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HAPPY 4th of July!!
| I hope you all
enjoy my F-4J. When I found a Microscale sheet with VMFA-232's
Bicentennial scheme, it immediately caught my eye and I wanted to build
it. And the fourth of July was coming right
up so I wanted to build something for that and something to show you all
on ARC.
So I wanted to find a 1/72nd scale F-4J and
get cracking on it, as it was mid-June already. But I didn't find
anything in the local shops, that was
an F-4J. I did however find an Italeri F-4S, and found out that was
an updated F-4J, and I bought it, and got to work.
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One of the first things I found
out through asking around on ARC and through looking at pics of actual
F-4J's is that I needed to sand down the slats.
That was harder than I thought it would be, I ended up using the xacto
knife to cut part of the slat off and using Tamiya putty to ensure a
smooth
surface between the slat and the wing. The outer wing's leading edge
is kind of tilted upwards....but that was the best I could do.
I also ended up cutting off the bumps on
the underside of the wing (I did not see them in the walkaround F-4J
photos) and the (strake?) thingie molded on top of the wing right at the
border of the outer and inner wings as I did not see that on F-4J pics
either.
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| So after removing the lumps and bumps on the wings and
sanding them down to a good finish, and finishing the cockpit OOB, I
glued the fuselage halves and wings together. I did NOT glue the
elevators on because I wanted to leave the engine area clear for work
there, and it turned out to be a good move. But I also had left the
nose off, and
that was NOT a good move. I figured I'd glue the nose on later after
painting it. What I did not realize was that the nose sections did not just
include the nose cone but also part of the fuselage itself....so I ended
up having to do a laborious puttying, sanding, and masking job around
already painted & decaled areas!!!!! |
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| After gluing the
fuselage halves and wings, and puttying and sanding, I used my airbrush to
spray the bird white, and then I masked the white areas, shot Future on
the masked areas to seal them (that worked great by the way) and then shot
flat gull gray on the rest of the bird. (I used MM Acryl for most of
the painting, except for the red areas on the canopies and the pylons,
canopies, etc. For the pylons and other small white parts still on
their trees I used a big can of spray paint - the kind you buy in hardware
stores. For the canopy red areas I used a Testors paint pen, it is
great for that stuff. For the small details, and the cockpit I used
a tiny camel hair brush). I then masked off areas surrounding the
engines and brushed it with aluminum. Now here's where I made
another error. |
| When I pulled the
tape off (and it was Tamiya masking tape) some of the gull gray peeled off
as well!! I brushed some more to replace it but it was not the same
shade (the brushed gull gray was darker than the airbrushed gull gray even
though they came out of the same bottle) so I lightened the gray with some
white, but that didn't work that great. But I left the finish as it
was, and I think I'll revisit that area in the future. |
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| After I painted the area around
the engines aluminum, I used gunmetal to do the burner cans and I also
drybrushed coats of gunmetal and later aluminum to give the area a burned
metal look. I then used Metalizer Sealer to give a gloss coat - I
put three coats on -- and let the bird dry for 24 hours.
After 24 hours, I put the decals on and
then gave the bird a coat of Dullcote. Turned out one coat was all I
needed and I was satisfied. No silvering that I could see, the
decals looked "painted on", and the whole job looked much
better than when I cut off the tabs in first tried this technique on the
Corsair.
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The longer drying time made all the difference, I suspect.
I then glued the elevators on and ran into a problem -- the slots were too
small.
I could have tried to make the slots larger, instead the elevators and
used 20 sec. thick CA to glue the elevators at
the proper angle (using mk 1 eyeball). |
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| Later I glued the nose
section together and ran into the aforementioned issues. I also lost
the middle portion of the canopy (with the 2 tiny windows) so I grabbed
one from a Revell Germany 1/72nd F-4F kit I bought and used that.
Unfortunately I cut it too short for the two main canopies to fit closed
(the Revell and Italeri pieces differ in size, the Revell pieces are
smaller), so I used the Revell canopies and made them opened. |
| Now this kit isn't QUITE fully
done....later I'll touch up a few areas, add some detail to the inner
canopies, and add a couple of tiny bits I can't find right now (like the
two airscoops on the front of the nose), and I'll arm the bird. I
also have an error where the walkway covers the very top of the squadron
logo....I placed the squadron logo first but put it just a tiny bit too
far up from the junction of the wing
and fuselage. |
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But I am
fairly satisfied and even proud of this bird because I learned a LOT
building it.
I wish I had better cameras...all pics were taken with my webcam. I
have two other cameras but I can't take good closeups with them.
Anyway, until next time.... |
Happy modeling!
Justin
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