Tamiya F-4E Phantom II: Sharks Mouth 388th TFW, Korat, Vietnam 1968-69: DONE!

[CANicoll]

Carl, as usual you are a life-saver.  I was probably within a weekend of closing up the wings and was about to clear coat the bottom wing to start on the stencils.  Whew. 

Question about Nautilus - are they still in business?  The website has apparently not been updated since 2022?  I sent James and email.

[CANicoll]

Carl,  Do you know if there is a resin/3D part to replace kit part P1 - the Sidewinder Launch rails?  The kit parts seem too large, especially the mounting lugs to the pylons.  I looked into the Reskit parts, and their website, but I don't see any launch rails.   Thanks.  PS ordered the Nautilus jig. 

[BlrwestSiR]

Chris, I haven't heard of any issues with the kit Sidewinder rails. 

You actually need G11. Those are the LAU-7A that would have been in use at the time. If you do want to go AM Flying Leathernecks does some. Here's the Hannants listing but others should have them too. 

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/FL32-2039?result-token=MMJRr

If you haven't already, download the instructions for the F-4E kit here. They will help clear up some of the differences between the E and EJ. 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/tamiya-60310-mcdonnell-douglas-f-4e-phantom-ii--131015

[CANicoll]

Carl,  Found the G11 pieces but took me a while as I had put all of those sprues away and forgot where they were.  Thanks for the info.

There is a bit of a fit problem with the Reskit pylons.  The front of the wing connector sits very proud of the bottom of the wing.

Been working on it and here is where this is at for now.  Getting closer to having the 'wings' sit flusher with the wing surface.  I was about to start putting the stencils on the pylon but now want to wait to see how difficult it will be to attach the pylon to the wing.    I'm somewhat tempted to drill holes into the wing and pylon and use that to fasten the pylon to the wing...

This arrived yesterday:

Started on the painting.  Have a bit of touch-up to do as well as painting the noses black.

And here are the Sparrows, prior to the primer coat. I may need a smidgeon of filler on some of the fins and I need to clean up the nose points.  However, my adhesive work was miserable!  I need to do some touch-up work

[BlrwestSiR]

Some nice progress there Chris.

To get the pylon to fit better, you could try taping a piece of sandpaper to the wing and then use it to sand the pylon to the right contour. I would definitely pin it as well with a bit of metal rod. 

[CANicoll]

1 hour ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Some nice progress there Chris.

To get the pylon to fit better, you could try taping a piece of sandpaper to the wing and then use it to sand the pylon to the right contour. I would definitely pin it as well with a bit of metal rod. 

You are FULL of great ideas!!! Wish I had thought about that sooner.  Cheers!

[CANicoll]

Making progress on the pylons thanks to Carl's excellent suggestion.  Pretty close to where they need to be:

The left pylon has been sanded to shape, the right (back) pylon is un-altered.  That is a LOT Of material that needed to be removed.

Two views of the pylon after sanding.  It actually sits flatter than shown here.  I'm still thinking of screwing it in from inside the wing.  I don't think the Sidewinders will be very heavy, but the added tightness the screws would provide would help pull the pylon down to the wing.  May try this out tomorrow.

[BlrwestSiR]

Glad the suggestion worked out there Chris. The fit definitely looks much better. 

[FullArmor]

1 hour ago, CANicoll said:

Making progress on the pylons thanks to Carl's excellent suggestion.  Pretty close to where they need to be:

The left pylon has been sanded to shape, the right (back) pylon is un-altered.  That is a LOT Of material that needed to be removed.

Two views of the pylon after sanding.  It actually sits flatter than shown here.  I'm still thinking of screwing it in from inside the wing.  I don't think the Sidewinders will be very heavy, but the added tightness the screws would provide would help pull the pylon down to the wing.  May try this out tomorrow.

mighty sharp details 😮

[CANicoll]

8 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Glad the suggestion worked out there Chris. The fit definitely looks much better. 

Thanks Carl!  Hey, I heard that Nautilus is shutting down.  I had sent an email to the company, and the proprietor's wife said he suddenly passed in January and she's trying to shut down the company.  Very sad.  I'll post a message over in the appropriate forum.

Chris

[BlrwestSiR]

Chris, I saw your post. That really is unfortunate. No one else makes a jig for the wing dihedral but you could probably make a simple one. It's handy to have if you're doing more than 1 F-4 kit. 

[CANicoll]

Carl, I'm hoping this other AAA Hobby store will fill the order - I'm not clear of the relationship between Nautilus and AAA.  I'll give it a week and I've reached out to AAA.

Making some progress, but the intake seam is giving me some problems that will require some specific focus. In the meantime, focused on the Sparrows and repainting the underside parts.

Quick view of most of the progress off-fuselage.  By the drop tanks at the top of the picture are the correct G11 rails for the Sidewinders - still on the sprues.

Repainted the landing gear with the MRP white which appears to me to be brighter than the Vallejo while.  I have the Eduard Placards for the F-4 and they have some for the landing gear that it does not look like I have other decals for.

The Sparrows were repainted MRP White as the Vallejo White was too close to the underside grey (at least to my eye). The MRP is also sooo much smoother than the Vallejo.  Did a couple of coats of MRP Clear in prep for all of those missile decals/stencils.

Ditto for the pylons.  A couple of coats of MRP USAF Grey and then MRP Clear.  Again, the pylons are soo smooth so looking forward to seeing how the stencils will go down.  Will let this dry for a couple of days - so probably Wednesday for the decals.

And a reminder of the stencils to be applied.  What is interesting is that in the diagrams below there isn't that step at the front of the fuselage connection that I had to sand down on the part.

 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Where you're at in the build is often where my procrastination starts to kick in and I have to fight the urge to go onto something new. 

I haven't heard of AAA either so hopefully they can come through for you. 

[CANicoll]

I hear you on the procrastination part.  One big motivation is the July 3rd GB end date.  The fuselage - except for that intake gap - is ready for the next phase of camo.  But just hit something of a hiccup as my mother wants to move into an Assisted Living facility this month so I'm probably losing a fair amount of the bench time that I was planning on. Oh well!

[CANicoll]

Got the pylons (mostly) successfully stenciled (one minor hiccup).  These decals are (as you would hope) super thin but I did not tear a single one (of the 46!) applied.  I did accidentally fold one and thought I got it un-folded, then didn't.  In the end I ended up just taking it off since it will be under the missile rail anyway.  Have not applied the clear topcoat yet, but VERY hard to see any carrier film.  These Reskit decals are terrific.

And I didn't break a single stabilizer in the process.  I did break one when I initially removed all the 3D Printing stuff, and need to do a bit of a trim on a few of the pads, but otherwise the strategy of keeping the pylons on a Post-It note pad while working paid off.

 

Now it's time to dive into the camo scheme.  Wish me luck!  Back later with updates...

 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Those pylons look great. So many stencils on planes of that era. 

[CANicoll]

3 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Those pylons look great. So many stencils on planes of that era. 

Wait till we get to the aircraft!  As you know...

 

[CANicoll]

Camo mostly complete.  There is a story there but I will have to post that later.  The masks were good, but the fit was definitely off in many places.  I will detail that in a separate post after dinner.

The masks did work admirably well with NO bleed under at all so that led to having a very minimal amount of touch-up, all caused by me missing masking somewhere, Small pieces to fix so I'm very happy with the result.

The brown in the pictures does not appear as mottled as it is, and some of the dark green is darker than I would like but it had to cover the brown underneath.  The light green came out lighter in the pictures than on the aircraft.  I'll have to work on the photography, or maybe take a second look to make sure the depth is where I want it on the plane.  This looks too light to me.

The MRP Paints were amazing.  Masked after two hours, NO lift-off at all and coverage was very good.  I really like my Grex for this kind of painting.

Here is the masking sheet.

WHEW.  I MIGHT actually make the GB deadline.  I was thinking if it was July 2025 I'd have a real shot at it...

 

[CANicoll]

The camo masks worked very well, but seem sized for a different aircraft than the Tamiya 1/32 F-4 EJ.  Most obvious is the mask sheet shows a short-nosed F-4, not the long-nosed F-4E however several other masks also seem short.  This is not meant to be a complaint or a criticism of the Top Notch Masks - more a heads up for others.  The masks worked extremely well with no bleed anywhere I used them.

First example are masks 4 and 5.  4 is on the tail and 5 on the fuselage as shown in the second photo below.  Mask 4 on the tail should reach almost to the front.  Mask 5 on the fuselage should be nearly to the front of the tail.  (I smoothed out the masks after these pictures...)

 

Same with Masks 11 and 12.  Mask 11 should have reached nearly to the front of the tail as well (test fitted here) while mask 12 should have matched up to mask 11.

 

I cut some addl mask material from the sheet, taking advantage of the curves left from other mask cutouts to extend mask 11 to fit the tail.  (Sorry, hard to see below).  The purple tape is my go-to for large masking jobs - 3M painters tape.  Works great and is economical.

 

Similar issues are up front.  This was a test fit of the front mask which did not want to sit down on the fuselage when it was positioned as expected.

Eventually this is the masking for the dark green using lots of the pink tape to fill in as well as some pieces from the remaining mask sheet.  Those curves are very handy to extend the masks.

Prior to the masking, this was the first spray of the light green.  This is a better view of the early paint mottling. 

So again, the masks worked great, just that they seemed to be for a different aircraft model.  They adhered beautifully and I had no seepage under the mask anywhere despite the curves.  I was careful to keep pressing down the masks over anything protruding so that helped.  They were easy to apply and easy to remove and reposition as needed.  They seemed to stretch a bit but then went back to the original shape.  Just wish they fit the aircraft better.

Now on to the stencils...attaching the wing extensions to the correct angle....and the canopy....and the missiles... and the ALQ-87.....  Praying for an extension to the GB end date!

[BlrwestSiR]

You did a great job on the masks. Some folks don't like vinyl masks but I find they can be very forgiving with a bit of extra care/attention. Cutting up the waste material and using that to patch in the gaps is something I've done as well. 

 

[CANicoll]

7 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

You did a great job on the masks. Some folks don't like vinyl masks but I find they can be very forgiving with a bit of extra care/attention. Cutting up the waste material and using that to patch in the gaps is something I've done as well. 

 

Carl,  They definitely did a nice job and were pretty easy to use.  More forgiving than Kabuki masks.  They look to be reusable as well.

[CANicoll]

Now that the camo is basically laid down and most of the touch-up done, time to start on the stencils.  Taking a cautious approach with the Speed Hunter F-4 stencils as I've never used them before, and also the Reskit missile decals.

First the missile - the Reskit decals performed just as well as the stencils for the pylons, but with a bit more carrier film.  The black band stencils do not go all the way around, which seems strange so hope I put them on correctly.  Bonus how the Sparrows are attached to the aircraft so I can strategically place the gap in the band.

One down, three more Sparrows to go.  FOUR Sidewinders,  and the ALQ to go.

 

The Speed Hunter decals/stencils go down very easily - and seem fairly strong.  There. are. a. lot. of them...  I wanted to start small (and if I had half a brain, i would have started on the BOTTOM of the aircraft.  doh...) so worked on these flaps.  One of the hard parts is the use of white stencils on the green backgrounds.  White decals are HARD to see on the sheet.  However, looked at from a slightly different angle....

These decals are seriously glossy and I think they are kind of prone to silvering.  I used MicroSet but will see tomorrow how they look under a gloss coat.

Took a swing at the nose cone and the two tones of black.  The nose tip is Vallejo black which is a matte finish.  I have a bit of touch up but I like the effect.

AND, added the missile side rails to the pylons.  THAT was an adventure as the 3D Printed Pylons needed to be drilled to accept the narrowed kit launch rail's mounting lugs.  Since each rail will have a resin missile attached, I wanted to make sure the attachment point was pretty sturdy.  The 3D Plastic is a bit brittle when drilled - have to go kind of slow.  But in the end, I think it worked out pretty well.

 

The detail on the BOTTOM of the pylon is really impressive, too. Down to the plumbing.

LOTS more to come - and the clear resin canopies are going to be a whole another thing.  Started working on removing them from their pour blocks.  I should have started this a month sooner!

 

[Martinnfb]

Lovely work Chris, all those stencils are bringing an extra touch of realism to this kit.  Looking great!

Cheers 

Martin

[DocRob]

Great work Chris and I hear you about stenciling, have been there too and that caused a jet hiatus with me. The added Reskit racks and missiles look fantastic, way better than their plastic counterparts. Good to hear, that Top Notch masks are good to work with, but bummer with the sizing. I have some sets as well and will check them closely, when I start these builds.

Cheers Rob

[CANicoll]

Thanks Martin and Rob.  Learning a lot about jets and stencils - wow. It's a LOT of work! 

Rob - I think the main issue with the Top Notch masks is they do not differentiate between the various Phantom II models and I didn't catch the difference for quite a while.   I ran into a similar problem with EagleCal decals for the Tamiya 1/32 Mustang.  They had scaled up their 1/48 decals for Big Beautiful Doll - the nose checkers - however Tamiya changed the contours of the nose for their 1/32 kit.  Eagle sent me a second set after the first set didn't fit, and when that one didn't either (after sending LOTS of photographs and emails back and forth) they finally admitted they had not actually tried applying the decals to the 1/32 Tamiya plane and had only scaled up their 1/48 sheet.  I ended up having to use Zotz nose checkers which were not 100% accurate for BBD, but it got the job done. I don't think anybody can really tell the difference.  

Kind of the same for my F-4.  The Top Notch masks are not 100% accurate in size but I'm not that much of a stickler.  It LOOKS very much like the camo pattern used in Vietnam and that's good enough for me. 😉   I'd have gone mad if I had tried to do the camo pattern out of tape...  It was pretty easy to use the left-over mask material or just a bit of tape to extend the masks where needed.

I'm rethinking how I'm going to attach the pylons to the wings, however.  I was going to use screws, but if I do I think it will shatter the pylon.  Thinking now of cutting the mounting lugs off of the kit pylons, drilling the Reskit pylons to accept the lugs and then gluing the entire mess to the wing.  That is the plan for now!  A big factor is how well I can get the pylon to contour to the wing...  Stay tuned!