The Box

Opening the Box

Time set


Here we go with a landing F-4J on the CVA-43 Coral Sea.

More to come.

Means some aftermarket is on the way. 48ers have a real good delivery scheme, will be here on Tuesday.
First of all is some cutting, cleaning, etc.

Bob, the SNJ looks really cool, I like the yellow. About gloss or Mat, I don't know the real aircraft but in general airplanes are glossy but look matt from far away. It is one of those bitter debates whether it looks more real, considering scale effect, satin or matt for the finish.

Robert, sorry I can't help you with the aftermarket but I have done the Academy F-4 and I really enjoyed.

I am done, mixed feelings about the result. The model is simple but easy to put together. I am happy with the interior but I made a big mesh with the panel line wash and the result is quite gruby. I always make a mesh with my homebrew oil wash, I will try enamels next time, advise welcomed.

Here we go:





See you around,

Carlos

No worry Carlos. All is purchased and flying to my doorstep already.
Nice choice for the build btw.

Here I go with the hull and the flight deck about ready to be joined. This thing is really coming together quite smoothly

started with some cutting and little glueing. AIM-9 (2types done), seamless intakes OOB glued, cut out the exhausts parts, cleaned them and cut out the landing gears. The outer wing flaps were also glued together.
Landing on a deck means F-4's show the gear extended to recover from hard touchdown on the deck. So I have some cutting to do. Not the biggest fear of all time building. References show multiple detail. Will come in next update.
This is my work so far:


There is a delay for delivering my ordered AM,(of course), so I will continue with other plastic attachments, further detailing of the landing gear bays. Known lack of detail for this series of kits, but I know what to add.

Completed!

This kit really flew together, of course having extra time during the summer certainly helped. I really don't need any more airplanes and I wasn't impressed with the ones from this kit versus what I already have completed in 1/700 so I tossed them and will put a few of my existing planes on my Big E.

David, nice job and fast at that.

Bob

@Torpon

Excellent job Carlos!!!!

Progress with the F-4J.
Cut the nose landing gear in to pieces to 'release' the oleo to extend, also displayed is a part of the AM I will use.
Resin set of Air Vents, F-4J resin cockpit, resin pylons, and as usual the Aires parts need a lot of work, but part of the game you want to play I guess.
Some pictures:
Cockpit with the seats which are really nice and fit, I know from my F-4C kit.

Bit of a blurry picture. Landing gear cut to pieces.

After some work it looks to fit properly. Need to sand some more to get it flush. When done it looks much better with the engine detail inside.

To big for a straight fit, so concessions needed to make ik acceptable.


That's it for today, more to come later this week.

Carlos: That's a good looking helicopter sir!

David: Glad to see another flattop in the campaign. She looks great

Robert, nice progress so far. I have the Hasegawa 1/48 F-4B/N for the Phantom II campaign. Where did you obtain the aftermarket Seats and other goodies? I am having trouble finding them on this side of the pond.

Bob

The decals arrived for my SNJ. So now I can start the down hill part of the build.

I haven't done much modelling lately, but I figured I'd better post some pics of my Hellcat, cos it's such a simple model and paint scheme it will soon be done!

Here's the cockpit. Didn't go mad, as almost none of it will be visible.


And main construction complete, primed, rubbed down, and ready to be sprayed Dark Sea Blue

Well some progress on the F-4J.
I did some more cutting and glueing after that, to make the landing gear extended.
I gave up the idea of the resin cockpit and safe it for a later build. Instead I purchased a pilot set for the cockpit. Will use the resin as a 'master' to copy details that might be visible through the canopies, which will be a minimum.
Previous cut of the landing gear, ready for assembly.




And all glued in extended position


Working on the gear bays now. See if I can add a little more detail. Most of it will be hidden though For the cockpit I have some spares, both resin and PE.
The Academy kit is pretty straight forward, so once these details for a landing AC are finished, it will be pretty much done.
Big challenge to come for the wing, I have to alter the inner flaps in to landing position, means all the way down.
To be continued.

The Academy kit comes with pilots, look pretty good, but you have to apply the harness yourself. Too fiddly for me. So these guys, even without arms and head, already look much better. But, the visors are up, so I will bash the helmets with closed visors and oxygen hose, on top of these excellent sculptures.
Not even cleaned up, they look the part.

I figured out how to simulate the moment of touch down. One of the reasons to drop the resin cockpit for this build.
More to come later the coming week(s).

Those pilot figures look excellent

Figures come from Aerobonus. They actually fitted really well in the Aires Cockpit, as expected for their own sub branding. Writing this I'm already planning how to get that block of resin fitted into the F-4J. With a build still going on, also Academy, but a F-4C/D, it's a hell to get it in. Fact is that the detail is so outstanding good you want it inside the fuselage. I had a day off today for medical check in Thailand, means waiting, waiting and a lot of thinking about this build. Just see where my do or die attitude with this one goes.

Greetings all!

I’m in with an oldie, the Airfix TBD Devastator from 1969.

The kit came as a jumble of loose parts, but everything was there including the rather badly aged decals.


The very basic cockpit is typical of kits from the 1960s – but the thick canopy glazing should help me out here! The aircrew are the Airfix standard crew figures found in almost all their WWII airplane kits from the 1960s-70s. They actually look pretty good, and the well sculpted pieces should help distract attention from the primitive cockpit.

LOL, I've got that one in the stash. Someone tried to build it with PVA glue. I'm planning on building it with folding wings because I don't want to have to fill seams on corrugated wings.

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to filling those corrugated wings either! The fit of the parts seems good so far, though. Airfix's TBD is not a bad kit, but it is dated. I’ll be building this one almost out of the box.


Here’s the cowling with its good basic shape but mushy detail. One improvement I will be making is to scribe in the cowl flaps. As for adhesive, although PVA is an intriguing possibility, I'll probably just go for good old boring styrene cement!

The whole point of the TBD Devastator was its Bliss-Leavitt Mark 13 aerial torpedo.

The Airfix rendition of the torpedo has a good shape, but the tail fins are awkward and heavy.


I added new ones from sheet plastic.

Nice progress!

I am getting ready with my entry the A-6 Intruder in 1/48.

More to follow

Following @Jesper, I decided to use this model of Airfix for this campaign

20200815_120821 by Shaky962, en Flickr