US Naval Air Test Center

1/32 F-4J Tamiya kit with some extra detailing and Superscale decals 

There is not much to say about the F-4 Phantom, or better there is too much to start here.

It is the same with the Tamiya kit. It is the best Phantom kit around in 32-scale and it is really nice. The fit is good and it looks great when finished.  But there is some detailing necessary, especially in the “middle” section of the cockpit and the ejection seats are a little basic. And I think there should be some photoetch to make the canopy mechanism, but I couldn`t get the set in time so I did without. 

I started with the cockpit and this took some time as there are some more details visible in such a big model. I know that it is a little bit too colourful, but I think the effect is ok. I added some wiring to the RIO`s panels as they are clearly visible.  I also took resin seats because they are much more detailed as the Tamiya-seats, because with them is a lack of the complete seat harness.

Click on images below to see larger images

After this the building was straight forward an I was surprised, how fast it went on.  The fit is very good, nearly no filling and sanding was required.  As we can see in the other great reviews on ARC of the 1/32 Phantom there is of course much more room for super-detailing, but this one was a little bit shorter going, so I started with the painting.  I used my airbrush and Gunze colours and started with the grey and white surfaces. Then i went on with the black and red surfaces. The red is a red-orange and I mixed it with Gunze Orange+Red, because I couldn't find this colour as acrylic paint.

After this the kit looks big, but pooring.  A washing with oil paint and a slight weathering brings some “life” effects and makes a more 3-dimensional look.  Between the different phases of painting, washing, decaling and detail painting I applied thin layers of future to fix it.

The decals are from an Superscale-sheet (32-42). On the sheet is also the “5000-Phantom”, an F-4E. Unfortunately those Superscale-sheets are hard to find, but I was lucky to get one.  The decals are really thin as the Tamiya decals are. I took both sheets, the kit decals where needed for the stencils.

After a last coat with future the Phantom made it into my showcase and I think it looks great in this very attractive colour sheme.

I hope you like it

Thomas Neuss

Click on images below to see larger images