RF-4B Phantom II

I really enjoyed building this Hasegawa model. The fit was generally good, and it was a very interesting subject - an unusual RF-4B with the thick tires, bulged wings, and large engine afterburner canisters of the F-4J/S. I like to call it an RF-4J.

There were a couple of things that I did not like about the model that I did have to change. The ejection seats were sparsely detailed, and the intake trunking was non-existent. I remedied this by getting some True Detail intakes and ejection seats. The intakes came with the intake fans attached, but they looked too shallow, so I cut them out, added some vinyl tubing to extend them back further, filed the intakes to fit the fuselage halves, and voila, the intakes looked much better.

The decals are from the kit, mostly because this was such an unusual subject that it limited the aftermarket options, this being the most colorful one. Most model paints are not that brightly colored so I had to search for the bright green paint for the tail. I finally found an enamel from Kustom Kolor called "Bright Green" that I think matched almost perfectly. The only problem was that the tail fin decals did not adhere really well, leaving a silvery film visible in certain lighting angles. I did my best to hide the film by using a lot of SolSet and painted the larger areas over with the bright green paint.

After everything was painted, decalled, and put together, I think that the model turned out very well. As mentioned before, I love the Gloss Gull Grey over Insignia White color scheme, and this RF-4 with the bright green tail does not disappoint.

F4D-1 Skyray

This was a model that I purchased on my mission in Russia ten years ago. I don't remember what the conversion rate was, but I do remember that it was cheaper than in the States. It is a very good 1/48 Tamiya kit. The wings came positionable up or down, the cockpit and wheel wells are very finely detailed, and the fit is nearly perfect. The only thing that I felt lacking was the intake trunking. I thought about adding in the ducts in, but decided that it looked well enough and made the kit straight out of the box.

Once I finished painting and weathering the interior pieces (jet intake fan, wheel wells, & cockpit) the rest of the fuselage pieces went together without a hitch. I didn't have to spend very much time filling gaps and sanding because it didn't really need it. I chose ahead of time that I wanted to show the unique wing shape as well as a folded wing by folding the port wing only. The other advantage to this was that I saved a little bit of shelf space for other models.

I love the U.S. Navy paint scheme in the late 50's, 60's, and 70's of Gloss Gull Grey over Insignia White, so naturally I was pleased with the look of this aircraft. The decals are Aero Master decals. I chose the VF-141 "Iron Angels" markings (Aero Master must have misprinted their instruction sheet because they say this was from VMF-542 which it obviously isn't). I chose them because I liked the unusual orange delta shape painted with the delta-wing. The decals went on well.

I wanted a simple armament package, so along with the drop tanks, I added the Sidewinder missles and that was it. I think the Skyray looks sleek but deadly with this set-up. Overall, I am very pleased with this model. No wonder it has been a popular kit.

AV-8B Harrier II Plus

I really wanted to build an early version Harrier, but nothing decent is currently on the market, so I went with the Hasegawa release of the latest version of the Harrier. Overall, this is a very good model. There were a couple of fit issues with the shoulder fins, but with careful gluing and a little bit of gap filler I was able to overcome this. The most noticeable trait of this kit was the incredible number of parts for such a small aircraft. It took me nearly 3 weeks to complete the build after painting and decalling because of all the accessories, antennae, etc. However, the final product is striking, even in a low-viz. scheme and markings.

The paint scheme is Light-Gull Grey under surfaces, Dark-Gull Grey upper, with the radome and leading edges of the pylons painted in a Medium Blue-Grey. I really like this scheme; it has a bit more blue hue that the US Marine Corps Harriers. Despite all of the different facets of the Harrier painting went quite easily with little touch-up. I tried a new technique (for me) to weather and accent the panel lines. I used a water-based Gunship Grey wash with a little bit of dish-soap to keep the paint from adhering where I didn't want it. After painting the lines, I let the wash dry, then used a Q-tip to wipe off the excess while leaving the wash in the lines. I used a black wash to highlight more prominent lines such as the landing-gear doors, intake vents, and flying surfaces. I am extremely pleased with the effect and will probably stick with this process for the majority of my models.

This subject carries the markings of the "Wolves" of the Italian Navy. I chose number 04 because I like the false canopy marking under the forward fuselage. I originally was not going to pose the model with missiles, but an AMRAAM-burdened Harrier is an unusual sight so I went with it. Plus, the representation of the missiles were very good. I also chose to put a pilot in the cockpit which I think turned out very nice. The pilot helmet was included, but not the torso so I used a torso from my Hasegawa RF-4B. After a little bit of trimming the pilot figure fit quite well. I wanted to pose the canopy in the open position, however it would not fit between the two large scoops just behind the canopy. So I closed it up and the aircraft is depicted the a take-off-ready configuration.

I am quite happy with this model. This kit was essentially right out of the box, and it makes a show worthy piece. I highly recommend this kit to Harrier fans, but I still hope somebody releases an early-version Harrier beacause I would love to do an example from the Faukland Islands conflict.

F-86F Sabrejet

This model is an old Monogram kit that my dad gave to me to occupy my time, and it did exactly that. I used the kit as an opportunity to expand my skills. I rescribed all of the panel lines, added in a resin cockpit and wheel wells, and scratch-built the intake cover and main landing gear doors, not to mention I'm still working out how to do a really nice bare-metal finish. I completed this model late in April, but just now had the time to get photo's and a blog written. (Writer's note: the photos were taken post "Hurricane Parker", where my 19-month old son tried to reverse-engineer the model piece by piece, so some repairs have taken place, along with some additional scratch-built parts, i.e. the control column and some landing gear door actuators.)

The first thing I decided to do to this kit to modernize it was turning the raised panel lines inside out. I used a #11 Exacto blade modified with some serations added in with a Dremel cutting tool as a scribing tool. The serations allow me to scribe around complex curves and the length of the cutting surface allow me to make very straight lines without a ruler. I just stuck a piece of masking tape along the line I wanted to scribe and started engraving. I turned the blade upside-down and used the tip of the blade to deepen the lines a little more, then sanded off the raised lines. I freehanded the round panels (refueling receptacle covers, inspection plates, etc.) going very slowly and using the raised line as a guide. Some of the panels didn't turn out quite perfectly and I probably could have gotten rid of some of them, but I think overall, the new lines look very nice.

I then decided that the sparse and shallow wheel wells wouldn't cut it, as well as the cockpit. I bought a resin cockpit by Legend Productions, and a resin undercarriage set by CMK - both designed for the Hasegawa kit and put them in. I had to do some additional cutting on the fuselage halves to fit the cockpit in, but this was relatively easy and the cockpit went in without a hitch. The resin wheel wells however were a bit smaller, although deeper, than the kit's wheel wells. Once I cut out the original wells, thined the plastic where needed, and glued in the resin wells, I had to fill in the gaps with styrene strips, superglue, and little putty. I sanded the seems smooth and the wheel wells looked just like they were part of the kit.

The air intake on the kit has a very shallow visual block the look of which I didn't like. I, lacking the skills to scratch-build the intake trunking, decided to make an intake cover, which would commonly be used on a resting aircraft anyway. So, referring to some photos I took of the mounted F-86 in front of the Utah ANG offices, I used a piece of styrene and some stretched sprue to make a home-made intake cover. I also decided that the main gear doors were too thick and large for the new wheel wells. I used styrene to make some thinner doors, which was relatively easy since the doors were basically flat.

By the time I had the model ready to paint, I was in a rush to get the model completed in time for the IPMS show. I painted the metal finish, then the stripes (next time I will do the latter first, then the former) and applied the Super Scale decals. I really liked the markings from the kit, but they were very thick and not well registered, so I found some decals of an aircraft from the same squadron by Super Scale, and I really like the tiger mouth. A few things that I would like to do differently if I made another one would be to take a bit more time with the finish, and I would also get an after-market canopy (the kit canopy looks a little funny to me now that it is on). Overall, though, I am extremely pleased with the improvements that I made to the original kit. Monogram models are great kits to work up because they usually need it, but always have a good base and plastic to work with.

Fw 190A-8

I finally finished my first installment of the 1/48 Eduard Fw 190A-8 and I have learned quite a bit about the kit to super-detail the second installment in the future. As advertised, the detail is already fantastic, but the kit is over engineered.

The most noticeable thing to watch out for is the fit of all those engine parts. The engine did not set in the proper position on mine so the fan blades protruded from the upper cowl about 1/16". I did my best to correct this, but it still wasn't perfect. However, I know to watch for this on the next one before I glue everything into position.

Some other problems to be aware of are the fit of all the parts in the wheel wells and the upper wing halves at the wing roots. I really had to sand down the tiny pieces in the wheel wells to get the wing halves to match up along the leading edge. Once I was able to get the wings together, I joined them to the fuselage and there was a bit of a gap along the wing roots towards the trailing edge. A little gap filler fixed this problem and then it was on to the gun access panel on the upper deck.

My only advice about the upper deck gun positions is this: leave the access panel in the open position. The piece does not fit, nor do the machine guns - I had to do a lot of work to get the panel to look decent in the closed position. If you want to build an excellent model of the Fw 190 with the gun panels closed, buy the Tamiya kit.

The rest of the assembly was very good as well as the decals. I was lazy and used the kit decals for the ID bands, but don't do what I did. The plane will look much better if the bands are painted on. However, the other decals were very good and I really enjoyed this build. I am so looking forward to my second chance to work with this model.

F-22 Raptor

This kit is the Italeri Raptor kit. Too bad that it is the only Raptor kit on the market because it needed a lot of work to make a decent model. The nice thing that Italeri did was to mold it with soft plastic. I read a review of the build and followed the steps recommended there to make the nose of the aircraft slant downwards correctly. (You can read the review by clicking here.) I, however, did use the kit cockpit and just spiffed it up a bit with the Eduard detail set. I also purchased Two Bobs' most recent (at the time; they now have a new sheet for the Alaskan Raptors) decal release - Tyndall's Raptors.

In addition to the Cybermodeler changes, I also decided to add some interest by repositioning most of the flying surfaces and the exhaust petals. After extensive research, most photos of the parked Raptor showed the eshaust petals in a "relaxed", wide-open position. This was a pretty complex endeavor, but with some excellent photos provided in the Two Bobs decal kit, styrene, and the Eduard update kit, I was able to make the exhaust nozzles look realistic enough.

The paint scheme was poorly indicated by both the Italeri and Two Bobs instructions, so I researched photos from the Air Force website, and used them to establish how the unique scheme was applied. The antennae surfaces are painted in a unique paint that I believe changed shade depending on the lighting angle which is impossible to replicate on a model, so I went with Two Bobs' recommendation and used Model Master FS36251, which turned out OK.

Since the lo-vis markings are purposely difficult to see, I decided early that I was going to display the aircraft with the missile bays open and armed for some more visual interest. I think that this was a wise choice, even though the bays and missiles were inacurrate and bare. I also tried to tint the canopy with my own thinned mixture of Future polish and Tamiya Titanium Gold with the metal flecks filtered out. I think it turned out well for an experimental kit, but I will need some more practice before I try the process out on a model that I would like to display publicly. Overall, I enjoyed my first time cutting up, detailing, and putting back together a subpar kit to make it better. This model probably wouldn't win any contests, but I think that I was successful to make it better than if I had built it right out of the box.