Been a member for a while but only been lurking on the forum up till now. I've been modelling ever since my dad and I built a 1/72 P-38 on the dining table and mostly just painted the table
, and probably in the last ~10 years I've actually been taking it seriously. Which brings me to this kit - the absolutely brilliant Tamiya F-4B: this kit is as close to perfect in terms of fit and any issues were entirely on me. That's not to say it's all perfect - I am not a big fan of Tamiya decals because they tend to be on the thicker side so instead I used a couple of AM sheets:Furball Aero Decals 1/48 US Navy Phantoms of the Vietnam War: https://www.furballaero-design.com/Prod ... ode=48-076
AOA Decals 1/48 Phantom Airframe Data (Stencil type): https://www.aoadecals.com/48013/home.htm
From the Furball sheet, I chose to build the CAG bird from VF-84s 1965 deployment on USS Independence. AG200 originally had a grey and white tail with a white on black Jolly Roger and yellow fuselage stripe, but seems to have been repainted at some point in 1965 with an all black tail with white markings and a yellow on black stripe. It was a struggle finding images of AG200 in this scheme - most of the images I could find were of the VF-84 F-4Js, or of the previous scheme.
The main upper fuselage colour is MRP-098 Light Gull Grey with various MRP colours used for pre/post shading. The underside colour is MRP-004 white with post shading with MRP-257 Clear Doped Linen. The black nose and tail are MRP-005 and the yellow is MRP-142. Various other MRP, GSI and Tamiya shades were used here and there for colour variation, post shading.
The weathering was done with with AK enamel panel line washes, Abt 502 oils and water colour pencils. I don't have any evidence that AG200 ever got this dirty and as the CAG bird for the squadron it was probably taken care of more than other jets, but given they were deployed for a lot of time in the Tonkin Gulf on board Independence it's not hard to imagine it getting dirty. I kept weathering to a minimum on the top side concentrating on staining in the walkway are wing root areas, some panel fading due to the sun and modest streaking.
The Furball decals turned out great in the end, but I had trouble getting them to conform at first and they shrugged off my usual decal solutions (Mr Softer/Setter Neo) so I used the nuclear option of the Tamiya Mark Fit Super Strong which definitely got them to settle but was pretty much a one shot approach so I had to get the position right first time. The main markings came from the Furball sheet and all the tiny stencils were from the AOA sheet - it was really tedious doing these, but a Phantom isn't complete without them
The "shield" behind the Star and Bar on the intake is for the Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club - a nickname for the US 7th fleet which spent a lot of time from 1961 onwards in the region
The characteristic metal work at the rear was again done with MRP metallics over an LP-1 base. I used a variety of their metallic colours to give some panel variation and then used various clear tones (blue, brown & smoke) for the heat staining on the stabilators and the main fuselage. Finally I applied thin coats of exhaust soot over the fuselage. Final weathering was done with oils.
While I try to dip my canopies for clarity/protection - I couldn't get the Future/Pledge to dry correctly and stay on the canopy like it did with the F-15C - I think that something about the shape was causing surface tension issues and causing the Future to bead up and run. So this one has been polished with Novus 3 step plastic polishing compounds and the shine/clarity is still pretty good. I've left the canopy loose to allow access to view the interior which is very detailed due to the Quinta set, but mostly invisible with the canopy in place
A closer look at the ordnance - the ResKit and Eduard TERs lined up pretty well and with some brass pins they fit well - the bomb weathering has been kept pretty minimal since unlike 'Nam based Phantoms which had large outdoor weapons storage, carrier ordnance was stored internally.
The characteristic heat staining pattern on Phantom rear fuselages was replicated with 0.7mm Aizu tape over the bare metal before the heat staining colours were applied. Once done and the tape removed, all the panels received the same soot/smoke treatment.
Thanks for looking!
