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I've long been an admirer
of the models I've seen here on ARC, and have finally completed one I thought
was worth sharing. It's no show-stopper; I'm no perfectionist and this
thing fought me every step of the way. It's also a first for me in several
respects. It's the first time I've used homemade decals (other than simple
numbers), and it's the first real conversion I've ever tried. The
model is essentially the Revell RF-4C kit, with some help from Tamiya, Cutting
Edge, a few helpful ARC'ers, and some sources I've long forgotten. I did
not make every change necessary to convert a -C into a -B, but what I am going
for is "Yeah, that is SUPPOSED to be an RF-4B".
I've always been
partial to the green-tailed bird depicted by the 1/48 Hasegawa
kit. This model has the long J-79 burners, slatted stabs, and main landing
gear reinforcments on the wings. I could only find a couple of pictures of
the green-tailed RF-4Bs, none of which had the tail number of the Hase kit. (Or
is that bureau number? I'm an AF guy!) The pictures I found
all had short cans and unslotted stabs. I built mine with the long cans
and slotted stabs and elected not to use the gear reinforcements. OK, the
gear reinforcements I just forgot. Is my model accurate? Who knows.
As usual, I started
with the cockpit. I know the kit's cockpit has some problems, but as I was
not going to display the thing with the canopies up, I did not spend a whole lot
of time on it. I did add some aftermarket seats, though I don't remember
the brand. I also raised the rear seat, though not enough, and added the
sidewall from the Tamiya F-4J kit. From three or four feet away it looks
great!
The antennas on the
intakes came from the Cutting Edge F-4B conversion set, and the antennas on the
airframe underside came from the Tamiya kit, as did the fin cap and external
tanks. The afterburner cans came from the Revell F-4E kit, and though
I'm not totally satisfied with how they turned out, they probably look better
than most I've made. I spent a lot of time filling and sanding seams, and
there are a few that could've used even more time. I scribed both the
photo-flash doors on either side of the tail, and the refueling door on the
right side of the front fuselage. That refueling door was the first time I
scribed something other than a lost straight panel line, and I gave up after
three tries. Each successive try was worse than the previous attempt.
Try number one wasn't all that bad, actually!
Click on
images below to see larger images
The kit came with some
rudimentary cameras that are quite visible when finished, so I added a few
details. This consisted of only a few rivets, decals, and a clear lens for
each camera, but I think they look much better than the OOB cameras.
You can actually still see some of that detail behind my fingerprints on the
clear camera cover pieces! Those pieces fit quite well; the problems I had
were all my of my own devising.
The landing gear is a
Frankenstein-type creation using parts from Revell, Tamiya, and Cutting
Edge, with some aluminum tubing and cast resin bits thrown in. Before my
patience hit the wall I'd hoped to busy the struts up a bit with some
wiring, but that was one of the first casualties when my "That'll Have to
Do" attitude set in. From the other side of the room you can't even
tell anyhow.
The paint job was just how I like
'em- one color. Well, two if you count that green tail. The Testors
green enamel in the little square bottle was a fairly close match, I thought,
though I did mix in a little gray. I used Model Master Acryl Gloss Gull
Gray for most everything else with no problems. Except for the radome that
is....I noticed while I was taking the pictures that I put it on upside down!
I removed it thinking the repaint wouldn't take that long. It didn't, if
"that long" to you means four paint jobs and five weeks.
I'm not convinced it looks better now than when it was on upside down.
The decals came from a variety
of sources: CAM, Tamiya, my spares box, and my inkjet printer. I've
printed numbers and letters in the past using Testors decal paper with good
luck, but this is the first time I've ever done anything more elaborate.
The foxhead, letters, and chevrons on the tail took several attempts, and are
not perfect, but I am satisfied with them. I enlarged some Mircroscale
decals to 1/32, printed them on Testors clear decal paper that I had sprayed
with Tamiya gold spray paint, then traced the black outline of the letters
and figures with a black Sharpie. I then wiped away the water-soluable
printer ink with a damp cloth, leaving behind the water-proof Sharpie ink.
The last step was carefully cutting out the decals; this proved to be the
hardest part for me, and was the part where I lost a bit of the detail. I
still think they turned out reasonably well.
I clear-coated the model with
Future, and weathered things a bit with an oil wash, with mixed results.
For some reason, the numbers I printed on the decal paper reacted negatively
with the wash, and I ended up re-printing those. The weathering
ultimately turned out fair. It's not as good as I'd like, but better
than I expected.
This was the first time I've
photographed a model, and it's a lot harder than it looks! They say
the camera adds ten pounds, but I think it adds seams, blemishes, and silvered
decals too. After the giant sheet of cardboard I was using as a
background got away from me and flipped the model over, I thought about
making a crash scene diorama. But you can hardly see those blobs of super
glue....
John
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