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VX-4 F-4J White Bunny


BloorwestSiR

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Hi folks,

 

Probably biting off a lot more than I can chew starting two entries for one group build but here goes. While emptying out my parents garage last year, I found a Tamiya F-4J kit in there. I can't recall buying it but it must have been me. Anyway, it looks like squirrels had gotten into the kit and tried to use parts of it to make a nest from. The box was in really poor shape from their chewing. Most of the bags for the sprues were ripped open and the decal sheets are pretty much a write off (chew off?).

 

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Most people are familiar with the various black F-4's with the Playboy bunny on the tail (Black Bunny). While going through an old Detail and Scale volume on the Phantom, I came across the following photo of a white F-4J with light grey markings ( ergo, White Bunny). Hope people don't mind me posting the scanned image here.

 

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Armed with only those photos, I contacted Ian at Ad Astra and he was able to make a set of masks for me. So, off to the bench I go!

 

For my sanity's sake, this will be more of a out of the box build than the G I am concurrently working on. I have Rhino intakes and wheels,and the Eduard P/E for the cockpit and that's about it. I figure I'll work on this kit while stuff on the G is drying or I'm trying to problem solve something on that build.

 

One last photo. This is the nose cone with teeth marks from the squirrel partially sanded out, guess he didn't like the taste of it.

 

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I'm glad we have a year for this group build. Or what's left of it.

 

Carl

Edited by BloorwestSiR
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I dig the white rabbit scheme. I may be wrong, but I think one of the old Cutting Edge sheets has that airplane in it. Either way, if you can get masks done, that's the way to go.

 

I'll be interested to see how it goes. If it makes you feel better, I picked up a J kit on ebay and will do a second one for the GB in addition to my Bolo C once it's done. I'm going to use some CE Marine Mig Killer decals (the unit with the shamrocks on the tail), but I'm no 100% sure on that, since there's a lot of cool J markings out there.

 

C

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Cool scheme!

There was a decal set including both Black Bunny and lo-vis Bunny, I actually think it is a Superscale or Microscale sheet.

 

VX-4 is no longer able to use the bunny as it considered politically incorrect; at least according to a VX-3 Vampires crewman who was selling the last of the VX-4 bunny t-shirts as well as VX-3 ones at Reno a few years back. Too bad.

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Carl, awesome project. You know, this jet with original F-4 black bunny and F-14 Black bunny are the jet that got me into modeling. My original plan was to have 3 kits so I can build these but I don't know were it went to chaos and I ended up with 60+ 1/32 kits. Well, good luck and have fun :)

 

Mike

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Thanks for all the encouragement guys. It's been tough making progress on any of my builds lately. I spend most nights at the hospital holding my premie son and we're in the midst of selling our condo so getting it ready for sale has eaten up the rest of my spare time. Luckily, my work bench/area is in my parents' basement so I didn't have to pack it up. maybe when we finally have a home I'll be able to set it up there.

 

Anyways, we got the condo finished and suitable for showing so I got a bit of free time and made some progress. I've removed a number of the BDR patches from the fuselage, cut out the intakes in preparing for the Rhino intakes and I completed the cockpit tub. I'll try to get some pics up shortly.

 

With all the talk about burner cans, I noticed no one has mentioned the Flightpath ones. Is there reason for this? I have a set and they look quite impressive. Nicely detailed but maybe a bit fiddlely to put together? Any one else try them before and have any thoughts on them?

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  • 1 month later...

A small update. I have more of the cockpit finished but forgot to take pics. It's not as nice or detailed compared to others on this site but i'm happy with it. I went through the kit a bit more and noticed some more damage to the kit's parts from the squirrels.

 

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The nose section has been broken off from the wings and the wings themselves have a large crack in them.

 

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I'm going to try and glue the parts back together but I'm not sure how well that will work. I may try to remove the wing section from a mothballed F-4J I started but never finished years ago.

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  • 3 months later...

So after a protracted move and unpacking of our new home, I finally got some time to work on the kit.

 

I was able to repair the lower wing section and glue the nose area back onto the wing. I used some Plastruct L-beams and sheet styrene to re-inforce the joint. It should be strong enough but we'll see when i get to that stage.

 

I fitted the seamless intakes and found that they needed a bit of filler. This wasn't a surprise from watching some of the other builds going on. So after tweaking the fit as best that I could, I used some super glue and baking soda to level the joint as best I could. I then used Mr Surfacer 500 for the remaining small gaps.

 

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The off white areas on the top are the superglue and baking soda. I prefer using this as it sets up instantly and lets me continue work without waiting for putty to dry. And there's no shrinkage :)

 

A view of the port side

 

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  • 1 month later...

Carl, those intake looks nice. I just purchased the DMold set and looking for it using it when I get my phantom. I have never heard of mixing baking soda with superglue for gap filler. Interesting idea. ;)

 

I have the D mold intakes as well. They are probably going onto my F-4G build. Or maybe an F-4E that is further down the 'to build' list. Much further down the list.

 

I can't remember where I read about using baking soda as a filler but I have been using it for about 20 years. You can build it up very quickly and it sands nicely. But, you need to work on it quickly. If you wait too long, it really hardens up. It alos works really well to re-inforce joints.

 

Speaking of intake, Ian at Ad Astra is making some decals for me for the Intake warning markings as they are just red lettering on the aircraft and arent' the usual white lettering on a red "V" shape.

 

I've made a bit more progress. I finished the burner cans and have mounted them aloing wih the lower wing section to the upper fuselage. I don't have any pics but will try to take some over CDN Thanksgiving this weekend. And hopefully, make some more progress.

 

Carl

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  • 1 month later...

Aren’t squirrels great? At least they taste good.

 

 

I haven't tried one. My parent's dog would probably agree with you though.

 

I haven't had a chance to post some new pics but I have been making slow progress. I've attached the main wing and wing tips. Its's starting to look like a Phantom. I hope I'll get it done in time for the end of the GB.

 

Carl

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