Model Aircraft – September 2019

and snuggles into the wing joins – the it being

so good that I didn’t even have to use iller. The

next stage was to add the intake shrouds and

these took a little bit of fettling to get a good it

with minimal sanding. If I build another at some

point, I would add some small tab plates on the

inner side of the fuselage where the shrouds

meet. This would provide a positive gluing

point and aid with it. I had to add some iller,

sand and re-instate some lost panel lines and

rivets but nothing major or unexpected.

The nose cone was also a one-piece afair

and the it of this was great, again needing no

iller and only a light sand to one side. The outer

wings were also added at this stage as well

as the lower exhaust area (below the tail in)

which is quite a complicated area with curved

portions but again, credit to Academy the it

was excellent. This simply glued in placed it

left virtually no steps between itself and the

main fuselage. I added the tailin at this point

but left of the rear horizontal stabilisers (well

the drooped ones in this case) as this would

greatly aid the metal painting zone. At this

stage the familiar Phantom shape had taken

efect and I could start the painting process

soon. I just had one task to complete and that

was the ordnance. I chose to make up two fuel

tanks, one for each wing together with four

sidewinders, two for each wing. These were

all glued up, with any seams sanded and dealt

with ready for priming. I left of the centreline

fuel tank as I wanted to dirty this area up and

show it of a bit.

The next stage was to prime the model

and for this I used Vallejo Light Grey Primer.

Adding a coat of Vallejo

Light Grey Primer

After a pre-shade I

began adding the

various colours

The inished

look of the

undersides......

....with the red

airbrake and vents

breaking up the colour

(^20) F-4J PHANTOM WWW.MODELAIRCRAFTMAG.COM