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Done - F-4EJ Kai Phantom - The Last of it's Kind ZM 1/48


DocRob

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8 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Looks great Rob. Nice to hear about the fit too.

Fit is absolutely fantastic until now Carl, these ZM Phantom kits are way superior to the TA-152 I built and better engineered as well.

Cheers Rob

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4 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Looks great, Rob.  The pin wash looks very tidy.

Thanks Gaz, I never had much luck with removing panel line wash after application to my liking. In this case it meant to pick up all the rivets in the wheel well, one by one, phew :icon_eek:.

Cheers Rob

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Plastic gluing instead of metal painting today. Due to Kalima weather with lots of dust and sand in the air, I continued assembling the wings with all flaps and ailerons and slats and prepared the parts for the air intakes. I then sprayed the inside of the intakes dark ghost gray and applied some more of the color in the recesses behind the intakes, to make painting easier later on. 
Then I glued the intakes in place and have to raise my virtual had again into the direction of ZM, for their great engineering and perfect fitting kit.

Cheers Rob

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Some year end shiny glitter metal work was due today. The tail section of the Phantom got my preliminar interpretation of the real thing. I used different metal shades all from AK's Xtreme metal range.
The upper areas beside the tail wings were sprayed stainless steel, along with the tail wing protection, where the middle part was masked off and sprayed gun metal.
The protective sheets around the nozzles, where sprayed with titanium and accentuated with pale burnt metal. After all was dried, I did some soft panel picking with jet exhaust mixed with titanium, to create the illusion of not totally flat appearing sheets. All metal areas will be masked and later, after airbrushing the fuselage finally treated with some pigments and maybe panel liner, depending the overall look.

One word about the formidable Xtreme Metal colors. On many occasions, I used them, they were very good to spray, have very fine grain and dry fast. I even went so far, because on my other builds they were very durable, to mask onto them with Tesa and Tamiya Kabuki tape without de tacking and had not the slightest lift at all, great stuff

Happy New Year mi Amigos!

Cheers Rob

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18 hours ago, harv said:

That looks great !!......harv

 

17 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

Holy smokes, now we talking exhaust. Amazing shading Rob. 

Muchas gracias Hombres, I can't leave metal surfaces alone in modelling, guess that's my old engineer instinct :D. Making materials look right has become my favorite task in modelling and metal leads by far, followed by wood, cloth and leather. I wish, I could bring myself to pay so much attention to other aspect of modelling, like figure painting,...
Oh god, that could be a New Year' resolution :icon_eek:.

Cheers Rob

 

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22 minutes ago, Bomber_County said:

Looks great Rob, wish I had thought about doing the metal work first upon my build. Totally agree with your take on ZM, beautiful engineering. When their 109’s arrive I’ll definitely build one……Happy New Year…

Happy New Year to you too Phil. The pictures show only a mock up, the engines and nozzles, along the circular fairings, the hook and the tail wings are not glued yet. I will mask the metallic fuselage section next and continue with applying the grey fuselage color. The metal panels are so easy to mask, because the panel lines are deeply carved. It takes only Kabuki tape and a sharp blade to retrace the panel line with.

As good as the engineering is, I don't like the manual, as being overinformative. There are complet pages about angling the tail wings or slats correctly, with a myriad of diagrams, so that I always have the feeling to have something missed after two pages of manual, having only glued five pars together.

Cheers Rob

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Rob

WOW, the metal burner/exhaust area looks fantastic and I could never equal what you have don, as I have more F4’s in my small stash then F-14’s, so I’ll be using your build as a guide in future builds down the road

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

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Fantastic job, Rob!  The metal looks good.  My short stint with an F4 squadron in 1984 left me with a memory of soot.  Soot on the cans, and on the bare metal parts.  Dirty birds.

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19 hours ago, Peterpools said:

WOW, the metal burner/exhaust area looks fantastic and I could never equal what you have don, as I have more F4’s in my small stash then F-14’s, so I’ll be using your build as a guide in future builds down the road

Thank you Peter, it's really not that hard to do. I look at various photos of the real thing, try to imagine which materials were used and in which way they were fabricated, assembled and used and try to figure out a plan, how to put my formed picture into scale reality and then it's tail and error :D.

Cheers Rob

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13 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Fantastic job, Rob!  The metal looks good.  My short stint with an F4 squadron in 1984 left me with a memory of soot.  Soot on the cans, and on the bare metal parts.  Dirty birds.

Thank you Gaz, I know, these Phantoms tend to look really dirty under their tail feathers. Lots of soot, mostly streaked in vertical direction. I want to have a 90% new looking paintjob for the high contrasting KAI F-4. I will do the rest of painting and decaling, before I decide, how far I go with my metal weathering. I'm pretty sure about a pin wash, but maybe add pigments and streaks.
The actual state is only the metallic base, where the materials show, with their heat treatment and their slightly uneven surfaces.

Cheers Rob

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11 hours ago, GusMac said:

Great finish Rob. I agree about the Extreme Metals, they are great paints. Currently I'm trying to work out which ones I need for a NMF P47.

Thanks Gus, these colors are great and will look perfect on your P-47. When I remember right, I used them first on my Dottie Mae P-47 some years ago. It was not without issues, but that was all my fault and I learned a lot since then, about how to work with metal color.

Cheers Rob

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9 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Great finish on the exhaust section of the Phantom. Looks like the real thing.

I've used the Xtreme Metal paints a couple times and do like them for their durability and ease of application like you said. 

Thank you Carl, it's a lot of fun to me, replicate metals and the Extreme Metals are the perfect tool for that. Among their realistic shines and mostly very fine grain, the best about them is, like you said, their durability. No fear about masking and working on them for weathering. I love working with trustworthy colors.

Cheers Rob

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RoB

 AK metallics are enamel based and Alclad are lacquer based. I’ve used both both years and do feel AK is a bit more durable but prefer the look and feel of Alclad. I finally received my clear coats that I was going to test for the P-51 NMF but that’s now on hold for many months. Right now the two leaders in a gloss clear coat that does not effect the NMF look are: Testor’s  Sealer for Metalizer (14090) and Alclad Aqua Gloss Clear (ALC 600) but nothing definitive now.

looking forward to your next update

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

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1 hour ago, kahunaminor said:

Very, very nice work and I am not a true fast mover builder. I can also attest AK Extreme Metals, I love them!

Thank you Kent, I remember the times, where I used diluted paints from different brands for metallics, which had a grain as coarse as street asphalt. Alclad's were a big step forward and some of their shades still have a better finish than Extreme Metal colors, but the latter are the complete package to me, durable, resistent, maskable and easy to use.

Cheers Rob

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38 minutes ago, Martinnfb said:

Talking about nmf. and pain availability. There was a time time when VEB Plasticart add a small tube of silver paint into their boxings. European colleges know what I mean, if I say “ Priceless memories :)

 

Being from West Berlin, I know these boxings from VEB only from pics. Are you sure it's silver color, not glue?

Cheers Rob

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