This is my F-4J
built OOB. It is marked as "Showtime 100" with Yellowhammer
decals. Affeciandos will recognize this as the warplane of LT Randy
"Duke" Cunningham on the day of his triple Mig kill that made him the
Navy's only Ace in Vietnam. I built it in flight so I could leave the
bombs off, so this would be the aircraft after the bombing run (but missing the
empty outboard pylons because the model did not come with any).
This model presented
several challenges, most of which resulted from my desire to build the
model in the 'in flight' mode.
First, there was
only one pilot figure. Fortunately I had a standing figure laying around
and with a little surgery I had a sitting figure. Second, the gear
doors were not designed for being shut. Some nice additions had been made
for a sitting rendition, all of which had to be removed for in-flight.
Further, there was nothing to hold the doors from falling in. I took some
strip styrene and built platforms inside the wells to hold up the doors. Third,
the cockpit, while adequately detailed, only had guides on one half of the
fuselage. Again using strip styrene I added supports to the other side and
anchored it firmly. Fourth, and hardest, the canopy is packaged in four parts.
Naturally, these did not fit well at all, having been designed to be raised and
not connected to each other. Ultimately I used a combination of
cryanocylate (is that a good tool to have!), Tamiya putty, and regular styrene
glue to mold a one piece canopy. After shaping with sandpaper I had a very
scratched canopy and it took most all of the tricks on this website to get
a good product.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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All of the panel
lines were raised, so I experimented with a new idea. I scribed right over
the old lines and then sanded off the raised lines. It worked well, but
the lines and rivets were shallow, presenting a problem for making them show up.
Fit was generally good, but as with most models, the intakes had bad seams.
After painting with
model master paints, I weathered in my favorite way with a light acrylic wash.
As I feared, the panel lines were to faint for a war time F-4 (always a dirty
plane). I remembered that alcohol can be used to remove ink stains, so I
took a fine point rollerball pen and traced the lines. Light rubbing in
the direction of airflow gave me good panel lines and
a bit more weathering.
Yellowhammer decals
rock. Nuff said. BTW, I built models for years growing up, but this
is just the fourth plane of my 'modern era.' All the tips on this site
were of vital importance, from cryanocylate to decaling to scribing. Thank
you ARC!
Scott
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