1/72 Hasegawa McDD F-4E Phantom II

Gallery Article by Eric BADE on Sept 27 2010

 

1/72 Hasegawa McDD F-4E Phantom II – Hellenic Air Force

This Phantom is the second F-4 model I present on ARC. The first one was a short nose QF-4N and it was also built from the Hasegawa toolings. 

http://www.arcair.com/Gal6/5301-5400/gal5386_QF-4N_Bade/00.shtm

The F-4 Phantom series is one of the most famous jet fighters series and more than 5000 have been built.

Following my short nose NAVY Phantom I wanted to build a long nose version, and if possible one that was still flying at the time of building my model.

I am fond of the Ghost livery of Greek machines and I have always been attracted by ultimate versions of fighter aircraft. A modernized Peace Icarus 2000 Phantom looked like the way to go. 

Although I had shortlisted my project, it was the information I got from two Greek ARCers, Double Ugly (Nikos) and mmaker (George) that really allowed me to start this project. The final little things that gave me the final boost were the 2 tiny intake ECM fairings, of Hasegawa NAVY Phantom origin, that my friend Daniel T. from Paris offered. Let all three be thanked today.

 All my Phantoms are built from the Hasegawa moulds. They are very sharp and complete kits. A few comments can be made about the fact that the cockpit would need detailling and underwing stores are limited to tanks. Still, as far as the airframe and accuracy are concerned, the Hasegawa F-4s are amongst the best. Shapes are alright and panel lines are delicate.

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Building starts with the cockpit. New instrument panels are built with a mix of photo-etched parts and plastic card. New instruments are built to represent the TV screens that replaced some analog instruments in modernized machines. Although Hasegawa ejection seats are quite accurate, I elected to replace them with more detailed resin seats.

Next stage is common to all my Phantom models. Airbrakes are drilled and their shapes are cut from the ings, as are ailerons (that is not exactly what these surfaces are on Phantoms) and auxiliary air intakes. These surfaces are open or deflected on a Phantom at rest. Airbrakes are rebuilt from photo-etched parts as found in the Eduard sets. Auxiliary doors are rebuilt from plastic card while a careful cut can save you the flaps.

Fuselage is built enclosing cockpit. I don’t quite follow Hasegawa instructions here. I prefer building half fuselages, mating right nose/right front fuselage/right rear fuselage to build half fright fuselage. I believe this ensure better seams. I then do the same with left parts. When both half fuselages are adjusted, I enclose cockpit sub-assembly and cement parts together. I find adjustments are easier that way.

Wings are added at this stage.

That is when I start working on sub-assemblies. Landing gears are detailed with stretched sprue and thin metal wire. Most parts are painted white with a dark brown wash. Oleos are painted silver.

Model engine exhausts are traded for Aires resin exhaust. They are more detailed and add to realism. Painting is a mix of dark grey, metallic shades and black.

I do not like my models with heavy underwing loads. This Phantom shall be built with underwing tanks. Wing tanks are painted differently, as sometimes was the case on Greek machines, probably due to their various origins and camouflage. Fuselage tank is the later F-15 type.

Back on main airframe : start to prepare my model for painting! All adjustments are refined. Filling, sanding and polishing are done to prepare model. Antennas and fairings are added. Doors and pylons will be left aside for separate painting.

I never use pre-shading on my models and all weathering is done after the original camo scheme is applied.

I used Icarus decal sheet on this project. Documentation calls for FS 35237, 36307 and 36251 as being camouflage colours, nose cone being FS36320. Most paints were Gunze acrylics with Tamiya acrylics in a few instances.

* FS35237 : available in the Gunze range (H337). I lightened a bit with some drops of H307 (FS36320) for the main camo. I darkened on a few spots using Tamiya XF-18 (medium blue)

* FS36251 : not available but reasonably close to cockpit grey FS36231 (H317) - added some drops of white to lighten a bit

* FS36307 : not available but I used light gull grey FS36440 (H325) which looked OK in 1/72nd scale due to scale effect. It might need a drop of a darker grey in bigger scales like FS36231 - H317. Also, my weathering used a very light spraying of a back wash mist, and played it role in darkening and merging camo colours..

* FS36320 : I actually used FS36375 (H308) due to scale effect.

These are for main base colours. These colours were altered in spots with drops of blue, white or grey I then start to work on panels, altering basic colours either darkening or lightening them with approaching colours. (example adding FS 36320 in FS35237 or WW2 Intermediate blue in FS3537). Panels are painted, starting to give model a patchwork effect.

Touch ups are added along some panel lines, generally using an approachnig but different grey (generally a lighter grey). Airbrush is tuned to paint thin lines

This is achieved slowly, avoiding any symmetrical effects.

Decaling is started along the way, when main camouflage is painted but before all weathering is done, sometimes blending some decals with a very thinned spray of main camo paint.

Panel lines are then enhanced with very thinned sepia, black or dark grey oil based paint as my base camo is Gunze aqueous paint. This means I can wipe out excess paint from my panel lines with no risk for my main paint as thinners are not compatible..

Mechanic stains (shoe soles, hands..), oil, grime, soot, are mimicked by a very thinned black paint spray : I would rather call this mix coloured thinner than thinned paint. Airbrush is set to minimum width spray (1 to 1.5 mm ie 0.05 or 0.1 in – as narrow as I can). I spray areas were crews walk : upper air intakes, main fuselage, upper wings (avoid spoilers, flaps and slats). Also areas under cockpit around hand grips or footsteps.. Then I touch up again with small light grey dots over the dark stain effect : the clean over dirt, dirt over clean cycle.

Model is then sprayed with a very thin uneven layer of matt varnish.  

A few details are added as gear doors, airbrakes, antennas, external lights, pylons and stores to complete this project.

I am adding a few newer photographs of the QF-4N at the end of this gallery.

Eric BADE

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Photos and text © by Eric BADE