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Thank you for your order! Enjoy your FSM Direct–Downloadable Article. Please remember that this copyrighted material is for your use only. It’s unlawful to share or distribute this file to others in any way including e-mailing it, posting it online, or sharing paper copies with others. Sincerely, The staff of FineScale Modeler Troubleshooting Guide: Please note: Packages are color intensive. To save color ink in your printer, change your printer setting to grayscale. SAVING PACKAGE Save the package when you download the PDF. Click on the computer disk icon in Adobe Acrobat, or go to File, Save. MY PRINTER WON’T PRINT THE TEXT CORRECTLY Close all other programs/applications and print directly out of the Acrobat Reader program, not your Web browser. Printing problems are caused by not enough free system memory. PAGES ARE NOT PRINTING FULL SIZE Set your printer to print 100% and make sure “print to fit” is not checked under printer setup or printer options. If you have suggestions on how we can improve this product or have topics you’d like to see in future FSM Direct packages, please contact us at [email protected] FSPDF036 8 www.FineScaleModeler.com

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Page 1: Thank you for your order! - FineScale.com/media/files/pdf/circulation/...The staff of FineScale Modeler Troubleshooting Guide: Please note: Packages are color intensive. To save color

Thank you for your order! Enjoy your FSM Direct–Downloadable Article.

Please remember that this copyrighted material is for your use only. It’s unlawful to share or distribute this file to others in any way including e-mailing it, posting it online, or sharing paper copies with others.

Sincerely,

The staff of FineScale Modeler

Troubleshooting Guide:

Please note: Packages are color intensive. To save color ink in your printer, change your printer setting to grayscale.

SAVING PACKAGESave the package when you download the PDF. Click on the computer disk icon in Adobe Acrobat, or go to File, Save.

MY PRINTER WON’T PRINT THE TEXT CORRECTLYClose all other programs/applications and print directly out of the Acrobat Reader program, not your Web browser. Printing problems are caused by not enough free system memory.

PAGES ARE NOT PRINTING FULL SIZESet your printer to print 100% and make sure “print to fit” is not checked under printer setup or printer options.

If you have suggestions on how we can improve this product or have topics you’d like to see in future FSM Direct packages, please contact us at [email protected]

FSPDF036

8

www.FineScaleModeler.com

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Modeling aircraft of the Vietnam War

FSPDF036

FSM DirectDOWNLOADABLE ARTICLESDOWNLOADABLE ARTICLES

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26 FineScale Modeler April 2003

Modeling an F-100F from the war in Southeast AsiaBy Pat Hawkey

One of the first jets in the Vietnam War was the NorthAmerican F-100 Super Sabre. It arrived at Don Muong

airport in Bangkok, Thailand in 1961, already a proven veteran,and for the next eight years, this classic fighter-bomber did thejob it was designed to do.

The F-100 flew primarily in South Vietnam supportingground troops and got little publicity. Though never officiallycredited with a kill, many believe Capt. Don Kilgus of the 416thTactical Fighter Squadron shot down a MiG-17 in April 1965.If so, it was the only aerial victory for a Hun.

The classic Monogram kit. Monogram’s F-100D is a vet-eran in its own right. First released in 1980, it was typical ofMonogram kits of the time. The detail and outline were good,but the fit of big parts was not. In 2001, Monogram reissued thekit with new colorful decals.

Monogram split the fuselage into top and bottom halvesrather than the typical left-and-right split. The horizontal splitproduces obvious seams along the fuselage that don’t correspondto real panel lines. Also, the gun-bay covers don’t fit well in theclosed position.

The fit problems and raised panel detail spell trouble. Afterfilling and sanding, most of the fuselage panel lines will be gone.I prepared myself for a rescribing job.

Besides dealing with the challenges inherent in building thekit stock, I decided to make things more interesting by convert-ing it into a two-seat F-100F. I had a C & H Aero Miniaturesresin fuselage conversion, but I don’t like to work with resin allthat much. I had several of the Monogram kits on hand – howhard would it be to splice in a section of fuselage from a secondkit and make a new canopy? Let the surgery begin.

Warming up. I got in the mood by scoring, bending, andremoving the horizontal stabilators molded onto the upper fuse-lage half, 1. Besides getting in the way, the stabilators on mostparked F-100s I’ve seen drooped a bit, and I wanted them thatway on my model.

The kit has the upper wing halves molded together. Becauseof the fuselage problems I knew were coming, I separated the

Build a beautiful TWO-SEAT “HUN”

Pat’s two-seat “Hun” (short for “hundred”) is the product ofmerging two Monogram Super Sabre kits. Extensive fuselagesurgery is neatly covered by putty, super glue, and a fine air-brushed paint job. William Zuback photo

VIETNAM SPECIAL

© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com

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April 2003 www.finescale.com 27

1/48 Scale

wings into a traditional left-and-right-wing-into-slots arrange-ment, 2. After sanding and rescribing the panel lines, I sawedgrooves to accept .010" styrene wing fences patterned from theoverly thick kit fences. I left the fences off until final assembly.

Monogram’s drop tanks are meant to represent the standard275-gallon tanks originally fitted to the F-100. Unfortunately,they are about 1⁄4" too short and a bit too blunt.

Vietnam experience led to a 28" extension being inserted inthese tanks, increasing the capacity of each to 335 gallons.Thesewere the tanks I needed for my model, so I spliced in 3⁄4" sec-tions cut out of the tanks from a spare F-100 kit (the donor wasmolded in olive-colored plastic), 3.

The splices made up for the original shortfall and providedthe additional length. A bit of epoxy putty was required tomaintain contours, and I tapered the front ends a bit with acoarse sanding stick.

Fuselage extension. Now the fun part. I spliced a 5⁄8" sec-tion of my donor F-100D kit into the bottom fuselage half ofmy F-to-be, 4.This section included the forward part of a nose-wheel well, which I blanked off with .020" styrene.

It was immediately apparent there was going to be more tothis stretch than simply splicing in fuselage sections.Maintaining constant fuselage contours would require signifi-

cant body work and epoxy putty. I also filled the two outboardcannon troughs, as the F carried only the inner pair.

On the upper fuselage half, I removed 5⁄16" from the humpedspine that meets the aft edge of the canopy. I cut away and relo-cated the cockpit’s back deck area against the shortened hump.

Using the lengthened fuselage bottom as a guide, I penciledcut lines and spliced in the corresponding sections of the donor’stop fuselage. Oh my, talk about mismatched contours! This wasgoing to be a job.

I built up sunken areas with epoxy putty, noting these weren’tgoing to match some bottom-half contours when the top andbottom came together. I’d cross that bridge when I got there.

To create a long, straight, and flat canopy sill, I ground down

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most of the existing sill area. Then I laid in replacementEvergreen strip stock.

Cockpit interior. For my model’s cockpit tub, I graftedtogether a pair of kit tubs. The rear instrument panel was fromthe spare kit. I just shaved off the raised dials that didn’t belongon the rear panel.

Work on the cockpit floor started with the engine air intakewhich is molded as part of the cockpit. The intake trunk is splitin top and bottom halves too, and to make it look seamless, Ipoured gap-filling super glue down the throat and smoothed theseams with a round file wrapped in fine sandpaper, 5.

Monogram’s ejection seats are OK, but Legend sells a betterpair of resin replacements (stock No. LF4004). I added rails tothe back of the Legend seat from Evergreen channel stock, 6.

The front seat of the F-100F had a rearward-folding top halfto the headrest (to improve forward visibility for the back-seater). As part of the ejection sequence, the top half (with the

attached canopy breaker) would snap forward. I modified one ofthe Legend seats to reflect that feature.

The Legend seats come with separate ankle stirrups, but forsimplicity’s sake I used the stirrups molded in the Monogramfloors. Positioning the seats to accept the stirrups couldn’t bedone until the back wall of each tub section was removed. Thatmeant adding a bit to the back ends of the side consoles, 7. Ijoined the front and rear tubs and extended the side consoles ofthe rear tub forward with sheet styrene.

I filled and smoothed the insides of the converted fuselagetop half. Using Monogram’s interior as a guide, I added styrenestrips to simulate the structure and equipment, 8. I also maderear bulkheads for each cockpit from .020" sheet stock andadded the rear instrument panel cover from a section of air-intake trunk from the donor F-100 kit.

Closing the fuselage. The F-100F had a pair of promi-nent vents on either side of the nose. The F-100D had only oneper side, and Monogram molded them as slightly depressed rec-tangles. I penciled the outlines where I thought the vents shouldbe. Then, with a small bit, I drilled a series of holes to open thevents, 9. I carefully shaped each vent with a fresh No. 11 blade.Keeping the four vents uniform was a challenge.

With the cockpit installed, I brought the fuselage halvestogether. As expected, the seam was rough, and the area of mysurgery was especially ugly, 10. Generous amounts of gap-fillingsuper glue and epoxy putty filled cracks, holes, and depressions.

Putting a lid on it. All that work would be for naughtwithout a canopy. I wasn’t happy with the shape of the C & Hcanopy, but I used it as a starting point for a better one. First, Ipoured Alumilite two-part urethane resin into the upturnedcanopy and let it set. The resin doesn’t stick to the plastic, so it

28 FineScale Modeler April 2003

5

Pat cleaned out the intake seam with fine sandpaper wrappedaround a round file.

The fuselage extensions were spliced in from a spare (olive-col-ored plastic) F-100 kit. A stock F-100D fuselage is at top.

4

Pat’s first task was to separate the stabilators from the upperfuselage half. In-progress photos by Pat Hawkey

The wings were separated from each other to make attachment tothe fuselage easier. Pat made new wing fences from sheet styrene.

1

Monogram’s drop tanks were too short, so Pat extended themwith sections cut from spare F-100 tanks.

2

3

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April 2003 www.finescale.com 29

6 7

8 9

The Legends resin F-100 seat (left) is better detailed than the stockMonogram seat. Pat added Evergreen channel stock for the rails.

Here are both F-100 cockpits glued together to form the two-seattub. Sheet styrene was used to extend the rear-seater’s consoles.

Pat laid in strips of styrene to detail the interior of the extendedfuselage.

The prominent pair of vents on each side of the nose were drilledout, then cleaned with a sharp blade.

was easy to remove the impression.I added smears of epoxy putty to the resin copy, and after it

had set, I sculpted the copy until I got the proper shape. Sincethe epoxy putty didn’t sand as easily as the resin, I could see andfeel the edges of the putty. If I had vacuum-formed over this, theedges would’ve shown in the clear plastic, so I took two moresteps to make the final master.

I made an RTV silicone rubber mold of my modified copy,then poured another Alumilite casting (see “Basics of resin cast-ing,” November 2002 FSM). This produced a resin master, andI did all the final sanding and polishing on it.

I vacuum formed .020" Vivak (clear plastic, available throughMicro-Mark – stock No. 81336) over the master, trimmed itout, and masked it before painting the model, 11 (see “Makingan inexpensive vacuum-forming machine,” March 1998 FSM).I added sills and inner frames from Evergreen strip stock.

Reinstalling the stabilators. In order to mount my stabila-tors at their relaxed angle, I inserted a section of 1⁄16" aluminumtube through the rear fuselage, cutting and filing the ends flushwith the outside, 12. I put corresponding brass pins into the sta-bilators at their pivot points.Then I removed them; they wouldn’tjoin up with the airplane again until everything was painted.

Rescribing panel lines. After much sanding, priming, andre-sanding, the fuselage was pretty smooth. Next up was rescrib-ing all the panel lines. With all the bodywork involved, doingthis earlier would’ve resulted in a lot of repeated effort.

Studying reference photos, I first penciled on all the panellines, 13. Next, I lightly scribed in new panel lines with both aBare-Metal Foil plastic scriber and my homemade tool, asewing needle chucked in a pin vise.

Fitting the fin and engine exhaust piece presented more fit

problems, 14. Hand me that epoxy putty one more time. Ofcourse, this area would eventually be finished as natural metal,so that meant extra careful sanding and priming.

New details. I made a new pitot tube from telescoping alu-minum tube and styrene rod, 15. I put an aluminum pin in theback, which was bent to the angle needed and inserted into thehole drilled under the nose.

Monogram’s barrier hook was too thick, so I thinned it downconsiderably. I removed the ordnance mounts from the kit’sinner and outer weapons racks since I didn’t want my F carry-ing anything but the drop tanks.

To the paint shop. Painting the bulk of the F model was astraightforward free-hand airbrush camouflage job withExtracolor gloss enamels. I masked off the aft section thatwould eventually be finished in natural metal.

To get the uneven appearance of a veteran airplane, I wentback with lighter mixes of the base colors and sprayed them ran-

That whoppin’ seam on the fuselage had to go. The extensionsurgery required even more filling and sanding.

10

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30 FineScale Modeler April 2003

13 14

The first step in rescribing is to pencil on all the panel lines whilereferring to photos and drawings.

The back end of the fuselage and the separate fin didn’t fit wellto the fuselage.

12

Pat modified the stabilators so they could be drooped. The alu-minum tube inside holds the pins on the stabilators.

domly to simulate ground-crew touchups. I lean toward subtle-ty here. I want the viewer to see a convincing finish rather thana weathering job shaped like an airplane. I applied clear glossbefore decaling, then a clear flat to seal the decals and even thefinish.

The area that makes or breaks an F-100 model is the dis-tinctive heat-discolored titanium skin around the engine.Photos showed a distinct discoloration pattern reflecting thestructure under the skin. These areas were originally painted incamouflage, but the heat quickly baked the paint off the metal.

But how could I replicate that hot-metal look? First I count-ed rib lines in photos, and made corresponding pencil marks onthe model. Since they would disappear under the first coat ofpaint, I pressed the teeth of a razor saw on top of the pencil linesjust hard enough for the bite marks to give me a visual referenceunder the paint, 16.

First I sprayed Model Master chrome silver with a few drops

of Testor 1133 brown (in the 1⁄4 oz. bottle line) added. I sprayedthis mix over the entire aft end. When it was dry, I masked thefront half and sprayed the rear half with a bit more 1133 addedto the mix to produce a two-tone metallic rear end, 17.

I thinned 1133 brown to almost a brown-tinted thinner. Withmy Paasche H-1 tip cranked down to the finest line, I paintedvertical lines (following the razor-saw teeth marks) to representthe darkened pattern in the titanium skin, 18. I next thinnedgloss dark blue to the same consistency and repeated the exerciseover some of the brown lines. The idea was to show thebronze/brown/blue/violet hue gradations of the real thing.

When all of that was dry, I dabbed liquid masking agent inirregular vertical patches on the forward part of the burnt-metalareas, 19, then mixed slightly lighter shades of the correspon-ding camouflage colors and applied them to the metal area.

When the dried masking agent was peeled off, it exposed thenatural metal below. I also streaked black chalk pastels for thecharacteristic grimy look of the cooked Super Sabre rear end.

Finished F. The last stage was adding the small parts: landinggear, pylons, leading-edge slats, refueling probe, pitot, and canopy.The model was marked to represent a veteran of the 306th Tac-tical Fighter Squadron, 31st Tactical Fighter Wing, at Tuy Hoa,Vietnam, from December 1966 to October 1970. I scrounged tailcode numbers from several aftermarket lettering sheets.

How long did it take to make my F-100F? I don’t know. Istopped counting hours when I realized what I’d gotten myselfinto after the fuselage surgery. Perhaps working with the C & Hresin conversion would have been quicker, but sometimes youhave to do it the hard way to find out. FSM

Thanks to Dave Menard for background information on my F-100F.

11

Here are Pat’s new extended canopy and the resin-copy masterhe used to vacuum-form clear plastic.

15

The mounting stubs for ordnance were removed from the pylons,and a new pitot boom was made. The barrier hook was thinneddown from the kit part.

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April 2003 www.finescale.com 31

16 17

18 19

Pat marked the vertical structure lines of the rear fuselage bypressing a razor saw into the plastic.

Liquid masking agent was applied to protect the “burned” areasfrom the subsequent camouflage paint.

The base colors of the two-tone engine section were painted withthe rest of the fuselage and the fin was masked off.

Pat lightly accented the vertical structure lines by airbrushingwith thinned paint.

The addition of the second cockpit did little harm to the graceful yet aggressive lines ofthe Super Sabre. F-100Fs were used in combat alongside single-seat F-100Ds and afew F-100Cs in Vietnam. William Zuback photo

The bottoms of combat F-100s were paint-ed overall light gray to make them blendinto the sky. Jim Forbes photo

The back-seater’s panel had fewer instru-ments. Note the folded-over headrest ofthe front seat. Jim Forbes photo

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32 FineScale Modeler April 2003

Although F-100Fs were the firstWild Weasels (especially equipped toattack radar and surface-to-air missilesites) in Vietnam, they played a moresignificant role as forward air con-trollers (FACs) using the radio callsign “Misty.” As enemy defenses tookan increased toll of O-1 and O-2 pro-peller-driven FACs in southern NorthVietnam and Laos, the Air Forcechose jets as replacements. In June1967, four F-100Fs and 16 pilotsformed Detachment 1, 612thTFS/37th TFW at Phu Cat, Vietnam.Under the code name CommandoSabre, they initiated Misty operations.

The mission was to fly low andfast, looking for troop and materialmovement and SAM sites, and markthose targets with white phosphorusrockets. The Misty crews then guidedarriving fighter bombers to targets.The FACs also supported the all-too-regular search-and-rescue missions,retrieving downed aircrews.

Misty crews consisted of two pilots

who would switch seats from missionto mission. Stores comprised a pair of335-gallon drop tanks, a pair of rocketpods on the outboard racks, and 220rounds of 20mm ammunition for thetwo cannons. Depending on the levelof activity and trips to orbiting tankers,missions lasted from 41⁄2 to 6 hours.

Though MiGs were not encoun-tered where Mistys operated, the lowaltitudes they had to work in werelethal from automatic anti-aircraftartillery (AAA.)

In April 1969, the F-100s movedfrom Phu Cat to Tuy Hoa. Laosremained a hunting ground for them,but bigger, faster, tougher Misty F-4scovered North Vietnam. In the threeyears ( June 1967 - May 1970) ofMisty operations, 17 aircraft were lost,and of 155 pilots flying the missions,seven were killed in action and fourbecame prisoners of war.

Among the notable alumni of thiselite group are Ronald Fogleman andMerrill McPeak, who both went on to

become Air Force Chiefs of Staff;Lacy Veach, who would become ashuttle astronaut; and Dick Rutan,who co-piloted the first flight aroundthe world without refueling.

– Pat Hawkey

REFERENCESF-100 Super Sabre in Action LouDrendel, Squadron/Signal Publications,Carrollton, TX, 1973Wings of Fame Vol. 3 “‘Huns’ overVietnam,” Robert Dorr, AerospacePublishing Ltd., London, England, 1996www.f-100.orgwww.mistyvietnam.com

SOURCESResin F-100F conversion C & H AeroMiniatures, 4851 Cynthia Lane,Murfreesboro, TN 37127Casting resin Alumilite, 315 E. NorthSt., Kalamazoo, MI 49007, 800-447-9344, www.alumilite.comVivak clear plastic Micro-Mark, 340Snyder Ave., Berkeley Heights, NJ07922-1595, 908-464-6764,www.micromark.com

The F-100F in Southeast Asia

The result of Pat’s simulated burned-away paint on the rear of the “Hun” looks just right. Many F-100s had camouflage added to therear ends, but it baked off quickly. Later, with lessons learned, the rear fuselages were left unpainted. Jim Forbes photo

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Huey gunshipModeling a

Making the best of Italeri’s UH-1C

By Paul Boyer Photos by Jim Forbes and William Zuback

I f I had to pick only one aircraft to serve as a symbol of the conflict in Southeast Asia,it would have to be Bell Helicopter’s UH-1 Iroquois. Of course, the chopper was

universally called the “Huey” (a phonetic expression of the helicopter’s earlier desig-nation, HU-1).

Designated XH-40 when it first flew Oct. 22, 1956, it was the first U.S. militaryhelicopter designed to be powered by a gas turbine (jet) engine. The first productionHU-1A flew in June 1959.

VIETNAM SPECIAL

36 FineScale Modeler April 2003© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com

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1/72 Scale

Combat helicopters came of age in thewar in Southeast Asia. The Huey becamethe prime airborne cavalry vehicle,deploying troops in massive operations,often into dangerously small and hot LZs– landing zones. Although they were notthe first armed helicopters, the B and Cmodel Hueys established the weaponryand tactics that led to the development ofthe first attack helicopter, the AH-1Cobra.

The C (or “Charlie”) version was setup as a gunship, carrying various loads onuniversal mounts outside the cabin. Oneof the most common configurations wasan M134 six-barrel “Minigun” on the endof each mount, with a seven-shot XM157rocket pod hung on the pylon below.

Italeri’s kit. Italeri makes a series ofHuey kits in 1/72 scale, and three of themare the “short cabin” versions, theUH-1B, UH-1C, and UH-1F. They’repretty good in detail, but there are somenearly insurmountable dimension prob-lems. The tailboom is too short, as are themain rotors, even for the rotors found onthe B and F models.

The C model had completely differentmain rotors called the “540 rotor system”(also used on the Cobra) with widerblades and a more robust head. TheItaleri boxing of the UH-1C (kit No.050) has some new parts to change detailsfor the C model, but there are no newmain rotors.

To the rescue rides the Cobra Com-pany, with a resin replacement rotor set(No. 72014), 1. The rotors look accurateand well-cast, and can be used as replace-ments on the old Monogram AH-1GCobra, too. But there’s one serious prob-lem that Cobra’s correction set doesn’taddress: Italeri’s short tailboom. Whenthe replacement rotors are mounted, theyintersect the tail-rotor arc.

There’s no easy way to fix the tailboom problem. The boom doesn’t have aconstant cross-section, so stretching withparts from another kit is impractical. Icould have cut the tips from the mainrotors so they wouldn’t collide with thetail rotors; or I could simply pose themodel with the main rotors away fromthe boom so the intersecting arcs would-n’t be apparent. I chose the latter method.

The kit rotor assembly (top) is not the proper one for the UH-1C. Cobra Company’sresin 540 rotor set saves the day.

Paul painted the interior first and attached the top to the left fuselage side.

Before closing the fuselage, the insides were masked and the exterior sprayed olivedrab with an airbrush.

1

2

3

Left: Whether the huge sharkmouth on thisUH-1C Huey gunship was intended tostrike fear in the enemy or promote espritde corps among U.S. Army crews, itmakes for a colorful chopper.

April 2003 www.finescale.com 37

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It’s cheating, yes, but so is shortening themain rotors.

Cobra also produces an alternateweapons set for Huey gunships, and Iused that on my model, too. Set No.72013 has a pair of resin miniguns, seven-shot rocket pods, and mountinghardware.

Painting helicopter models. Inaddition to the problems of building hel-icopter models with their fragile rotors,antennas, and external weapons, maskingand painting around all those big win-dows is a pain. Do I put the whole modeltogether, then paint? How about paintingfirst? Actually, a combination of thesemethods is best.

My initial focus was the interior. Ibuilt it and painted it following the kitinstructions, but left out the rear canvasbench seat to make room for the Cobraresin ammo cans for the miniguns. I alsopainted the insides of the fuselage halvesand glued the top to the left half, 2.

Instead of installing the interior andwindows and masking all the open areas,I left the windows off and painted theexterior before assembling the fuselagehalves. I airbrushed Polly Scale olive drabthinned with Polly Scale clear gloss for asmooth semi-gloss sheen, 3. I used largepieces of masking tape to make sure over-spray didn’t color the insides of each half.

I figured that I could install the over-head windows (tinted with Tamiya cleargreen) and the crew-door windows byfishing them through the large cabinopenings at final assembly. The bottomwindows and windscreen attach from theoutside, and the windows for the separatecabin doors would not be a problem.

I installed the interior and closed thefuselage halves, holding the assemblytogether with clothespins while the glueset, 4. After the glue cured, I sanded theseams with a sanding stick (a four-waynail shaper, if you must know), 5, thenretouched the sanded seams with abrushed-on coat of paint, 6.

After hand-brushing the black anti-glare panel on the nose and adding thered-painted stabilizers, I airbrushed acoat of Future acrylic floor polish, 7, andlet that dry two days.

I used the kit decals because they rep-resent a colorful sharkmouth gunship.They went on pretty well but left a gapbetween halves at the front. I retouchedwith white, 8, and then red to finish thetoothy grin.

I applied a thin black wash to thedetail, wiped away the excess, and over-

After the paint was dry, Paul glued the fuselage halves and held them together withclothespins.

A nail shaper smoothed the glued seams.

All the sanded seams were retouched with a brush and paint.

To make a smooth surface for the decals, Paul airbrushed Future floor polish.

4

5

6

7

38 FineScale Modeler April 2003

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coated the entire fuselage with Polly Scaleclear flat.

Next I installed the windows. I insertedthe crew-door windows from the frontusing a small blob of Blue Tac sticky puttyon a toothpick as a handle, 9. A little dropof gap-filling super glue in the depressionbetween panes was enough to hold thewindow in place. The same method wasused to install the top windows.

The main rotors. Cobra’s resin mainrotor assembly was easy to put together,but I had to modify the Italeri rotor masta bit to fit. I needed to cut off the top halfof the mast, shorten it a bit, and rotate itso that the dampener control arms couldreach around the new rotor head andconnect with the stabilizer bar.

Cobra’s instructions indicate theUH-1C’s rotors were olive drab on topand flat black on bottom. I painted themso, and then painted yellow (over whitefor better color density) on the tips. Thepaint on a Huey’s rotor erodes quickly, soI simulated that by cutting loose papermasks from Post-It Notes and sprayingthe leading edges with Testor Metalizersteel, 10. I did the same on the tail rotors.

Packin’ heat. Cobra provides mini-guns to go on the ends of the “universal”weapons mounts, but there aren’t anypositive attachment points. Missing fromthe set are the prominent ammunitionchutes from the ammo cans in the cabin.Each chute came out of the can, descend-ed through a hole in the cabin floor, andout through a hole in the belly of the hel-icopter, then snaked over the mount tothe gun breech. I used thin strip styrenefor the chutes, heated, curled, and cut tolength, 11.

The finishing touch was mounting allthe tiny breakable bits such as the pitottube, tail stinger, and tail rotors.

Well, it ain’t perfect, but at least withthe proper rotors it looks more like theUH-1C should. I just have to keep thoserotors away from each other or my scalehelicopter will have to execute a scaleautorotation to a scale safe landing. FSM

REFERENCESFighting Colors, UH-1 Huey in ColorWayne Mutza, Squadron/ SignalPublications, Carrollton, Texas, 1992UH-1 Huey in Action Wayne Mutza,Squadron/Signal Publications, Carrollton,Texas, 1986

SOURCEResin detail sets Cobra Company, P.O. Box3966, Crofton, MD 21114, 301-261-3216,http://cobracompany.com

The kit decals didn’t quite come togetherat the front, so the gap in the grin wasretouched with paint.

Paul installed the windows by fishing theminside with a toothpick and sticky-puttyhandle.

To simulate erosion of the rotor-blade paint, Paul airbrushed steel on the leading edges.

Paul added strip styrene ammunition chutes to the tiny miniguns.

8 9

10

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Aircraft | How-To

Make a Vietnam War Douglas EB-66E Story and photos by Pat Hawkey

DestroyerImproving Italeri’s

54 FineScale Modeler November 2003© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com

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The Douglas B-66 Destroyer was one ofthe few U.S. Air Force aircraft based

on a Navy airplane design – the A-3Skywarrior. However, by the time the AirForce had finished tailoring the bomberto its requirements, only the shape andsize of the two bombers were similar.Originally acquired as a jet replacementfor the B-26 Invader, the B-66 went intoservice in 1956. Despite its bomber ori-gins, it was most useful as a photo- andelectronic-reconnaissance aircraft.

Italeri’s kits (both standard bomberand reconnaissance versions were issued)

are the only B-66 models available in 1/72scale. First released in the early 1980s,each comes with recessed panel lines,though they’re not very deep or precise,and there are a number of surface imper-fections that need to be corrected. If you’rethinking about a natural-metal airplane,be prepared for a lot of surface preparationto attain a smooth, flawless finish.

Up front. For its age, the Italeri kitprovides an impressive front office.Unfortunately, two-thirds of it disappearswhen the fuselage halves go together. Isee no sense in working on what will not

be seen, so I focused on the pilot’s posi-tion and painted the floor and wallsbehind it flat black.

There is no open canopy option, so Ididn’t get carried away with detail, simplyadding pilot and co-pilot seat and shoul-der belts. I cut thin strips from lead foil,rolled each into a ball, then unrolled it toadd wear and texture.

I painted the visible cockpit detailwith dark gull gray, added black wash toenhance shadow details, and lightly dry-brushed everything with silver to adddefinition, 1.

1/72 Scale

The cockpit assembly ready to be installedin the model. Pat left out the rear seats sincethey can’t be seen in the finished model.

Pat made strip styrene internal bracing toforce the upper and lower fuselage edgesto meet evenly.

The EB-66E Destroyer was an electronic countermeasures platform during the VietnamWar. Pat made lots of improvements to the 1/72 scale Italeri kit.

1

2

Scoring the surface makes it easier for theepoxy putty filler to grip the plastic.

3

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The small windows of the aft crewcompartment didn’t fit well, and sincethere was nothing inside to see, I simulat-ed the windows with black decal piecesafter painting. I glued the kit windowsinto their holes, filled the low spots on theexterior with gap-filling super glue, andsanded everything smooth.

After gluing the cockpit assembly andnose gear well into one fuselage half, Iwas ready to put the fuselage together.With the main gear set so far back, noweight had to be added to the nose.

One problem with Italeri’s kit is themismatch of upper and lower fuselageseams. There’s no way to reach inside toadjust the fit while the glue dries, so Imade a strip-styrene truss to support andhelp align the seams, 2.

Even after installing this support, theleft half of the fuselage showed a signif-icant dish on top. To fix it, I firstscratched the plastic with a dental probe(any pointed object will work), 3, thensmeared on a layer of epoxy putty, 4.(The scratched surface helped the puttybind to the plastic.)

The belly of the model was worse. Iended up filling and sanding the bottom

of the fuselage completely smooth and re-scribing all the surface detail, 5.

Bobbing the tail. The kit comes asan early EB-66, and the aircraft I wasmodeling was a late one. The difference?Lots of little things, mostly antennas, butthe top of the rear end of the fuselage hada different setup, 6. I converted this areaafter adding the wings and tailplanes, butshould’ve done it before – it would’vemade it easier to cut and sand.

At some point in the late ’60s, theMod 2259 installation was introduced toEB-66Es. It featured an AAQ-4 infraredcountermeasure unit on the top of the ofthe fuselage end. This, along with itscooling air scoops, was what I had toreproduce.

First, I carefully razor-sawed away20mm of the top of the rear part of thefuselage (there’s a vertical panel line atthat point) using existing horizontalpanel lines as a guide. I replaced the miss-ing section with a piece of 1⁄4"-diameterEvergreen styrene tube and plugged theaft end with a styrene disc, 7. I filled theopenings with epoxy putty and blendedand smoothed it to conform to theremaining fuselage, 8.

Next, I added cooling scoops frombent styrene rod, the pair of rear-facingantennas from bent wire, and the antennahorizontal braces from styrene strip.

Taking wing. The wings were easierto deal with. I sanded the inside surfacesof the wing halves with a sanding block toensure a tight top and bottom fit and thintrailing edges, 9.

The wings fit loosely to the fuselage,and they needed to be installed with aslight anhedral (down angle). I drilled cor-responding holes in the wing roots andfuselage to accept aluminum tubing, 10.The tubing provides strength, and bybending it slightly, it ensures the properwing anhedral. I had to fill and sand theseams, but at least they were easy to get at.

Jet pods. The next bit of fun wasbuilding the engine pods. I hate seams inengine intakes, and this kit has somewhoppers.The only way I could eliminatethem was to cut the front ends off thepods, work on the seams from the insides,and reinstall the ends. I carefully cut themoff at the panel lines that correspond withthe locations of the kit’s engine faces, 11.

After gluing the front halves together,I liberally applied gap-filling super glue to

The bottom fuselage seam also neededwork. Here Pat engraves panel lines whilethe fuselage is held in a hobby vise.

Here is the back end of the fuselage aspresented in the kit.

Pat removed the top and replaced it witha section of 1⁄4" plastic tubing.

The new rear end with gaps filled andblended with epoxy putty, and new airscoops and antennas.

Pat thinned the wing trailing edges with asanding block.

5 6

7 8 9

Once sanded down, the added epoxyputty raises the sunken area of the leftfuselage half.

4

56 FineScale Modeler November 2003

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the inside seams, 12, then sanded themreasonably smooth with coarse sandpaperwrapped around a dowel, 13. I smearedbody putty into the scratches, sanded andprimed until everything was smooth,then painted the inside of the intakesgloss white, 14.

Reference photos showed the raisedrings molded on the jet exhaust wereinaccurate – I sanded them off. Toimprove the look of the exhausts, I insert-ed 5⁄16"-diameter brass tube sections withthe inside ends blanked off, 15.

When it came time to reattach thefronts of the pods, I noticed the enginefaces sat too far back inside. I made spac-ers about 4mm thick and inserted thefaces in the pods, 16. Then I glued thefront ends back on the pods.

All this surgery and seam cleaningdestroyed some of the soft recessed detail.I sanded all the affected areas smooth, re-scribed panel lines, and refined themating surface of the pylons that fit ontothe bottoms of the wings.

To make painting of the pods and the

fuselage easier, I left them off until afterpainting; the big pods make it almostimpossible to aim an airbrush up into thecorners of the wings and fuselage.

The last task before painting wasattaching the canopy.The fit here was notgood; the clear part was a bit narrower allaround than the cockpit opening. I builtup ledges along the opening with epoxyputty and smoothed them out.

I thought it wise to leave all the anten-nas off the model until after painting, butI cleaned and test-fitted them first. I

Aluminum tubes mounted in the fuselage reinforce the wing/fuselage joint and hold theproper angle of anhedral.

To clean up the seams inside the intakes,Pat removed the front ends from each half.

After gluing the halves together, the seamswere filled with gap-filling super glue.

20-grit sandpaper wrapped around adowel did the heavy work of smoothingthe insides of the intakes.

Before and after: Gone is the ugly seaminside the intake on the left.

Pat sanded off the raised rings around the exhausts and insertedbrass tubing for a better appearance.

Styrene spacers place the engine faces in their proper positionsinside the nacelles. Flat black paint adds the illusion of depth.

10 11

12 13 14

15 16

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found the parts for the “antenna farm”required careful cleanup, and the bladeswere uniformly too long. I shortenedthem all a bit with a razor blade, 17.

The kit’s refueling probe was poorlymolded, so I snipped off the tip of a spareprobe from a Fujimi A-4 Skyhawk andgrafted it onto a length of plastic rod.

I replaced Italeri’s roundish renditionsof the pair of vents on top of the fuselagewith smaller, more squared-off ventsmade from styrene scraps.

To the paintshop. I used Extracolorgloss enamels to paint the four-color tac-tical camouflage. The tan appeared toodark, so I added a little white beforepainting.

Having misplaced the kit’s instruc-

tions with its painting guide, I checkedreference photos to determine the cam-ouflage pattern. When finished, I foundthe instructions and discovered the pat-tern I had painted following the photoswas more accurate that those in theinstructions!

Decals, what few there were, camemostly from the kit’s sheet. The TacticalAir Command badges are fromMicroscale’s USAF F-4 sheet No. 72-198and the 363rd Tactical ReconnaissanceWing badge from a Testor issue ofItaleri’s RF-4C. I used black decal mate-rial for the aft crew compartmentwindows, overcoated with Future afterthe flat coat was applied.

The remaining detail parts went on

without fanfare. I made the FM homingantennas located on the engine pylonsfrom bent stretched sprue. All the bristlingantenna blades make the model touchy tohandle but interesting to look at.

Italeri’s B-66 is a good simple kit, butnot a great simple kit. If you’re building acollection of Vietnam-era aircraft, youjust gotta have a Destroyer! FSM

REFERENCESAirpower “Birds of a Feather,” Peter M.Bowers, July 1988Scale Aircraft Modelling “Douglas B-66Destroyer,” Lindsay Peacock, March, 1988Douglas B-66 Destroyer, AerofaxMinigraph 19 René Francillon and MickRoth, Aerofax Inc., Arlington, Texas, 1988

The harrowing rescue attempts of a downed crew of an EB-66 were made into a popular movie; “Bat 21” was the callsign of the air-craft. The Destroyers were not as numerous, successful, or long-lived as the Navy’s A-3 Skywarriors.

The antenna blades for the belly were abit too long, so Pat shortened them with asingle-edge razor blade.

The modified back end represents the EB-66 electronics gear used near the end of theaircraft’s career in the early 1970s.

17

58 FineScale Modeler November 2003

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36 FineScale Modeler October 2004

Kitbashing and creative weathering techniques

for a spectacular Vietnam War F-4C By Darren Roberts

Painting is one of my favorite aspects of modeling, especially the challenge of producing eye-catching paint schemes. Each project stretches my skills and improves my techniques. I

was flipping through a book about Vietnam War MiG killers and spotted a photo of an F-4C Phantom II with badly peeled camouflage paint exposing the original paint scheme underneath. I knew I had to give it a try.

The kitsA handful of 1/48 scale F-4C/D kits have been available over the years, including good offerings from Hasegawa, Monogram, and ESCI. All three kits have some shortcomings, but by combining, or kitbashing, them and adding aftermarket resin details, you can build an impressive C or D Phantom.

I selected the ESCI and Hasegawa kits for my project because

I already had them on hand. The Monogram kit can also be used with the ESCI, or the Hasegawa C/D and J kits can be com-bined to achieve the same results. The steps are basically the same for whatever combination you choose.

ESCI’s F-4 was also released as both a C/D and a J. The plas-tic inside, however, is essentially the same. I used this kit as my starting point because it has the correct shape and decent fit, plus the engraved panel lines I wanted for my model. The cockpit is basic and needs to be replaced. The Hasegawa F-4C/D, despite raised panel lines and cockpit accuracy problems of its own, has some excellent parts that nicely supplement the ESCI kit.

RadomeThe IR sensor on the ESCI nose was inaccurate, and the radome seemed too small in diameter, which would cause a noticeable

PhantomFascinatin’

© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com

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October 2004 www.fi nescale.com 37

1/ 48 Scale | Aircraft | How-to

step at the seam with the fuselage. The Hasegawa kit’s nose is more accurate, and it fit better to boot!

I removed the nose section from the Hasegawa fuselage halves with a razor saw and grafted it to the ESCI fuselage. If you prefer a one-piece nose, you can cut off the IR sensor from the Hasegawa nose and glue it onto the ESCI radome, but then you have to fill that seam. In either case, if you are modeling a C or early D, you will need to modify the IR sensor. Hasegawa pro-vides the later-style sensor with several small bumps and a box-shaped antenna on the underside. I removed them with a hobby knife and a sanding stick, 1, and finished smoothing the sensor after the fuselage halves were together and the seams filled.

WingsI turned to the underside of the wings next, 2. Between the

main-gear wells are two auxiliary air doors that open when the landing gear cycles down. ESCI molded them closed, but I wanted to open them up. I used a scribing tool to thin the plastic in the panel lines and then cut through the rest of the way with a sharp hobby knife. New doors were fashioned from sheet styrene and attached in the lowered position.

I did the same with the flaperons (combined flaps and aile-rons), which should be lowered when the aircraft is parked. I glued the flaperon halves together and then used half-round plastic stock to give the front edges the correct, rounded contour, 3. After the wings were glued together, I simply installed the fla-perons in the lowered position.

ESCI’s wheel bays are decent, but I replaced them with a resin set from Aires, 4, which allowed me to use the better-detailed Hasegawa landing gear and a set of True Details resin

Don’t worry! Darren’s 1/48 scale F-4C isn’t the victim of an airbrushing mishap. He used an unusual painting process to simulate this Vietnam war-horse’s heavily worn Southeast Asia camouflage scheme.

Here’s the left half of the Hasegawa fuselage before Darren removed the nose section (top) with the modified right half of the nose ready to be installed on the ESCI fuselage.

Darren opened up the auxiliary air doors on the underside of the wing and cut away the flaperons to reposition them.

Styrene rod with a half-round cross-section gave the front edges of the flap-erons the correct, rounded contour.

The kit’s main-gear bays were replaced with a resin set from Aires, shown here after fuselage assembly and wing attachment.

1

2

3

4

Remove

Flaperons removed

Cut-out auxiliary air doors

Half-round styrene rod

Aires wheel bays

Gaps filled with pieces of kit intakes and Milliput

Gaps filled with pieces of kit intakes and Milliput

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10 11

5 6 7

38 FineScale Modeler October 2004

wheels. I ground off the molded detail inside the ESCI wings with a sanding wheel in my motor tool. I was careful not to grind too long, which would generate heat that could melt and deform the plastic.

I cleaned up the area with 320- and 600-grit sandpaper, then installed the Aires wheel bays using super glue (styrene cement won’t bond resin to plastic). The wheel bays turned out to be a bit too tall and long, but after careful sanding and cutting a notch in the fuselage, everything fit.

Engines and tailESCI supplies a basic set of engine nozzles with shallow, blanked-off interiors. I opened up this area with the sanding wheel, 5 and 6, to accept the Hasegawa nozzles. Then I found an even better-detailed set of resin burner cans and nozzles from Eagle Designs; they fit perfectly in the openings.

The tail section needed some small fixes, 7. ESCI provides slatted stabilizers, which are incorrect for the C/D variant. I decided to scribe the Hasegawa stabilizers and use them instead. I cut the locating tabs from the ESCI stabilizers and glued them into the corresponding holes in the fuselage to help the Hasegawa parts fit securely. The Hasegawa stabilizers have a round tab to connect them to the fuselage, so I drilled locating holes in the ESCI fuselage where I wanted the tabs to go. I held off installing the easily broken stabilizers until painting and deca-ling were finished.

ESCI’s rudimentary fuel dump above the parachute housing

was replaced with the part cut from the Hasegawa kit, which I thinned a bit so it would match the size of the surrounding area of the ESCI tail. The aircraft I was modeling didn’t have the “football” antenna edge of the fin cap, so I removed it. For most F-4Cs and Ds, however, you will keep it. I replaced the pitot tubes on the leading edge of the vertical tail with the parts from the Hasegawa kit.

For the red light on the leading edge of the tail, I cut a notch and glued in a piece of clear, red plastic stock, then sanded it down to the correct shape. Finally, I cut off the vent at the base of the leading edge and replaced it with a photoetched piece from an Eduard detail set.

The exterior upgrades were complete. If you use the Hasegawa C/D and J kits, there’s one more step: You’ll need to fill in the panel lines for the Navy-style refueling probe on the right half of the F-4J fuselage just under the canopy and scribe the Air Force-style door on the fuselage spine.

IntakesNone of the 1/48 scale Phantom kits have intake trunks that go back to the compressor blades. Instead, they are blanked off and have seams that are extremely difficult to clean up. A set of Seamless Suckers resin intakes that include the compressor blades took care of this for me. Although the set was designed for the Hasegawa kit, it was fairly easy to modify the ESCI kit to accept the parts.

I removed 7mm of the fuselage with a razor saw, 8, and

Darren used a sanding wheel chucked in his motor tool to enlarge the opening for the Eagle Designs resin afterburner cans and nozzles.

The vertical tail required a number of minor cor-rections to represent the F-4C configuration.

Darren started the underlying gull-gray-and-white scheme by painting the insignia using masking tape masks.

Photoetched vent

“Football” antenna

sanded off

Fuel dump removed

Locating slot filled and hole

drilled for Hasegawa parts

Kneaded eraser “snake” mask

Insignia masks

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13 12

8 9

October 2004 www.fi nescale.com 39

sanded down the inside the fuselage and the trunks. I ended up using some of the kit intake to fill a large gap where the wings joined the intakes. I filled other gaps with Milliput, 4, which hardens nicely and won’t chip during sanding or rescribing panel lines. Some of the resin had to be ground away where the lead-ing edge of the wing meets the intake, 9. At the same time, I cut notches farther back on the fuselage so the Aires wheel bays would fit when I attached the wings.

The intakes involved a bit more work than installing them on the Hasegawa kit, but they’re such a vast improvement over the kit intakes, the effort was worth it.

CockpitESCI’s sparse cockpit consists of decals for the instrument panels and rudimentary seats. That wasn’t good enough for my superde-tailed baby, so I used a beautifully detailed resin cockpit set from Black Box. It’s for an F-4D, but the differences between the C and the D are pretty small. I did replace the Navy radar scope hood on the rear instrument panel with a round hood from the Eduard photoetched set.

It took a lot of grinding, sanding, and test-fitting to get the new cockpit tub to fit. I used a razor saw to cut away the back instrument hood of the ESCI kit, and I also removed the canopy sills, 7. Following the instructions that come with the Black Box set will save you a lot of headaches. After gluing the tub in place, I closed up the fuselage halves and added new photoetched canopy sills from the Eduard set.

PaintingMy subject was one of the first production F-4Cs and had been originally delivered to the Air Force in the Navy’s gull-gray-over-white paint scheme. Later, it was painted over with the tactical scheme for Vietnam, but the paint peeled badly, revealing the original paint and markings underneath. The challenge was how to replicate that look.

I began by spraying the gull-gray-and-white scheme. The bond between the first layer of paint and the plastic had to be strong, so I used enamels rather than acrylics. I decided to paint the national insignias also, since they were large, and decals would probably pull off when I created the peeling effect later on. Using a decal as a guide, I made masking tape templates, 10 and 11, and sprayed the white portion first, then the blue, and finally, the red stripes.

For the other markings, I applied Future only where decals would go and cut the decals to roughly the shape of the por-tion that would show through the tactical scheme to reduce the chances of pulling them up later. A coat of Model Master clear flat lacquer protected the gull-gray layer from getting peeled up during the next steps, 12.

Before spraying the colors, I further protected the gull-gray layer’s markings with Micro Mask, 13. I also randomly applied “blobs” of Micro Mask over other areas of the fuselage to make the peeling process easier later on.

For the camouflage, I needed paint that I could actually peel off; it was time to break out the acrylics. I sprayed Model Master

A coat of clear flat lacquer protected the gull-gray layer from the weather-ing onslaught to come.

Micro Mask further protected the markings from the next layer of paint but wouldn’t pull them off when removed.

A section of fuselage had to be cut away to make room for the new Seamless Suckers intakes. The canopy sills were also removed to accommo-date photoetched replacements.

The resin intakes had to be ground away at the spot where they meet the wings’ leading edges.

7mm of fuselage removed

Canopy sills to be removed

Notch to fit Aires wheel

bays

Portion of intake

removed to fit wing

Decals cut to shape of future exposed areas

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14 15

19 20 21

40 FineScale Modeler October 2004

Acryl dark tan first, then free-handed the medium- and dark-green areas, 14.

References showed that while the topsides of some F-4s were oversprayed with SEA colors, the undersides were left white, including the fuel tanks. I masked off the white with a “snake” of kneaded eraser (available at art-supply stores). The eraser is tacky but doesn’t leave a residue – perfect for masking. (Silly Putty would also work; see “Masking with Silly Putty” in the July 2003 FSM.) Larger areas were covered with wide masking tape.

After applying the colors, I masked the edges of each color with eraser snakes, 15, and resprayed the darker colors to clean up the edges, 16. Now, it was time to pull up some paint.

WeatheringI started the weathering process by picking off the blobs of Micro Mask applied earlier, 17. This left the model with a strange polka-dot appearance, 18, but I had started breaking the acrylic paint’s adhesion to the underlying enamel. Next, I used masking tape to pull up different-sized chunks of the col-ors, 19, leaving the gull-gray paint beneath intact. It was exactly the well-worn look I was after.

Where the acrylic paint stuck a little too well, I used a sharp hobby knife to start the chipping, 20, before using the tape to peel off more, 21. When the chipping looked the way I wanted it, I oversprayed with Future, applied the top decals and a coat of

Masking with a combination of his trusty eraser snakes and masking tape, he repainted the edges of the colors.

Darren free-handed the green portions of the camo, but overspray at the edges made the pattern a little too soft.

Where the acrylic topcoat was more tenacious, a hobby knife had to be used to start the peeling before the tape could be brought in to finish the job.

To remove more paint and increase the wear, Darren burnished down mask-ing tape and gave it a quick, brisk pull.

The Air Force version of the Phantom II, the F-4C, resulted from Secretary of Defense McNamara’s plan to restructure the armed forces under the concept of commonality. To reduce costs and realize production economies, aircraft were to be designed to fill both Navy and Air Force requirements.

Department of Defense officials concluded the Navy’s new F-4B fighters

could, with minor changes to the basic design, serve the Air Force as well.

The most noticeable external change was the main landing gear; the Navy’s thin, high-pressure tires were replaced with wider tires and anti-skid brakes. This necessitated a “hump” in the top of the wing and on the main-gear doors to provide clearance for the larger tires. The Navy-style refueling probe was

removed and a receptacle for the Air Force’s high-speed boom was installed behind the cockpit. Changes to the cockpit included the addition of basic flight controls for the back-seater.

Its service in Vietnam showed the F-4C to be a capable combat aircraft that provided the foundation for the highly successful later Phantom versions.

– Darren Roberts

Phantoms for the Air Force

Kneaded eraser snake mask

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17 18 16

22

October 2004 www.fi nescale.com 41

Model Master Acryl clear flat, and finished up with a light mist-ing of Polly Scale dust to bring everything together.

External storesESCI supplies both Navy and Air Force wing pylons, 22. For most Air Force F-4s, the rounded, “humped” pylon is appropri-ate. However, early F-4Cs (and RF-4Cs) like mine had straight, Navy-style pylons. Scrounging through my spares box, I found some extra sway braces and two pairs of triple ejector racks (TERs) to add to the pylons before installing the Sidewinder rails and gluing the pylons to the wings.

The four AIM-7 Sparrow missiles came from the Hasegawa kit, while the four early-style AIM-9 Sidewinders came from a Monogram F-8 Crusader box. I attached the two wing drop tanks and the larger centerline tank, then finished up by install-ing the canopies, engine nozzles, horizontal stabilizers, and the front gear door.

My war-weary Phantom was complete and ready for display on my bookshelf. Even when surrounded by the rest of my col-lection, its eye-catching, one-of-a-kind paint job makes it a con-versation piece. FSM

REFERENCESF-4C, D, and RF-4C in Detail and Scale No. 43 Bert Kinzey,

Squadron/Signal Publications, Carrollton, Texas, 1994

…And Kill MiGs Lou Drendel, Squadron/Signal Publications,

Carrollton, Texas, 1997

SOURCESPhotoetched detail set Eduard and Associates, Obrnice 170, 43521

Obrnice, Czech Republic, www.eduard.com

Burner cans/nozzles No. ED48CK08, Eagle Designs, available

from Victory Productions, P.O. Box 2819, Cummings, GA 30028,

www.victorymodels.com

Cockpit interior No. BL48058, Black Box, P.O. Box 607,

Rowlesburg, WV 26425, available from Squadron Mail Order,

972-242-8663, www.squadron.com

Intakes No. SS-6, Seamless Suckers, 406 N. Hoover, Wichita,

KS 67212

Wheel bays No. 4123, Aires, available from Eagle Strike

Productions, 786-293-6859, www.eaglestrikeproductions.com

Wheels No. TD48043, True Details, available from Squadron Mail

Order, 972-242-8663, www.squadron.com

Micro Mask Microscale Industries, 714-593-1422,

www.microscale.com

A regular contributor to FSM, Darren Roberts has been modeling since age 5. When he’s not modeling modern jets, Darren is an elementary school teacher in Olathe, Kan., where he lives with his wife and two daughters.

Here’s the pristine Vietnam camouflage scheme after edge cleanup, but this isn’t the look Darren wanted!

Darren began peeling up the Micro Mask splotches with tweezers, which provided the starting points for the peeling process. The model takes on an oddly polka-dotted appearance.

Early Air Force F-4Cs were equipped with Navy-style pylons (top) rather than the more rounded Air Force type.

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