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F-4J Phantom II


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So I guess tonight is gonna be one of those nights. Oh well, sleep is over-rated, right?

 

When I installed these intakes the first thing I noticed is that there is very little in the way of structure to securely attach them to. That plus the seam between the resin, the .030mm strip and the kit fuselage needs serious filling anyway. I killed two birds with one stone by laying down a heavy bead of CA to start filling the seam and give it extra strength. Putty alone would be too prone to cracking without a better base.

 

Resin2800x.jpg

 

Preliminary sanding of the CA joint is finished and now I'll start to putty it for the finish-coat of filler.

 

Resin1800x.jpg

 

And a lousy attempt to shoot a picture down the intake. I'll have to pose something much better at some point. <_<

 

Intakeview1800x.jpg

 

Now I'm going to try to sleep again! :ph34r:

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Tonight I started preliminary work on the front office. The main painting was done and I started to install the PE and some wiring. Thank the Modelling Gods for PE! I could never get close to these instrument panels with my painting skills. Lots to pick-out on the side panels which will help to keep dimension in this cockpit that the PE can diminish.

 

Everything here is just sitting in place to get some shots for the update...

 

Office1800x-2.jpg

Office2800x-2.jpg

Office3800x-1.jpg

Office4800x.jpg

 

I hope you like it!

David

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Thanks Guys!

 

The office is finished now except for the seats. Those will almost be two seperate builds in themselves with all of the PE...

 

I've seen much better, but this is my best effort to date and I feel pretty good about the results.

 

Hope you like!

PitDone1800x.jpg

PitDone2800x.jpg

PitDone3800x.jpg

PitDone4800x.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for looking and for the kind remarks. I'm learning a lot on this one!

 

I've been mostly doing the un-glamorous stuff of late; filling, sanding etc. I also started on the seats! ANyone who has built or read about this kit knows that the seats leave much to be deisred in the way of detail. I was tempted to get resin seats after seeing some of the great results some have gotten with them. But that Eduard Big Ed set comes with some pretty detailed sets for the seats so that's the way I went. That, and this is already a fairly expensive build....

 

The Eduard fret has over 30 pieces of PE per seat. :lol: I could only do it a few bits at a time before I'd have to 'walk it off' for a while.

 

Here is the plain Jane kit seat, minus the hand-holds at the top:

SeatsPlain800x.jpg

 

And a few shots of the seat after the PE has been added:

SeatPE1800x.jpg

SeatPE2800x.jpg

SeatPE3800x.jpg

 

I've only done one of them so far. I think there are kits on the market with fewer pieces that are easier to build! I'm really happy with the result however, and it should look even better after some final posing of the belts, a clear coat, some drybrushing and a flat coat. See? A whole kit!

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Thanks guys!

 

A small update for today, with a little back-story.

 

The geometry of the tail section has had me baffled in terms of thinking about how to paint it effectively. There are multiple finishes all converging back there and the thought of masking it all makes my head spin. I considered cutting the stabilizer assembly in two so I could install them at the end, but was nervous about how well that would work. So I decided to paint the horizontal stabs prior to assembly. It should be easier to just mask them off all together when it's time to paint all the rest.

 

Which brings me to point #2: Metalizers. I've lived in fear of these! Having read so many horror stories I was unsure what to do, so I finally just went for it. It's only plastic, right? I chose Alclad II and simply followed the instructions. I used Mr White Surfacer 1000 as my primer. Gorry that stuff is nice! No gloss black undercoat was used since the Alclad website says you only need that when using the prismatic colors. Maybe it's just dumb beginner's luck, but it was.... easy! And I think it looks just like metal.

 

Alclad1800x.jpg

 

My question is: Is it safe to mask over this finish? Alclad says so, and so far they've been right. I'd hate to botch it now though...

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