Subject: Re: 1/72 Hasegawa F-4EJ
From: "Submissions for ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "Patrick Vossenberg" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:28:37 -0800

Hi,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks again for sending it in.

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com

Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Patrick Vossenberg 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 11:54 PM
  Subject: 1/72 Hasegawa F-4EJ

  1/72 Hasegawa F-4EJ

  by Patrick Vossenberg

  --------------------

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  Here is my Hasegawa F-4EJ in 1/72 scale, my fourth contribution to ARC. Overall, this well-known kit is very good, with finely engraved panel lines and airframe details, nice landing gears/wheel wells and accurate shaping/fit throughout. This build was largely out of the box - the cockpit interior was completely replaced though, as the kit supplied tub and ejection seats are really basic: no relief details and only decals as representation of the instruments. Instead, I used the cockpit from the excellent Revell F-4F kit and converted this by adding some scratchbuilt items and Eduard photo-etch seat belts. This Revell cockpit includes two very nice seats and instrument/side panels that look great when just painted and drybrushed. As the front fuselage (nose) of the Revell kit is slightly more narrow in shape, fitting the Revell tub in the Hasegawa fuselage required some fitting and adjusting. Two nasty gaps appeared left and right of the cockpit tub when testfitting it in the Hasegawa fuselage. To solve this I added some sidewall details, just simple bits and pieces of styrene/photo-etch to cover the gaps and to provide some relief detail inside at the same time. Also the areas behind the two seats and on the pilot's instrument cover received some scratchbuilt detail and wiring as these are quite prominent. Photo-etch mirrors are also taken from the Eduard zoom set. For the rest, construction of the kit was pretty straightforward with no major fit problems encountered.

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  I wanted to build an F-4EJ in an operational yet colourful scheme and choose aircraft no. 87-8411 of the 302nd 'Hikotai' (squadron), based at Chitose AB (Japan), during the early '80s. This is the period in which the JASDF, like other airforces, started working out training programs for improved dogfighting capabilities of their pilots, and came up with this temporary blue/white 'cloudy' adversary scheme. For this scheme I used Humbrol enamels, on top of pre-shaded panel lines. Firstly though, the exhaust area was sprayed using Humbrol Aluminium and Gun Metal shades (I use Humbrol Leather & Black to create variations in panel colours) and masked when ready. Next, the top and underside camouflage colours were sprayed - colours are (Humbrol, as said) Mediterranean Blue, Sky Grey and Light Grey. On the blue colour: my references showed both pictures of a rather light blue (indicated as 'Medium Blue') and a rather dark blue (nearly purple) - in fact, the 'Defenders of Nippon' book indicated for this particular aircraft that 2 different shades of blue were used in 2 subsequent years. So, I improvised a bit and choose something in the middle: Mediterranean Blue from Humbrol, which looked pretty good to me.

          
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  Paints were covered with a coat of Tamiya gloss clear acrylic, for protection and for application of decals. Decals came mainly from the kit, as numbers and data stencils (a lot!!) for this particular airframe were included, although I also sourced some (such as the eagles on the tail fin) from a spare decal sheet. Applying all the decals was quite an exhaustive job, but Hasegawa did a clever way of grouping various data stencils that are located close to each other. This avoids having to apply each and every tiny bit of stencil data separately and ensures proper alignment between bits of stencils. However, this also results in some decals being pretty big in size and pretty odd in shape requiring very careful handling. I messed up one of these grouped decals, and had to replace this with spare bits and pieces. The kit decals are typical for Hasegawa: well printed, but a bit thick on the sheet. When applied they reacted very well to Microset/sol setting solutions, and covered with another layer of gloss clear (and the final flat coat) they sealed in really well. Panel line washes were next with heavily thinned enamels, followed by a final flat clear acrylic coat (Mr Hobby 'Top Coat' from a spray can - by Gunze).

  Stores are loaded with 4 AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles (taken from one of the Hasegawa weapons sets) and some LAU-3 rocket pods (leftovers from the Academy A-37) ... and there you have it: a Phantom in very colourful markings! I had great fun building this nice little kit and would recommend it to all, as it builds into an impressive kit - provided you rework the cockpit.

  As I now have the Revell F-4 remainings left (without a cockpit obviously, but for the rest consisting of great detail and molding), this is one of my next projects, I have the Aires replacement cockpit already ordered ... ;)

  Hope you enjoy the pictures!

  Patrick

  References used:

  * 'Defenders of Nippon' - F-4 Phantom II (Kaburaya books) 

  * 'F-4E Phantom II walk-around' (Squadron/Signal publications)

  * 'F-4 Phantom in action' (Squadron/Signal publications)

  * F-4EJ.com (unfortunately not always accessible)

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  Photos and text © by Patrick Vossenberg

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