1/32 Tamiya F-4D PHANTOM  RoKAF

by Wayne Bowman

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This is my effort for 2000-2001. It’s Tamiya’s 1/32 F4C/D kit. I decided that I wanted a scheme that was “out of the ordinary” so I chose an RoKAF F4D, operated by the 151st TFS/17th TFW at Taegu AB in South Korea.

 I was quite excited when starting this kit. I had heard so many great reports about it. I thought it was going to be one of those magical “throw an open tube of glue in the box, shake it around, and out would come the completed product” type of models. On opening the box I was duly impressed with both the level of detail of the moldings and also with the breakdown of the parts (ie the one piece upper fuselage shell). There I was thinking, “this is going to be a breeze. Maybe I’ll be able to do two models this year!!!”

But then reality struck. I found some very strange anomalies about this kit, not the least of which was identical parts, left and right side, one of which would fit perfectly while the other was not even close, the intakes being one such example. The aft profile of the starboard part was a perfect fit to the mating fuselage section while the profile on the port side was out by at least .050” at the roll of the fuselage. Ahhh, and then there were the intake ducts. I can assure you that the fit is as poor as everyone has previously reported. If you haven’t started this project yet and can find the Seamless Suckers or Cutting Edge intakes (I couldn’t), I recommend that you buy them. The other option, which I am in the process of, is to make yourself some intake covers. If you can’t fix the problems, hide them, I always say!!  

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The cockpit went together very well. I did some scratch building to add some plumbing and hardware to the sidewalls and fwd. side of the RIO’s instrument panel. I also replaced the kits decal instrument faces with some from the Waldron range. The decal and lens arrangement for the major instrument faces is a very innovative approach by Tamiya, the execution was poor however, with the decals being both out of register and not sharply printed. 

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I also used some components of Eduard’s photoetched set and a pair of True Detail MB Mk 7 resin seats to spruce up the office a bit.

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The aircraft was finished using lightened versions of Gunze’s FS 36375 and FS 36320. Decals were applied from Cutting Edge’s sheet CED 32005. And then came my Future disaster. I like to try a couple of new techniques with each model I do, and I’d heard such great reports of Future as a clear coat, that I thought I’d try it. About a week after my last application of Gunze I applied the Future. It went on quite well and looked good after a full coat. The next day I noticed a bit of crazing on one wing and thought ”no problem, I can touch that up later”. Then the day after that I looked at the model again. AGHHHH!!! The crazing had spread over the entire surface. It looked like the shattered windshield of a car. After resisting the initial impulse to send my Phantom on its first (and last) flight, I undertook the laborious job of stripping the paint back down to plastic. 

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I repainted the basic colours, this time using Gunze clearcoat. I used an oil wash (payne gray with a bit of black and a bit of raw umber) to accentuate the panel lines and “dirty” the scheme a little. I also did some hydraulic fluid “streaking” using a back/raw umber oil mix. I then used Humbrol clear matt as a dull coat. 

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The burner cans and bare metal areas of the tail were painted last using Testors Metallizers with some exhaust “sooting” done using repeated application of a very thinned down (5:1 water to paint) Gunze flat black. Fastener heads and panel lines were accentuated using paint from one of those inexpensive, kids paint kits (the little paints “pucks” that you add water to). This stuff worked great!

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The final touches were added in the way of a SUU23 Gun Pod from TAC Scale (very nice piece of resin), the missile pylons sans missiles (most reference shots of RoKAF F4Ds showed the pylons mounted but not one picture I saw had missiles on the pylons), and the wing tanks.

When all was said and done, the result of this project, for all of its idiosyncrasies, wasn’t too bad. Even with the fit problems, the kit overall is still of a high standard. The only other problem I had with this project was the scarcity of RoKAF F4D pictures. I can only speculate that this is due to South Korea’s security conscious nature (can’t imagine why, they’ve such friendly neighbors).

Wayne

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Photos and text © by Wayne Bowman