Because there’s no such thing as too many Phantoms

[Gerhard]

Tim,. that is stunning work. 

[Starfighter]

Looking pretty good! You should have a look at your front lading gear though: you have painted the outer wheel rim black. The entire rim should be white.

[Madmax]

Tim, I really enjoy the way you approach the improvements - even to a Tamiya kit!

 

Sean

[TimHepplestone]

Little. It of work this weekend. Masking the sidewinders for painting striped and the metallic rollerons. One of those lots of masking for little spraying jobs

 

Then decalled and gloss coated.

 

 

Then decided all this is probably for nought. I can live with the Aim 7’s but the sidewinders are just wrong. I’m guessing they are 9e sidewinders. I’m gonna need to  need 9L’s which would be much more appropriate to these aircraft once they entered RAF service. I have an academy 1/32 F18 in the stash. I might have to “borrow” it’s sidewinders. A problem for another day.

[TimHepplestone]

I also started playing around with colours. I only have access to Tamiya paints so spent a good about of time trying to come up with a mix to match RAF Light Aircraft Grey. Eventually settled on this.

Its 1 part xf55 deck tan, 1 part xf20 medium grey, 1 part xf23 light blue and a heap of white until I got something I could live with. I’ve mixed up a whole batch in an old paint bottle. That’s my paint mule, which used to be a respectable airfix seafire , until my daughter took it to school for a history project 

 

When applied to the drop tanks the result looks ok. Painted them up via black basing as a test. The gloss coat makes them look a lot darker than they are

 

 

 

 

They and the pylons need some decals and an oil wash to weather. The. I’ll be able to actually start seriously looking the the actual airframe. 

 

[TimHepplestone]

On 11/5/2018 at 7:36 PM, Madmax said:

Tim, I really enjoy the way you approach the improvements - even to a Tamiya kit!

 

Sean

Thanks Sean. This is a 2000 release and definitely does not have the finesse of the newer WW2 kits. That said, it still looks like it’s going to build up well. I reckon I’ve only got a few changes to make: some detailing in the cockpit, possible a set of resin bang seats (wish me luck finding those in SA) and scratch building a belly strap, which could be interesting 

[TimHepplestone]

On 11/5/2018 at 12:01 PM, Starfighter said:

Looking pretty good! You should have a look at your front lading gear though: you have painted the outer wheel rim black. The entire rim should be white.

Thanks, well spotted. My error was trusting the masks that came with the wheels. Looks like I’m in need of a steady hand and an optivisor 

[TimHepplestone]

Finally finished off the dangly bits today. External tanks are quite a size in this scale. Painted up and weathered

[TimHepplestone]

I also borrowed fom Aim 9L sidewinders from an Academy F18 kit. Blue bands to denote inert rounds, which is how most they show up on most reference shots. Weathered the pylons.

 

2 Aim 9-L's

 

 

And finally a shot comparing the with the Aim 9-E's that came with the kit. 

 

Feeling like I can put this lot aside for a bit and actually start building the aircraft.

Will add some RBF tags just before loading everything onto the airframe

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 25, 2018 by TimHepplestone

[TimHepplestone]

Finally got to work on the cockpit. All OOB except for some airscale dials added to the IP. And I managed to scrounge a couple of resin seats. Not a lot of text except to say all hand painted, and aint that macro lens cruel. Looks good to the naked eye though.

 

 

 

 

[Out2gtcha]

Great work, those seats look wonderful

[MikeMaben]

9 hours ago, TimHepplestone said:

         Looks good to the naked eye though.

 

My eyes are frequently naked .

 

 

 

[TimHepplestone]

Little more work on the cockpit. Gone a bit old school here. Cockpit sill based with aluminium, then a layer of hairspray, followed by yellow-green primer, then another coat of hairspay and finally tamiya nato black. 

Water and a stiff brush used to create a suitably chipped cockpit sill.

 

[TimHepplestone]

Wiring up the back of the RIO's panel. Used different guages io lead and copper wire. Where appropriate I made connectors from a length of tubing made by heat stretching a piece of ear bud shaft. This eas sliced into "doughnuts" and added to selected wires.

 

 

Next step was to install the panel and plumb in the wiring. At least some of which will be visible behing the pilots bang seat

 

Finally on the panel itself, the Tamiya clear part to represent the dials is a little shallow, resulting in deep countersunk dial faces. I added a blob of clear epoxy resin to each face. The result looks overscale but definitely looks a lot more like glass.

[TimHepplestone]

Whiled away a mild hangover on New Years Day painting up the metallic tail sections of the Phantom. After a gloos black base laid down some Alclads. Aluminium base then areas of burnt iron, magnesium, jet exhaust like so...

 

Added some areas of thinned metallic blue ti simulate some heated areas. Used Xtreme  metallic blue for this and kept it subtle.

 

After a thin layer of matt varnish (very thin) used some brown sepis and black oils to create the verticle burn marks seen on the ventral tail areas just behind the jet nozzles,

 

Finally a Paynes grey with touch of brown oil wash into panel lines and oil rivets before toning down a very thin coat of flat.