1/48 F-4G Wild Weasel

[JimD]

That's a dang good picture. Better than what I have in the Detail and Scale book. Could have used it a while back. Can't wait to see what you do with the seats...the Eduard fabric belts are...fun.

[doogsatx/]

Started painting the burner cans last night and discovered to my chagrin that the Aires resin has a rough and bumpy surface texture - at least on the finely detailed exhaust bits. Which...sucks.

Guess I'll go throw money at the Eduard ones.

[JimD]

Sigh...just no winning with Aires lately it seems. You can rest assured with the Eduard pieces...at least if they are as good as the Early nozzels...they should be really nice.

[doogsatx/]

Jun 8, 2015 11:08:49 GMT -5 JimD said:

Sigh...just no winning with Aires lately it seems. You can rest assured with the Eduard pieces...at least if they are as good as the Early nozzels...they should be really nice.

I will say...I do like their Mk.7 bangseats quite a bit. But I'm also adding Eduard fabric belts to them, so...

But yeah, in general I find that, for all the beautiful detail, Aires can be rather sloppy. The crummy texture on the burner cans is one of those dealbreaker-level events. It's not like you can sand them smooth, unless you're cool also losing all the detail you bought them for in the first place.

Oh well, Eduard cans ordered. Work continues!

[doogsatx/]

Seats are still WIP, but I'm calling the rest of the cockpit done!







Installed in the fuselage...



Start on closing the fuselage (mainly around cockpit and front gear bay at this point)

[wbill76]

Looks like it's all coming together nicely Doogs. Detail level in the cockpit is impressive, especially the RIO station.

[wing_nut]

Impressive cockpit. Looks great.

[Leon]

Cockpit looks aces Doogs! Have one question...Are all the toggle switches PE or kit parts?

[ironhand6]

I have been following this build and I cant stress enough how great of a modeler you are. you are doing my favorite AC justice

[doogsatx/]

Fuselage closed! Wings test-fitted and they seem pretty solid. Not a fan of how the stabs fit, though, and may need to address that.

[aeroaustin]

look so good so far..

[JimD]

The stab attachment does leave a little to be desired. Does the kit let you slide the splitter plates in after the intakes are on? Never thought to try it on a Hasegawa...did that with the Academy and it made painting sooo much easier.

[doogsatx/]

Yeah the splitters slot in from the front. Considering that I'll be using FOD covers, I figure what the hey.

[JimD]

Yeah the blanked out intake just doesn't cut it by today's standards.

[doogsatx/]

Got a start on painting the Eduard burner cans last night - Tamiya X-1 as a base, and then Alclad Magnesium. Looking at them this morning, I think they need to be darker. Perhaps not as dark as Alclad Steel, but Magnesium seems a bit too bright.

[doogsatx/]

Been dark for the past couple of days...just hard to steal laptop time during the weekends it seems!

Had some fun the past few days with the Eduard burner cans. Alclad steel was a bit too dark, and I wanted some subtle contrast between the petals, sooo...





Yikes! I wanted contrast, but not THAT MUCH contrast. Thinned Magnesium with a few drops of Steel calmed it down, with some Hotmetal Blue providing an early basis for heat stains.



Moving back to the ship itself, I got the wings glued in place last night. Yay!





I've also been playing with the pylons. Still a ways to go, but the holes have been drilled between the launchers and pylons and they fit wonderfully. I'm absolutely in love with the way the Mavericks and HARMs are designed to slide onto their launchers. Completely trouble-free installation.



We're supposed to get hit by a tropical storm tonight, so there's a chance I may not get any bench time at all. And if I do, it'll be another no-paint night.

[John Everett]

Best of luck with the weather. Rain or no rain, the Phantom is looking great.

[JimD]

Those Eduard pieces look great. And they just slide on? Wonderful. Looks like I need to grab some of these for later.


So far the storm has been completely underwhelming here. Al least compared to how the local news is trying to sell it. We are a good ways north and the south part of the city is flooding, but we are ok. Hopefully, you don't get hammered too hard in Austin.

[doogsatx/]

Yeah we could be looking at anywhere between 3-8 inches. But it's been so hyped I wouldn't be surprised if we only get drizzle.

[doogsatx/]

And yeah, the missiles just slide onto the launchers. The Mavericks won't need so much as a lick of glue. The HARMs might since there's only one small slide "grip" on the missile and its well back of the center of gravity, but still, love the setup.

[JimD]

Well our problem is all the rain that we got a couple weeks ago. Our yard was still damp..it's not even raining here right now. Haven't even looked at the radar, so you may get more of it...but if we are any indication I'd just expect to not be able to paint....I can't imagine it's going to cause much real trouble.

[doogsatx/]

Well, Bill was a bust. We got some rain, but at least as long as I was awake it was mostly spit. Typical Texas - it's the storms the weather forecasters don't freak out about that really dump.

Anyway, ongoing bench fun. Lots of mucking about with armaments and exhausts again last night. Highlight is that I got the AGM-65s assembled!



Again with the annoying butt-join, but I have to say, with the AGM-88s, these are some of the best looking weapons I've seen in any scale.

[doogsatx/]

Fun with the engines last night. After I had to use the phone's awful flash to capture up the tube, I figured enough is enough.



Glued on the cans and test-fitted...not bad.

[wbill76]

You're right about the Texas weather-forecasting Doogs...around here, if they say 20% chance of rain it will cause flash flooding...50% chance or higher and usually we get nothing.

Weapons and cans are coming along nicely, at least you're at the stage where you can build even if not paint to keep things moving along.

[deafpanzer]

Those missiles just look fantastic! Looking forward to more...

[DeafStuG]

Cockpit - Looks good.

[doogsatx/]

Life has been massively conspiring against bench time recently. First, work, and then a long weekend out in the country for the 4th.

There's also the matter of an upcoming magazine build - have everything in place, just waiting for the kit to arrive, so I'm trying not to get too far down the path on these other jets.

But...work continues. Kind of.

First up - MOAR putty. This thing's fuselage is a putty alcoholic.



Then...adding anti-sways to the pylons. The kit parts are just awful. So I stole bits from the Hobby Boss Intruder and, with some surgery, fixed them to the F-4 pylons.





The pylon fit to the fuselage is pretty suspect on the Hasegawa kit. Considering that Hill scheme won't mean much in the way of masking the area, I went ahead and glued the pylons in place. The Eduard missiles and their launchers are full removable, just in place for show here.

[JimD]

Really like the look of this loadout. The Eduard stuff looks great

[venom1]

Those weapons are sensational! Very impressed.....

Cheers,

Sam

[Deleted]

Incredible work!