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VX-4 F-4J White Bunny


BloorwestSiR

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No pics to add today but I have been working abway on this kit. I may even finish before the deadline.

 

It turns out that there are parts missing from the kit so I guess the squirrels must have made off with them. I am missing one of the tailplane halves, part of the exhaust, the metal parts for the landing gear and probably some of the smaller bits. Fortunately, I have what's left of an VF-84 F-4J I built when the kit first came out that I am able to disassemble and take the needed parts from. Sort of like what they do at Davis Mothan AFB I guess.

 

So the inner burner tubes, landing gear and tailplanes are coming from the old kit. Maybe more.

 

The fuselage and wings are now together. I tried to correct the wing angle for the outer wings. Once I get some pics up, let me know how successful I was. I have started working on the smaller details. I am going to use some Cutting Edge burner cans I have for the exhaust and a Flightpath resin nose.

 

I'll try to get some pics up shortly.

 

Carl

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As promised, a couple of pics I took to show my progress.

 

Here's the lower tail area painted and ready for installation along with the main undercarriage:

 

c3ceac2f.jpg

 

I painted the part using a couple of shades of Metalizer. After sealing them, I masked off and sprayed each section with some thinned Tamiya smoke. This is the first time I've tried this so let me know what you think.

 

The gear painted with XF-2 Flat white and then given a wash with Mig dark wash. Again, something new for me but I'm happy with the way it turned out.

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Heres a pic of the main fuselage. It's almost ready for a final coat of paint and then into the home stretch.

 

15da031c.jpg

 

I wasn't sure I was going to get this far but with a bunch of time off between now and New Year's, I'm hoping it'll be done by the end of the GB.

 

Carl

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  • 2 weeks later...

Made some more progress over the holidays. Mostly lots of small fiddlely stuff such as the ejection seats, canopy frames and exhaust cans.

 

I attached the main gear and then started masking off the markings. I'm using the Ad Astra masks for these so here they are applied to the airframe.

 

49344822.jpg

 

 

This was a bit tough as I only have the two photos I posted earlier. I did check some other Phantoms since I figured they should be somewhat standardized in placement. Nope. Only the NAVY logo seems to be constant.

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Next I airbrushed them using Light Gull Grey. When I was done, for a while, I thought I'd used pink instead. Not sure why, maybe the green masking tape around the masks was messing with my eyes or just my colourblindness.

 

eceee283.jpg

 

And after removing all the masking:

 

f8edd309.jpg

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Thanks guys, really appreciate it.

 

I got in some more time today and well, got her finished!

 

But that's jumping ahead of myself.

 

I needed to do the hoops on the ejection seats and since I can't pinstripe worth a damn, I used some 0.7mm masking tape to mask the hoops and seats off.

 

Misc524.jpg

 

Misc526.jpg

 

Hers the end result after airbrushing the yellow on:

 

Misc527.jpg

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I finished the gear bays using Mig washes and thinner. I didn't take any pics but will try to next time I'm over.

 

The actual plane didn't have too many markings on it, not even national insignias so that made the decalling easy or should have. I was going to use Hobby Decal dry transfers for the warning markings that go around the cockpit. Except they wouldn't stick. No matter how much pressure I used, they would not adhere to the model. Then I recalled someone saying you need a flat finish for them to work :BANGHEAD2:

 

So on to plan C. I ended up sing the markings from an Isradecal stencil sheet which I had been saving for my F-4G. The red Jet Intake warning came from Ian at Ad Astra.

 

Misc538.jpg

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And here she is in all her white splendor.

 

Misc534.jpg

 

Misc533.jpg

 

Misc536.jpg

 

The only hitch during final assembly was one of the hinges n the rear canopy snapped off when I dropped it while preparing to attach it. I have a spare so may switch it out later. Just really happy to finally have it done.

 

Thanks for checking it out and now back to that F-4G.

 

Carl

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Guest Peterpools

Carl

Love your choice of color scheme...sure is going to be different and a real knock out to boot!

Nice work on the seamless intakes, as they sure look worth the cost and effort. Following along, the finished bird looks great.

Peter

:speak_cool:

Edited by Peterpools
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Very nice job on the paint, markings and insignia. The Black Bunny would be hard enough to do but white is difficult as Harvey pointed out. Then again for me anything glossy is scary.

 

Keep up the good work.

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