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1/32 Phantom F-4B VF-84 'Jolly Rogers' *FINISHED IT!!*


kitbasha

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Hi, I am new to the LSP forum and this is my first large scale plane project. I have started backdating a Tamiya 1/32 F-4J to the early F-4B 151506/200 from VF-84 'Jolly Rogers' circa 1965 as in the photo below. This is something that I've wanted to do for a very long time as I love the jet in the photo. I aim to 'pose' the model on a solid wooden base in the take-off position with the nose leg clear of the deck and fully extended, and all the flaps/slats/inboard leading edge flaps deployed. I'll be using the Cutting Edge F-4B backdate sets for the Tamiya J, Airies early B exhausts, D-MOLD's seamless intakes, Wolfpack Design's flap/slat set, AMS resin MB Mk 5H seats and PJ Production's pilot figures along with a variety of Eduard etched and coloured brass. The inboard leading edge flaps will be scratchbuilt from spare upper/lower wing parts. The decals are currently being drawn and printed specially for this project. I have just modified and completed the pilot, RIO and the seats, they were painted in Humbrol enamels, the straps were made from Verlinden lead foil and the helmet markings were made up from solid colour decal and Xtradecal stripes. The original resin seat face blind handles were way too big so I scratched some from thin steel tube and yellow wire, the black rings were made from thin black stripe decals. I will update as I go along, I am working from a few good reference books but any helpful information gratefully accepted. (I will fit the main leg doors unlike the photo!)

 

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Edited by kitbasha
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Welcome aboard Patrick!

 

:post1:

 

This sounds like an ambitious project, and by the look of your pilot figures, you won't have any difficulty pulling it off. I look forward to following your progress!

 

Kev

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Thank you for the warm welcome, help and the positive comments, really appreciated! The resin pilot figures are still available, I got mine via HANNANTS mail order hobby store in UK, I also know that they are also available via PJ PRODUCTIONS own website, I believe they are located in Belgium? Both oxygen masks were modified slightly to make them accurate for mid 60's USN, the pilot's hands and arms are OOB and the RIO's hands and arms were re-positioned slightly by cutting and putting them in very hot water. Just started fitting the D-Mold intakes, photos soon!

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Thank you for the warm welcome, help and the positive comments, really appreciated! The resin pilot figures are still available, I got mine via HANNANTS mail order hobby store in UK, I also know that they are also available via PJ PRODUCTIONS own website, I believe they are located in Belgium? Both oxygen masks were modified slightly to make them accurate for mid 60's USN, the pilot's hands and arms are OOB and the RIO's hands and arms were re-positioned slightly by cutting and putting them in very hot water. Just started fitting the D-Mold intakes, photos soon!

 

Great work! Check out Barry's F-4B build. There's a ton of good information in there.

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this is gonna be sweet.. i haven't seen a Jolly Rogers in that scheme yet, so it's a fresh perspective of VF-84. all those panel decals should be fun as well! Work on the pilots thus far is, uhm.. what's the word i'm lookin' for.. stellar?

 

Cheers, and :hi:

Jerry

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The D-mold resin intakes are on, they were easy to fit and needed only a small amount of Tamiya grey basic putty filler at the top corners, I've had unpleasant experiences with badly shrunk/warped resin before but this must have been taken into account when they were moulded, these are excellent!! Most of the panel lines lined up perfectly and I only needed to 'tweak' one on the port side to line it up, the joints were filled with the same putty and sanded and re-scribed after drying. I also fitted the engine intake blades moulding which had been sprayed with Tamiya metallic grey and washed with Tamiya smoke. In addition, I also pre-shaded the internal intake wall behind the ramp with Tamiya matt black and oversprayed with Tamiya matt white as this bit is buried deep and will be impossible to reach at the painting stage. To practice cutting and filing, I cut out the upper and lower sections of the inboard leading edge flaps from the spare wing sections, these are ready to be assembled when I can gauge the thickness of the assembled wings. Next bit is cutting out the flaps/slats from the Cutting Edge set......sweaty palms time as they cost me lots of money!! In response to the last post fromladder4boy, I planned to put a few panel decals on just to give the impression that they are all there......I don't think I'll live long enough to put them all on! A good friend of mine once added every single panel decal to a 1/32 SEA F-4E from the Superscale data sheet which was available then, it took him around 8 weeks....he is still in therapy! I have the CAM decals sheet P32-021 which provides quite a few of the USN F-4 stencils. I do have a favour to ask of anyone reading this who can help, I could use a photo of an early F-4B rear cockpit, especially the panels (pre shoehorn, datalink and AIMS), I have a copy of the official manual but a colour photo would be really helpful.

 

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Took advantage of a few days off work and went mad with circular saw Dremel tool and files! Despite some reservations about cutting the Cutting Edge resin backdate set, it all went ok, after cutting the resin wings and lower wing/fuselage section to accomodate the flaps/slats, I fitted the various resin parts which modify the wing thickness, and the fuselage extensions. I am a little mystified here, the backdate set instructions make a great deal around the resin part just above the fuselage extension which replaces an 'incorrect' set of fuselage vents, looking at it now, I think the original is probably closer to the real thing, I've added a close up of the repalcement part 'in-situ' and a pic of the real aircraft, I think the resin vents should be more tucked into the top angle? Barry, thank you for the info on the book, can you or anyone who has it confirm if it has front and rear cockpit pics of pre-mod mid 60's USN F-4's?.....if it does it will be Amazon time again!!

 

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I'm afraid the book does not have a photo of an unchanged aft cockpit that I could find. I'll look through my other references and see whta I can find.

 

As to the vents in question; they are no where near accurate on the kit and the CE pieces are better but not completely accurate either.

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Also as your are doing an early F-4B you"ll want to remove the landing gear struct bulges / renforcements on the top of the wings.

 

Barry

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