Scale Aviation Modeller International 08.2018

PAINTING AND DECALS

I did the underside in Xtracolor

X140 FS36622 Light Grey, followed

by X29 RAF Light Stone for the

Sand, X2 RAF Dark Earth for the

Dark Brown, and X110 FS

Dark Green. I used rolls of Blu-tack

to provide the fairly hard edged

demarcation seen on these aircraft.

I allowed a little overspray where

the dark green goes from the

fuselage to the vertical tail as this is

evident on pictures of the real thing.

The bare metal areas at the

hot end were masked and painted

with various shades of my current

favourite metal finish, AK’s

Xtreme Metal range. I would have

applied some of the “burnt area”

decals I made for the -J build, but

my printer chose to suffer from

terminally blocked heads, so that

may have to wait for another day.

I applied a light coat of Klear,

as I’ve had some issues recently

with decals silvering and some of

the Xtracolor hadn’t come out as

glossy as I would have liked. I now

fitted the nose gear and the main

gear legs and jacks. It’s a joy to be

able to add these, as the jacks fit

positively and accurately (as does

so much of this kit), and it gave me

something to stand the kit on.

And so to the decals. The

Cartograf decal sheet looks

very nice and I really (REALLY)

appreciate that they start with

1 in the top left hand corner

and then run in numbered rows

across the sheet and down to 141

in the bottom right hand corner,

so there’s no need to go hunting

the entire sheet to find a specific

decal. They are also well spaced

out to allow easy access, and to a

large extent, the ones near to each

other on the kit are near to each

other on the sheet. This is how

to design a decal sheet, people!

I wasn’t using the individual

aircraft markings, but from looking

at pictures I knew that the Iranian

aircraft have something similar to

full US stencilling, so most of the

sheet is appropriate. I tried a few of

the underside decals first to see how

they behaved. They went on well

and so I applied most of the rest.

I appreciate that these decals

represent USAF stencils from

the early 70s, but I was building

an Iranian aircraft from the

early 80s and the pictures I have

are from the 90s and 2000s,

so I know that there are

differences (between aircraft

as well!) I tried to account

for this where possible, but

information on Iranian Islamic

Republic Phantoms is often

incomplete or contradictory.

I’m very impressed

with the kit decals; the

quality, the layout, and the

placement instructions

are as good as any I’ve

used. However, nothing’s perfect.

I did not use the formation lights,

as they are too yellow (I also hadn’t

used the plastic parts provided. It’s

a good idea, very clever and I know

the lights are slightly raised, but I

feel decals alone are sufficient). I

found a set of Eagle Strike stencils

and used them where appropriate.

The Hi-Decals markings are

incredibly thin and settled down

well. They look good but they were

also a little fragile at times; more

than one decal folded over on itself

so badly I couldn’t recover it: very

annoying, and next to impossible

to replace, but on the whole the

decals are excellent. It took a good

few days to do the decaling as

there is a lot to apply, but by the

end I was quite happy with how

it my Phantom was looking.

BACK TO THE PLASTIC

It was time to go back and fit a few

bits before the top clear coat, so I

did most of Stages 30 to 36, which

were the main wheels, gear

doors, airbrakes etc. Again

I was impressed by the

positive fit and accuracy of

these parts. It makes the

build a lot easier when you

know you can basically cut a bit off

a sprue, apply glue, offer it up, and it

will fit without any messing around.

I now fitted the outer rear

flaperons at an appropriate angle,

and when everything had set I

applied a top coat of XAFF Xtracolor

Flat Varnish, mixed with Klear,

as the finish in the pictures isn’t

really matt. With that done I could

remove the canopies, unmask them,

and hope everything was OK.

My Blu-tack rolls had kept the

cockpit pretty clean (the close

fit of the kit parts also helped),

so I added the three mirrors to

the pilot’s canopy section. The

instructions would have you

add one in the middle of the rear

canopy for the WSO, but pictures

show the Iranian aircraft with

two scabbed-on external mirrors.

Again, I don’t know if these were

fitted in the 80s timeframe I was

going for, but as the kit actually

has them in the box I fitted them

to the rear canopy section.

My only complaint here is that,

like every other Phantom I’ve

built, ZM has not represented the

heavy canopy interior framework.

I was tempted to break out one

of my Hypersonic sets (intended

for the Hasegawa kits) and make

it fit. I understand that with

cutting it can be done, but in the

end I left it as is. (Jeffery will

be producing a set for the ZM

Phantoms so sign me up for a few...)

And with it nearly being

endgame it was time to start

throwing bits at it from various

previous stages. The Total Air

Temperature (TAT) sensor, the

“THIS IS FAR AND AWAY THE

BEST PHANTOM IN 1/48 SCALE

(MAYBE ANY SCALE), AND I

REALLY HOPE TO BUILD MORE”

WWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • AUGUST 2018 • 11

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