1/32 Tamiya kit of the F-4J Phantom II

Gallery Article by Fabio Bongiorno on Sept 7 2010

 

Hi to everybody. This is my first time posting on ARC and this is the first time ever building a 1/32 scale model.  The subject is pretty well known, especially for the paint scheme.  I chose the excellent Tamiya kit of the F-4J Phantom II.  I built it strictly out of the box except for resin seats and decals.  The choice for the first aftermarket piece was made by Paragon Design resin seats, the second for Yellowhammer decal set.  Seats are well done and come with a very good details such as seat belts and no bubble on resin.  Decals are good as well and the sheet gives you opportunity to have enough to build two planes with different schemes, "Black Bunny" and an experimental navy paint livery. 

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I started building the cockpit adding only scratch built minor details such as gear handle and mask/oxygen tube; the rest of the plane building went down pretty much without any problems. The air intakes are not extremely smooth and you can see the seem inside. I discovered later aftermarket products for this part, even some pretty intake covers.  A good heads up for next time.  At construction completed I started with painting the wheel wells first, using Humbrol enamels.  At first matt white and then semigloss.  I then painted the bottom part of the tail and stabilizer with Humbrol metalizer (metalcote).  I waited a day to dry off completely and polish it with a cotton cloth.  The result is not bad.  Masking these painted parts I gave to the whole plane a layer of Tamiya grey primer.  The day after I applied matt black to the whole plane.  I repeated this process for two times.  Making sure that the paint was completely dry I sprayed black gloss paint using the same technic as before. I  tried to obtained an effect close to the real one, at least looking to some pics founded on the web.  The original plane seems not to have a complete and uniform shining black paint.  Before applying decals I gave to the plane Model Master clear gloss paint.  Decal posing was fine but sometimes some decal had the problem to break apart even using decal solvent. I tried to fix it at my best.  A clear gloss paint again to seal the decals. 

The base is made from wood and the construction was pretty simple.  I wanted to represent it on a piece of taxiway, kind of open air museum.  The concrete is made by pieces of Verlinden plasticard glued with vinylic glue and painted with stone grey acrylic spray can. I airbrushed with Tamiya smoke to give some weather effect.  The grass is made by railway model stuff and I added the squadron print of "Vandy One Black Bunny" to complete it. 

Hope you like it! Happy modeling from Italy.

Fabio Bongiorno

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Photos and text © by Fabio Bongiorno