1/48 Hasegawa F-4EJ Kai

[RocketSurgeon]

Hasegawa's F-4s have been around for a while now, but I think they are still beautiful kits.
I'm building mine with an Aires cockpit and exhaust set. I also have a Wolfpack nose correction set for the EJ variant.
I'm still undecided on the color scheme. Tempted to finish it as a colorful 'Okinawa Phantom', but it might end up as a simple low viz bird.



I really enjoyed working on the Aires pit. This is my first resin cokcpit set. Painted with Tamiya acrylics followed by an dark oil wash.









Unfortunately most of this will be hidden once in place.



Exhausts




More to come (hopefully). Thanks for looking.

[chief5437]

Nice work on the cockpit. You should move this to the F-4 sig, the finish date has moved to 1st March now. Looking forward to seeing more.

[RocketSurgeon]

Thank you Chief! I'd like to join, but I'm a very slow builder unfortunately. I doubt I could finish it in time.

[chief5437]

I see. Well, best not to rush things, better to take your time and get a better result! I should probably heed my own advice, lol!

[Avgas]

[RocketSurgeon]

I did some more work on the cockpit. The etched Aires IPs are really great although painting them properly is not that easy. They came out ok and they look a lot better to the naked eye.








I gave the control stick skirts a leather color. I'm not sure if this is accurate, but I think it looks cool.





I drilled through the spine fairing and added a white strobe light I made from stretched clear sprue.


The resin nose came from Wolfpack. There was a large step between the resin part and the kit gun muzzle so I added a styrene spacer. After some sanding the parts lined up perfectly. Somehow I managed to lose the resin gas purge door. I blocked off the opening with a piece of plastic card as the door seems to be closed on most of my reference photos. The radome came with a damaged static discharger. I used a piece of stretched sprue to fix it. As you can see the resin part is a bit short shot. I'll probably need some Milliput to fair in the metal pitot tube that came with it.

[RocketSurgeon]

Some more progress on the Phantom:

I replaced the solid plastic tail nav light with a piece of clear red plastic. I previously knocked off the pitot tube so I went ahead and sanded off it's base, drilled a hole in the leading edge and inserted a new tube made from hypodermic needle.


The spine piece is now faired in. I'll still need to add a small antenna to this part.


I glued the Wolfpack nose in place as well. The fit of this was very good with only minimal sanding required.


I was thinking about buying a seamless intake set for the model, but since they cost as much as the kit itself I abandoned the idea. I don't like the look of FOD covers, so I had to improve the intakes a bit. Whit the use of some plastic card I filled in the holes in the lower section of the intake channel.


This is how the Kai looks at the moment. Wings and intakes are dry fitted only.



That's all folks.
Thanks for looking.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Some solid modelling going on in here, love your modifications
The cockpit is FANTASTIC!!!
Keep on posting

[Fridgy]

I agree with Scott
So great building happening in this thread
Keep it up!

[SolventSolution]

simply WOW

that cockpit looks great. Awesome work so far

[RocketSurgeon]

Thank you guys, your support is much appreciated!

Little progress on the Phantom:

I dressed up the Aires seats with the PE harnesses included in the kit. Attaching the PE parts was quite tricky and they kept popping of the resin. I tried to add some variation by twisting, bending and trimming the brass belts. The PE ejection handles were way too flat so I separated them from the top piece and bent new ones from copper wire.




Thanks for looking.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Oh wow, those are awesome seats and belts
Love the copper wire addition
Top notch work