel beach offers the belly strap, so I bought one, but still needed clear. I Called Hobbico and gave them the part number for the current issue F-4J to get the clear parts. many weeks later I got a box in the mail, and a note inside which said they did not charge me for the parts, and thanks for being a hobbico customer. But, in the box was a pair of F-18 stabilators.  .  I have a raised panel line F-4J I figured I would never build, so I made it a paint mule, and stole the clear parts. I figured I Was all set.

 

Fast forward to today, I ordered the last the last thing I needed,  a set of F-4S wheels, I decided to examine the kit more closely after doing research about the F-4S, and .... It has the hard wing.  The seller was selling several phantom kits so maybe some of the parts got mixed up.   I am not sure what to do now. I do have a late E and a G but I hope to build both of those someday.  I could build this one as a J but I wanted to build a late grungy grey S.  I understand there was a window where some were modified into S but did not get the slatted wing until later.  

 

To get the slatted wing, the Late E, and the G are easy to find. Do any of the Japanese variants have the slatted wing ? Any other suggestions for this predicament?

 

Thanks for letting me vent a little. Remember to check used kits carefully. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Kurt H.

[Model-Junkie]

If the instruction manual still has the parts order form I can place you with a contact in Japan who can order the replacement parts direct from Hasegawa on your behalf.

[Ben Brown]

I feel your pain about the used kit! My current Hasegawa Phantom FG.1 build was missing the radome, decals, but included two sets of instructions, neither of which was for a Phantom kit, and an entire wing sprue from an F-4B! That's just part of the fun of buying second- or third-hand kits. Stuff gets lost or swapped. 

 

If you don't want to use that hard wing to build it as a J, you could build it as an early S. They upgraded about 40-ish(?) Js to S configuration before the slat kits became available. The only problem might be finding decals for one those specific jets. Another option would be to pick up Steel Beach's F-4S conversion for the Monogram kit and adapt it to your kit.

 

Note that even if you do get the Hasegawa slatted wings, you'll still have to modify the slats a little, because they represent the Air Force version. It isn't too hard to do with a little styrene strip and Milliput. I did it a couple of years ago.

 

Ben

 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Ben Brown

[Darren Roberts]

I'm going to be making new molds for the slats for the Hasegawa kit, so if you can wait for a couple months, they will be available.

[Kurt H.]

2 hours ago, Darren Roberts said:

I'm going to be making new molds for the slats for the Hasegawa kit, so if you can wait for a couple months, they will be available.

good news!

 

After I posted this I found you  made a set but it is listed as  discontinued. I will watch for your updates.

[Kurt H.]

3 hours ago, Ben Brown said:

I feel your pain about the used kit! My current Hasegawa Phantom FG.1 build was missing the radome, decals, but included two sets of instructions, neither of which was for a Phantom kit, and an entire wing sprue from an F-4B! That's just part of the fun of buying second- or third-hand kits. Stuff gets lost or swapped. 

 

 

What a mess! what did you end up doing? Did you have to find another kit for the proper wing?

[Ben Brown]

Fortunately, it still had the correct wing parts in the box, too. Royal Resin's radome for the Hasegawa F-4J/S will fit the FG.1, I downloaded the instructions, and I went with aftermarket decals plus a kind soul gave me his stencils from his kit's decals. It was one of 5 Hasegawa F-4 kits I had bought as a lot from an estate sale and I managed to piece together 4 build-able kits from them. 

 

Ben

 

[Darren Roberts]

1 hour ago, Ben Brown said:

Fortunately, it still had the correct wing parts in the box, too. Royal Resin's radome for the Hasegawa F-4J/S will fit the FG.1, I downloaded the instructions, and I went with aftermarket decals plus a kind soul gave me his stencils from his kit's decals. It was one of 5 Hasegawa F-4 kits I had bought as a lot from an estate sale and I managed to piece together 4 build-able kits from them. 

 

Ben

 

One of these days I have to start scouting out estate sales. I would imagine there will be more and more collections being sold off as we modelers age. That actually sounds kind of morbid. 

[Mstor]

7 minutes ago, Darren Roberts said:

One of these days I have to start scouting out estate sales. I would imagine there will be more and more collections being sold off as we modelers age. That actually sounds kind of morbid. 

 

Don't it though (sound morbid). I already gave away one stash of kits because I thought my modeling days were over. Fortunately I was wrong and have had the pleasure of rebuilding a stash. I like buying models

[picknpluck]

You can still build a J in grungy TPS. Check out the Furball's Low-viz USMC Rhinos sheet. There's a VMFAT-101 J on that sheet in TPS.

[NavyF4s]

I have the slat wing and need the hard wing. Want to swap? 

[phantom]

On 4/11/2018 at 2:43 PM, Darren Roberts said:

One of these days I have to start scouting out estate sales. I would imagine there will be more and more collections being sold off as we modelers age. That actually sounds kind of morbid. 

 

 

You would love my estate sale when I kick off. You can have MY Phantoms when you pry them out of my cold dead hands. Which is not all that far off I should think!

[Kurt H.]

And if anyone is trying to build an F-4S, Sprue Brothers has the Steel Beach F-4S update set for Hasegawa (as well as the set for the  academy kit) in stock.  My set is on the way now. Thank you Darren.

Edited June 24, 2018 by Kurt H.

[Ishthe47guy]

I remember from my F-4 books that VMFA-251 received several of the first non-slatted S conversion aircraft.

 

[Kurt H.]

I want to start this project soon. I managed to find another F-4S kit, this time it is complete, and has the proper sprues. I am updating this thread rather than clutter the forums with another.

 

I have decided to use the VMFA-235 markings from the Furball Lo viz devil dog rhinos sheet.

 

I have found a a few pictures of Marine F-4S from the mid 80s, but they never seem to have any weapons. I know the Marines were not engaged in combat operations in 1985, but I feel the need to hang SOMETHING under this model. Are there any good reference books for Marine Corps Phantoms in the 80s? Would they carry sparrows on training missions? During training missions did they carry practice bombs, or real bombs?  I do have the Hasegawa weapons set which has practice bomb dispensers.