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Being a Turkish citizen, I always wanted to
build a Turkish jet model. Which one was not a hard question, The legendary
F-4 Phantom was the quick answer.
The toughest part of building a Turkish plane
was (and maybe still is) to find or make the decals. There is no correct and
complete Turkish F-4 decal set around. Recently CAM decals (www.camdecals.com)
has released a Turkish F-4 decal set but there are some serious errors in
it. The roundels are wrong size and there is an obvious typing error on the
"rescue" stencil. There are no stencils included (which should be
in Turkish Language)
I tried to correct the errors using Kedi Decals'
F-4E sheet ( www.kedidecals.tripod.com
). These decals were correct compared to CAM sheet, but they were a little
translucent. I overcame this problem by laying 2-3 of them over each other.
I used Hasegawa's "1/48 F-4E 30th
Anniversary" kit to build my phantom. As usual, I put every detail set
I can find into the model. There are some advantages and disadvantages using
detail sets. I like them because they help me build a model normally I do
not have the skill, patience and time to do. On the other hand, they
generally require modifications to the kit and they generally do not fit
well so the building time will be long and the process will be prone to
errors. (Which exactly was the case on this kit.)
I used the following detail sets:
- Black Box cockpit set:Typical Black Box
quality. Very good and crisp details but does not fit into the kit.
Required lots of sanding on the cockpit area.
- Eduard photoetched detail set: Very good and
detailed set, but most of the set is for the cockpit. If you use the Black
Box set, you will end up with lots of spare photoetched parts.
- Verlinden F-4 update set: Contains resin and
photoetched parts for access panels on the forward fuselage, radar, gun,
ejection seats and some cockpit details. The modeler supposed to build the
gattling gun using plastic rods and photoetched pieces, but I used syringe
needles for a more detailed gun.
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Aires nozzle set: Just
superb. Very well detailed and fits very good.
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Aires undercarriage
set: Contains landing gear wells and doors. The nose landing gear is a
drop-in replacement for the kit parts but the main landing gears
require some cutting and sanding on the kit part. Molded on wells
should be removed, but Aires' main gear wells do not fit well on the
wing.
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| Fit of the Hasegawa kit was a
little problematic, too. (Maybe because of the detail sets). A lot of
putty and sanding job was required especially on the wing/fuselage joint
and the air intakes. I got rid of the seams using various grits of
sandpapers and rescribed the lost details using a sewing needle attached
to an X-Acto handle. I checked the seams by brushing a little silver onto
the seams |
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Flaps of phantoms normally drop when they are
parked. The inboard flaps are clamped to horizontal position using a lock.
(The yellow and black thing on the pics). On most of the pictures the
inboard flaps are horizontal, and the outboard flaps drop. On one photo I
have seen this clamp and decided to replicate it using sheet styrene. It's
just an U-typed shape with a "remove before flight" flag on it.
I masked the cockpit and landing gear wells
using UHU tac. This material is very well suited for these kind of jobs and
comes off without problems even months later.
After the
seam job was complete, I primed the model using some Tamiya acrylic. I
usually do not prime my models, but because of the modifications, priming
was required on this kit. I discovered some areas which needed touchups.
I airbrushed the SEA camo colors (FS
34079 FS 34102 FS 30219 FS 36622) freehand using Testors enamels
and my Paasche VSR90 airbrush. It took one week to complete the job. After
the paint job was complete, It seemed to me that the tan color does not look
correct. It was too pink. I mixed some yellow and brown into it and
airbrushed tan areas again.
After the painting process, I coated the model
with acrylic gloss clear. I used most of CAM decals, roundels and rescue
stencil of Kedi decals and some major stencils from Hasegawa kit. The
stencils should be Turkish, but they are not much visible anyway.
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I coated the model again with gloss clear to
make the decals level. Then comes the matt clear and weathering part.
Especially the undersides of the F-4's look very dirty because of the light
colors, and I tried to replicate this by making the model "dirty".
I used powdered dry pastels for this purpose. Just apply them with an old
brush and wipe in the flight direction, it's easy. Using rubber gloves helps
for this job, because it's easy to leave fingerprints on the pastel. I
sealed them by matte clear coating the model again.
| I masked the slime lights
using Tamiya tape, painted them yellow and put Eduard frames on them. |
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Testor's
aluminium metalizer was used for the exhaust area. I masked some areas of
the exhaust using Tamiya tape (I masked over the metalizers for the first
time, contrary to the comments on the discussion board, they weren't
affected. I did not burnish the tape much, maybe this helped). Some shade
difference was done by dusting titanium metalizer over the masked areas and
then applying some pastels onto the exhaust, too.
The last stage was to put on the
various bits and pieces and detail the opened areas. I used various fishing
lines and wires to detail the access panels and radar. A opened up bird is very
unlikely to have weapons installed, so I put on only the fuel tanks and a travel
pod. (Maybe this aren't allowed too but otherwise the model will be too empty).
I used the old style F-4 tanks which are still on use on the Turkish air force.
Putting laser printed RBF flags completed the model.
The aircraft I have modeled (77-0306) has
recently been upgraded to the F-4E 2020 terminator standard by Israel
Aerospace Industries and has now a Hill Grey paint scheme on it.
Kaan
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