McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II "HAF 40 Years of Phantoms" [Zoukei-Mura 1:48]

[Juggernut]

Oh my...those sidewinders look a bit "off" to my eyes.  The portion in front of the forward fins is just way too long.  Unless there are expat versions  of the AIM-9 that have extra long noses (I think that's the guts of the seeker therein) i think these are misshapen. 

 

Nice work on the painting though.  I always did prefer ghost grey missiles over white.  The Hellenic Phantom I have in mind is the first one in your photos above from the 338th squadron (or whatever the Greek level of organization is). 

 

I'm still taking notes for my Hellenic Phantom...once I find a late F-4E with the slats.  My wallet is a little lean from some rather extravagant purchases over the past couple weeks.  Since there's no real option for a 1/32 bubbletop Hawker Typhoon, I invested in the Hasegawa 1/48 version and needed to acquire a LOT of aftermarket items (from the UK and Canada) to create the Tiffie I have in mind. 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Juggernut

[Alex]

8 minutes ago, Juggernut said:

Oh my...those sidewinders look a bit "off" to my eyes.  The portion in front of the forward fins is just way too long.  Unless there are expat versions  of the AIM-9 that have extra long noses (I think that's the guts of the seeker therein) i think these are misshapen. 

Could be - the Z-M kit has a few different combos of pieces including two noses and a few different types of fins for (I assume) different eras and versions of the AIM-9.  I'm no expert, so I just built the one that the kit called for (this is the F-4E kit).  I'll do some looking around and see if I can figure out what specific type these are supposed to be.

[Juggernut]

Sorry, was just thinking out loud about those winders.  it hit me like a bolt of lightning when I saw the length of the noses.  I believe they're supposed to resemble AIM-9B's or C's, or quite possibly E's.  They're definitely not AIM-9M's or P's and they certainly aren't AIM-9X's as the front fins are not shaped for these versions of the AIM-9.

[Alex]

2 hours ago, Juggernut said:

Sorry, was just thinking out loud about those winders.  it hit me like a bolt of lightning when I saw the length of the noses.  I believe they're supposed to resemble AIM-9B's or C's, or quite possibly E's.  They're definitely not AIM-9M's or P's and they certainly aren't AIM-9X's as the front fins are not shaped for these versions of the AIM-9.

From what I saw on a brief scan of the web they are supposed to be AIM-9Es - those have long noses and simple triangular fins.  There are apparently like eight distinct versions.

[Alex]

Based on this:

 

The Sidewinder version I built is an "E".  I think (need to check) that the kit has enough parts to do a whole separate set of either the N/P or L/M version.  Since these are later versions (by 15+ years) of the missile, they would actually make more sense on my 2014-era Greek Phantom.  I'm going to see if I can make these with the remaining parts...

 

Thanks for pointing this out, BTW.  My models are always better the more I post here about the process, because of people's feedback. 

[Juggernut]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

From what I saw on a brief scan of the web they are supposed to be AIM-9Es - those have long noses and simple triangular fins.  There are apparently like eight distinct versions.

 

Great news and glad to hear I'm mistaken.  I was not aware that the AIM-9E was longer than the others so today is NOT a wasted day (I learned something).

 

By the way, I love those ECM antenna's you built.  Seeing these built is inspirational.  Thanks for posting!

Edited September 15, 2021 by Juggernut

[Alex]

3 hours ago, Juggernut said:

 

By the way, I love those ECM antenna's you built.  Seeing these built is inspirational.  Thanks for posting!

Thanks!  They were not that difficult to do, so I’d encourage anyone to give them a whirl.  The 2.5 mm stock I used might be slightly overscale, but 2.0 was clearly too small, and I was not about to start trying to make my own 2.35 mm half-round.  I know my limits…

[Alex]

So just to close the loop on this topic, for anyone who is interested in getting this specific Z-M kit (which on the whole I heartily recommend, despite some small failings).  The kit provides parts for two sets of four sidewinders. One set consists of a common rear part and two different noses/fin sets.  These parts will make either a set of E type missiles (as I did) or a set of the N/P types.  Then there is a separate set with one-piece missile bodies and yet different fins that builds into the L/M type.  I think I’m going to build up the later era L/Ms to use on this model and save the Es for a future subject from an earlier era (1970/80s would probably be right for them).

[Alex]

Making progress on the ejection seats

 

Still need to acrylic clear coat, wash, flat, pastel, etc etc.  There are aspects of how they are molded that are not super-accurate, but they are also tiny and I need to eventually finish this model so I have to draw a line somewhere and move on....

[Alex]

I'm now getting foolishly obsessed with these missiles.  I found some great photos of AIM-9Ms online, so had to try and replicate them.  Started with white:

Then masked off what needed to stay white

Painted the bits to be metallic black

Note that half of the front fins are still off, to make masking easier.  Next layer was Alclad Duraluminum with a bit of Steel added.

Then mask off the fins and add a light mist coat of Pale Burnt Metal

Mask more and do the collar at the back of the metallic area with Semi-Matte Aluminum plus a tiny bit of gray

Finally mask more and do just the two raised bands with Mr Metal Color Titanium

All the tape removed

The tonal differences are subtle, but more obvious in person than the iPhone photo shows.

Used the Molotow chrome pen on the nose, the a drop of black on the very tip for the sensor window.

 

All four of them

 

It looks too "polished metal" right now, but a coat of flat will hopefully fix that.  In parallel I found some spare stencil decals from old sheets and took pieces to stencil the Sparrows.  I'll do these guys tomorrow the same way, then flat coat them all.  Too obsessed.  I need to finish this model.

[Alex]

Sidewinders and Sparrows completed.  You can't look too close, because the "stencils" are just decal gizmology - they don't say anything that makes sense to be lettered on a missile, because they're just spares from other kits.  But at real-life scale they are too small to read and add some realism IMO.

 

Fuselage is buttoned up, with the extra one-piece canopy tacked on with PVA to protect the cockpit while I paint the camo.

 

And all the other bits

[Alex]

One of the things I want to do with this paintjob is to "fade" a lot of the stencil decals to reflect the worn condition of the lettering that you see in photos of these aircraft.  I want to do this by misting a light coat of the camo colors over them after they are applied.  I was thinking that I would have to sandwich them between layers of clear acrylic to do this, because I have had trouble before with trying to spray lacquer clear over decals and having them lift and buckle (on my IL-62M project, specifically).

 

I mentioned this as a caution over on citadelgrad's P-47 thread, and promptly a bunch of people politely told me that I was confused, and there was no problem with laying down clear lacquer over decals.  One person went so far as to say he had used mist coats of Mr Leveling Thinner as a decal setting solution.  So with that kind of pushback I decided some further experimentation was in order.  There are no spare decals on the HAF sheet I have, so I could not experiment with those.  As an alternative, I cut a few decals from the Z-M sheet that came with the kit, and applied them to my paint color tester from a few pages back.  Once they dried, I misted over them with a 50-50 mix of Mr Leveling Thinner and the MRP paint that I will use for the camo.  Lo and behold, decals faded into the background color with no harm to the decals themselves at all:

 

I will still need to try this out in a limited way once I start laying down my actual decals, since I couldn't pre-test that sheet, but this result makes me optimistic that I will be able to "fade" the stencils directly with an overlay of thinned MRP.  Which would be much simpler.

 

So, provisionally this is the "simpler" painting sequence I'm thinking about:

1. Paint everything black with Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500

2. Do white stippling to provide variation and "lighten" upper surfaces and selected panels, following photos of the actual plane as much as possible.

3. Wet sand with 4000/6000 grit to kill and roughness

4. Paint the camo colors using blu-tack snakes as masks to give a fuzzy edge.  This will be fiddly because I do not want to start by painting the whole airframe the lightest gray tone, since this will kill the stippling aspect of the black base for the other colors.  So I'm going to have to get the edges precise.  Fortunately this appears to be the way the actual planes were painted, as you can see little off-shade boundaries between some of the patches of camo color where they overlapped.  Then paint HAF roundels.

5. Wet sand again, probably 8000 grit since the MRP layer will be thin.

6. Stencil decals (all the ones I want to fade)

7. Mist over thinned MRP to fade them.

8. The rest of the decals (special anniversary markings and some of the safety signs that appear to be freshly re-applied on the actual plane).

9. Gloss acrylic layer (probably Tamiya, which I've been testing out and liking).

10. Enamel PLW (also Tamiya)

11. Flat acrylic layer.

12. Do some additional light weathering on the camo with thinned oil paint washes/filters, followed by pastel weathering as needed.

13. Seal with another flat acrylic layer.

14. Completely change focus and mask around the bare metal parts of the fuselage and tailplanes.

15. Give those areas a light wet sand to kill any roughness from camo overspray on them (I'm not going to try and avoid them in the initial camo process, I don't think it's necessary).

16. Paint them gloss black.

17. Try to do the best job I can with Alclad and possibly some Mr Metal Color to create that heat-distressed metal look on the fuselage plates and the exhaust nozzles.

18. Pastel weathering and possibly also acrylic PLW over the metal areas.

 

I started that journey tonight by painting the separate bits black.

 

Once the fuselage is also painted black I'll probably glue the flaps and ailerons on - I just wanted to paint them separately so that any areas in the gaps that don't get a dense coat of the camo color will be dark instead of having bare plastic peeking through.

[Brett M]

Really nice, and…that’s a heck of a process you’ve got planned. Looking forward to see paint start going down.

[Alex]

8 hours ago, Brett M said:

Really nice, and…that’s a heck of a process you’ve got planned. Looking forward to see paint start going down.

It’s actually pretty necessary for me to write the steps out - I will literally go back to that post and check to make sure that I’m not skipping anything…

[Alex]

Pretty in Black

 

Started with mottling on the bottom.

 

Partway through the top - this required lots of focus, and I think I probably should have used more diluted paint than my normal mix.  Live and learn.

 

Done.  There are two small patches where I slipped and got too much paint on.  They'll need judicious sanding.  Otherwise I think it went OK for my first attempt at this method.