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"Old Mold" Revell Kits hints and tips


Sgt Shultz II

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Being the new guy around here and having a few 1/32 Revell "Old Mold" Phantoms (F-4J and RF-4B) I could use some hints and tips for these kits.

 

I have marveled at the detail you guys here have done to some basic kits but all the conversion kits and updates I have found these days seem to be directed to the Tamiya kits.

 

The old mold kits have the flat cockpit floors with 4 mounting tabs, molded in seat bottoms and flat instrument panels. How can I convert a cockpit set designed for a Tamiya kit to the Revell kit???

 

Has anyone added some Seamless Intakes to one of these type kits?? How do you do it?

 

For the J model does anyone make a wing fold set?? What needs to be added to the nose gear fro Navy aircraft??

 

Does anyone make the little V thing for the tail hook?

 

Thanks in advance!

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Having just thrown one together as a ceiling hanger a few months ago, I highly recommend not trying to update those kits. For example, you might get a resin cockpit to fit in the fuselage, but that would be covered by canopy parts that are inaccurate and don't fit properly at all. The list of examples like this is endless.

 

The money spent on resin aftermarket would be far better spent replacing them with far superior Tamiya F-4 kits.

 

The other sensible alternative is to just build them as-is, and just have fun with them.

 

JMHO,

D

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The price was right that's why I bought them, retirement projects. I buy a little at a time due to the fixed budget. In all my life I have never found a "perfect" model  and seeing the silk purses you all make from the sows ear I was hoping someone might have some ideas.

 

If I wanted to backdate the J to a B would changing the afterburner cans be enough???

 

Come on guys I know someone has messed with these kits before, what did you guys do before the Tamiya kits???

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No. You'd need a lot more. The thin wings, cans, and radome are the most obvious external  differences but there are man, many more. I won't say that you can't convert one to another, just that it would be... Strenuous, to put it politely.

 

Bob

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Nonetheless, I think a running thread like this has merit. If a modeler wants to put in the effort, we ought to support that as much as possible. Brian Cauchi did a fantastic job on the old P-40, and me-109G, and the exercise with the F-4 would be going back to our roots, so to say.

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I have the J which I decided to do a clean, inflight build using the kit decals. I still have it, it looks good enough up there. Back when those were the only kit, one outstanding build was in FSM magazine, heavily scratch built by a master modeler. Now you can use AM to boost your old kits if you can't bear tossing them. With all the inherent issues, I would suggest you take the same approach (simply because of the superior kits available) and keep the builds simple and low $$. Bonus as inflight builds is you can get cheap True details seats, put some crew in there (hides the rest) and give them a good paint job. I might be able to help by making a you deal on some less than perfect resin castoffs, but you would have to do the cleanup work and make the stuff fit as they are for the new tool Revell and Tamiya. Like "second chance" resin!  

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I think the keep it simple approach is recommended as the existing aftermarket sets have not been designed to be used in such kits and they won't solve most of the structural and dimensional errors of the old Revell kits...

 

So, indeed you may put new seats and LG wheels but other sets would result in a global cost, two, three or four times the cost of your kit to get an approximate result. Considering this, your money would probably be better spent with the purchase of a new generation Phantom kit if you want to get a reasonably accurate kit. However, it is up to you and indeed many years ago Michelle Choquette proved it is possible to get a nice result from this old dog (this was published in FSM).

 

Hth

 

Thierry

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Nonetheless, I think a running thread like this has merit. If a modeler wants to put in the effort, we ought to support that as much as possible. Brian Cauchi did a fantastic job on the old P-40, and me-109G, and the exercise with the F-4 would be going back to our roots, so to say.

Having just built one of these old-tool Revell Phantoms, and having a Revell P-40E underway right now, I can say without a doubt that the Phantom isn't even in the same class as the P-40E kit. Nor is the Phantom in the same class as the old '109F/G from the '60s. There just isn't enough of a starting point with the old-tool Revell Phantom kits to make a serious run at building them accurately. Need an itemized list? Ok, but only the major stuff...

 

I did check the newer burner cans against the old-tool Revell Phantom, and they won't work because of the one entire engine supplied with the kit which results in two different cans with differnet diameters. The end result is the need to scratchbuild the aft end of the fuselage to accept replacement burner cans.

 

The vari-ramps and intakes are not close enough in size or shape to use existing seamless suckers, intakes or ramps. The end result is the need to scratchbuild the forward fuselage to accept aftermarket intake parts, or scratchbuild those areas as well.

 

The cockpit and canopy have already been mentioned:

...you might get a resin cockpit to fit in the fuselage, but that would be covered by canopy parts that are inaccurate and don't fit properly at all.

Specifically, the cockpit opening is too wide, and the canopy's profile too shallow. There's no aftermarket canopy available, and new-tool Revell nor Tamiya canopy parts don't come close to fitting the old fuselage. So, you'd have to make your own master and vac or cast and acceptable canopy. Even the various Eduard PE parts for the canopy would require a lot of modifications to fit.

 

For folded wings, the kit's wing-fold area incorperates an operating hinge that virtually destroys the accuracy of this area. The holes left by the kit's toy-like hinges have to be filled and then the scratchbuilding begins to attempt replicating what's supposed to be there. Assembling the parts with the wings extended merely reults in a lot of filling, sanding and reworking of the lines.

 

To backdate the J to a B, the bulges in the wing, top & bottom, have to be back-filled and then filed/ground/sanded off. The main wheel wells are affected, but I'm not sure if they can be saved or have to be replaced with scratched new ones. The main gear doors will have to be scratched.

 

This short list doesn't even cover correcting the major shape errors on the kit, particularly the whole nose from between the intakes forward. Then there's a complete re-scribe of the exterior to contend with.

 

"Support"? Ok, here's my support for actually building the kit:

The other sensible alternative [to Tamiya Phantom kits] is to just build them as-is, and just have fun with them.

You could always throw fancy paint jobs on them (CAM has some great decals), leave the canopies open and sling all the ordnance you can underneath them. Or, close the canopies, close up the landing gear and hang them from the ceiling. Done basically OOB, they'll look great and won't cost you your savings, enthusiasm or sanity.

 

HTH,

D

Edited by D Bellis
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"Support"? Ok, here's my support for actually building the kit:

You could always throw fancy paint jobs on them (CAM has some great decals), leave the canopies open and sling all the ordnance you can underneath them. Or, close the canopies, close up the landing gear and hang them from the ceiling. Done basically OOB, they'll look great and won't cost you your savings, enthusiasm or sanity.

 

HTH,

D

 

I would agree that you won't get an accurate kit out of the old tool Revell Phantoms,

but as noted above, you can build a nice representation of "obviously not anything but a Phantom".

I started mine, and with no concerns about accuracy, I busied up the cockpit to make it look better.

 

Vietnam05c_zpseeb2f908.jpg

 

Vietnam05b_zps62ce641c.jpg

 

I bought my RF-4 for seven bucks at a Toy Liquidator's store years ago along with a late model MiG-21, also for $6.99.

I just wanted a couple of planes that are representative of the Vietnam war, with no illusions about their accuracy.

 

Vietnam04F4_MiG21_zps918a5100.jpg

 

I'm backdating the MiG and converting the RF-4 to a "close-enough" F4-E.

If you can enjoy the build and final result like that, I say go for it.

If you will be bothered by inaccuracies and spoil the build, I'd suggest saving for a more accurate kit.

 

Mike

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Well, with the list provided by Mr Bellis, and  Mike Ps philosophy, I'd say you have a couple of best options. The old F-4 is sure recognizable as "a Phantom" , but I guess if I ever want to do one, I'll have to buy a Tamiya kit...

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Hi Sgt.

 

The trouble is, that not only it is not in the same league as P-40 or Me-109 but it is not even as good as venerable Revell  Mirage (if we can speak about "good" there). My sincere opinion would be, do not think of any aftermarket besides maybe the seats and decals and have as much fun as you can from building the kit OOB and enjoy the result. You have seen  masterpieces out of it, but we are talking more of scratchbuilt than anything else then. 

I love Phantoms, tried this one too, got two (different boxing) more Js in my nostalgy collection but these will never be touched.

 

Just my two pennies here.

 

 

Jozef

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I had the original boxing of the J  and my plan was to build it out of the box, with some cool decals. I ended up with a set of Black Bunny VX-4 decals from one of the Meteor productions family of companies. I sold off a bunch of kits, one of which was the F-4J. I actually did well with it, I guess the purchaser was a collector.

 

I agree that the best thing to do is to find the coolest decal sheet and just have fun building it. 

Edited by kurth
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