This
is the excellent 1/48 scale Hasegawa F-4G Phantom. It is an excellent kit,
but the addition of several after market sets made it into a rather challenging
build - mainly due to the poor interaction of the aftermarket sets.
Added to the basic kit were a Black Box cockpit, Aires Wheel Wells and Seats,
Cutting Edge HARMS, Fine Molds Pitot/AOA set, Paragon Flaps/Slats, Seamless
Suckers Intakes, Eduard Photo-Etch, Sean Hull ALQ-184 Long ECM pod and
Leading Edge decals, all acquired over the years this kit has sat in my stash.
Since the Hasegawa kit is well documented, I'll cover my adventure with
aftermarket items.
The
Black Box cockpit is a standard for them: great detail and accuracy while being
difficult to fit. Hardest part for me was the fit of the Bear's (rear)
instrument panel. It was just too big. I had to cut the bottom
half off, cut the lower part in half and trimmed out a chunk of it before
re-assembling. The upper part JUST fit. The Aires nosewheel well
is very nice, with fantastic detail, however it is too deep to work with the BB
pit. I sanded the roof of the bay as thin as I could, and likewise with
the bottom of the cockpit, without success. I ended up sanding off the
roof of the nosewheel well, and when installed the floor of the cockpit
replaced this... Not like anyone would ever see it. I scratchbuilt boxes
and cabling inside the forward windscreen that is visible from my references -
not sure how well you could fly with forward visibility that bad! HUD
glass is made from a light-blue tinted clear page tab (the kind you slide a
label into). Canopy details are from the Eduard set.
The
BB seats didn't look right to me. Not anything I can point to in
particular. I replaced them with Aires ones - these were awesome!
This was my first experience with a photo-etched harness and I am a big
fan now. The other photo-etch details (handles, etc.) included with
the seats were fantastic.
I cut the nosegear strut at the steering point and turned it to
add a varied visual perspective to the kit.
The
Paragon fuselage set includes the slats and ailerons; I wanted to drop
the flaps as these would be down too with the slats extended.
The flaps / ailerons were cut off the kit; the lost material was
restored with strip and half-round Evergreen stock.
The
Aires main gear wells were again too deep. The roof of the wells was
sanded down and the upper half of the wings were also thinned then
attached with super glue and some strong clamps. The resulting bow isn't
too noticeable. The actuators, etc. included with this set have
very nice detail.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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Continuing
with the theme of this kit... the Seamless Suckers intakes are one of their
better efforts. They fit well... except the trunks didn't like the
Aires Wheel Wells. Ughh. More grinding away with my trusty Dremel
got everyone to play along. I don't think the carpet in my townhouse
will be the same. Some filler was required to smooth everything out, but
nothing too bad. Somewhere along this time I managed to break off and
lose the fuel dump pipe. This was rebuilt with plastic tubing and rod.
After
the above adveture, the model was assembled per the kit instructions.
Various parts of the Eduard set were added along with the excellent pitot/AOA
set from Fine Molds. I really like these as I'm sure I would have broken
the plastic nose pitot tube. Paint was a mix of Model Master and Alclad
II for the metal areas, with some pre-shading. After a coat of
future it was time for decals. The decals are nicely done, but for the
life of me I could not get them to stick to most of the model. After
trying every decal solution I had, I ended up gluing them to the model with
future... which worked OK. In the process I destroyed the walkways and
had to use the ones from the kit... and still lost part of a walkway. I
guess I've been doing something wrong with my application of Future - and have
since switched to Testors Gloss coat with no problems since. The tail
band doesn't quite match the kit's rudder scribing. Some of the panel
lines were post-shaded with pastels and the metal areas were given a greasy
wash.
Rolling
into the final assembly... actuators were covered with Testors Chrome Foil, and
the aerodynamic devices were re-installed. I scratchbuilt sway braces
for the inboard pylons with strip plasic and solder wire. The CE HARMS are
nice, but getting them straight takes skill due to the way they are broken down
(cut across the body). I did one fine and the other is close. They are no
nicer than those included in a Hasegawa F-16CJ and I would save the money
if you have those in your spares box.
Sean
Hull's ALQ pod is simply beautiful!! A must have for any model loaded with one
of these. I added the wing drop tanks and the F-15 tank for the centerline
that is included with the kit. To round it out 2 AIM-7's were added
to the aft bays.
Overall,
it came out as an impressive build. I like scratchbuilding/re-engineering
and the numerous aftermarket items provided this opportunity. I also
managed to pull of the best paint/weathering job I've done up to that time -
which is one of my weaker areas.
Don
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