Model Aircraft – September 2019

I diluted this a little with their own brand
thinner and gave the whole model a couple
of light to medium coats. This was left to dry
fully overnight and given a light sanding/
polish in the morning with some ine wet n
dry sandpaper after which I added some pre-
shading to the panel lines and some mottling
over the entire airframe to give the proceeding
paintwork a slightly weathered appearance.
Due to the nature of the light-coloured paint
scheme on US Navy Phantoms I used a dark
grey for the pre-shading/mottling as I thought
black would be too stark. I started on the
underside and sprayed Gunze Aqueous H316
(FS17875), slowly building up the depth of the
layers over the pre-shading. It took two or three
light coats in the end. I left this to cure overnight
before tackling the main upper surface. This
was painted in Gunze Aqueous H325
(FS26440) and the same procedure as
the underside was followed however,
it only took one to two coats. I
masked and sprayed the tail in
Tamiya X-18 Semi-Gloss Black with
some XF-85 Rubber Black to try and
vary the shading somewhat.

I followed this up with the yellow (Gunze

Aqueous H413 RLM 04) on the wing tips and

top of tailin. The nose cone (Gunze Aqueous

H318 Radome) and inally the black anti-glare

panel in front of the cockpit. At this point

I thought I’d let the paint dry overnight to

minimise the handling and reduce the risk of

ingerprints and the like. I turned my attention

to the ordnance and sprayed the bands on the

missiles yellow, brown

and black. Decals are

supplied for these,

but I prefer to paint

when I can. These

were masked once

dry before spraying

the main bodies

white. The

sidewinder tips were brush painted with Vallejo

Model Air Gunmetal and Aluminium where

appropriate. The following day I masked the

rear end for the metallic areas to the exhaust

end of the aircraft. I sprayed Vallejo Gloss black

irst in preparation for the metallic colours. For

these, I used various shades of Vallejo Metal

Color (Dark Aluminium, Exhaust Manifold, Burnt

Iron, Steel and Pale Burnt Metal). These dry

extremely quickly (touch dry in ive minutes)

and are pretty durable to handling after

ifteen-twenty minutes. The whole model was

then given two medium coats of Alclad Aqua

Gloss through the airbrush to provide a lovely

smooth gloss inish ready for decaling.

The decals were designed by Crossdelta

and printed by Cartograf, and the quality of

these was superb. They went down lovely but

can also take a fair bit of re-positioning and

man-handling so to speak. Once positioned

and a thin application of Micro-Sol applied to

them, they literally ‘melt’ into the model with

the carrier ilm disappearing. Be prepared for

a few nights/sessions of decaling though as

there are a lot of stencils to add. Talking of

stencils these were my only slight criticism in

The decals were

designed by Crossdelta

MODEL AIRCRAFT SEPTEMBER 2019

F-4J PHANTOM

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