1/32 Revell F-4E 50TFW - In-Flight and Lit Up

[RichieB]

On 9/14/2023 at 4:50 AM, jmel said:

Richie I’m sorry to drag up a 5 year old thread, but I’m just now stumbling across this. 
 

man this is a SUPERB build. I can’t stop looking at the pictures. 
 

can you elaborate a little bit on how you lit up all of the jet’s external lights?  I’d love to do something identical!

 

great job!

Hi jmel and thanks all for the positive comments,

The model is lit using 3v coin batteries hidden in the nose gear (the gear door is removeable). I used a switch on this particular model to turn the lights on but subsequently I've used reed switches that are energised by magnets in the tail pipes. Most of the internal lighting is very small 3v LEDs with some fibre optics used for small lights in hard to reach places, especially the cockpit side panels. You can backlight the cockpit IPs if you've got the right instrument decal (semi-transparent or Aires acetates from their cockpits are good) but you will probably need to add some extra LED lighting (as concealed as you can make it) to get the cockpit looking less like a black hole. The tail pipe lighting is through 2 x 5mm LED bulbs as you need more light to feed down the acrylic tubing. Everything is in the jet so you can take the model off the stand without an issue. The slime lights are actually photo luminescent decals that I charge with a uv light. It doesn't last long but it looks the part. I've subsequently experimented with using Electroluminescent (EL) Tape on a 1/32 F-15B which looked just like the real thing (because it effectively is the same material) but is a b*****r to fix electrically (and I am no electrician!). Thread below if interested. I've started work on an F-16 Aggressor which again will be all light up though only one engine and no slime lights so much easier. I'll start logging soon but I'm currently away from the bench for a while. One challenge you will have is that you can rarely build or paint in the sequence intended because of the wires that need connecting/soldering before you glue parts together, so plan carefully and make sure your wiring connections are solid as you can't access them once its all closed up.

 

 

Look forward to seeing how you get on. Best wishes.