Dirk's Fujimi F4B Phantom II of VF 84

Back on the bench....

The biggest, fastest, most powerful, most expensive. The list of superlatives for the F-4 Phantom goes on and on. The Phantom was - we would like to say is, but the past tense is apt - the standard against which every fighter of its era was judged. Everything else in the air had to contend with the almost impossible challenge of defeating the Phantom, and nothing ever did.

A Fujimi F4B Phantom II of VF 84. The VF Fighting 84 lineage dates all the way back to WWII and is still around today.





The kit



The kit is molded in gray with engraved panel lines and has 106 injection molded parts, five of which are clear plastic for the canopy. The instructions are well illustrated, and include supplemental drawings to show the proper positioning for open canopies, as well as the proper angle for the rear stabilizers and a paint guide for the missiles. Overall, this appears to be a very good kit.



Fujimi’s jet intakes are of good quality, with engraved detail on the ramps. Like the much older 1/72 Revell F-4E, the Fujimi version features intakes that curve around to meet the ramps on top and on the bottom, covering a full 180 degrees on a vertical line. This is a big plus, since some other manufacturers (namely Monogram) feature intakes that do not cover a full 180 degrees, meeting the bottom edge of the fuselage, and require a lot of putty, sanding and patience to hide an ugly seam that never appeared on the actual Phantom. With the Fujimi Phantom this is not a problem.

The kit’s exhaust nozzles seem to follow an industry standard of providing good external detail, and fairly good molding representing the turbofan at the end of the shaft.

The kit’s missiles are noteworthy mainly because they bear engraved panel lines, something I have rarely if ever seen on a kit.

The kit decals are crisp and all completely in register with no bleed-over or blurred lines. *There are two versions: *The first is for VF-84, the “’Jolly Rogers” that features two different versions of the skull and crossbones tail insignia, both of them white, but one with a black background that is reminiscent of the flag of 18th Century pirate ships. *The VF-84 version looks impressive and includes markings for the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Independence. *My only criticism is that the particular shade of yellow in the diagonal band across the fuselage does not ring true. *The second version of decals is for VF-213, the “Black Lions,” and does not appear to have a vessel designation – overall a much plainer looking aircraft bearing little more than aircraft and serial number designations.



The cockpit features decals for all instrument panels, and seats of fair detail that offer separate parts for the pull handles triggering the ejection sequence. The pull handles are not particularly detailed, but at least an effort is made to represent them. Many manufacturers do not bother with this part.

Looks like a great kit, cant wait to see it go together.

Always liked the Phantom.

Looking foward to this one Dirk.

nightflier wrote:Looks like a great kit, cant wait to see it go together.

Thanks, NF

Al. wrote:Always liked the Phantom.

Looking forward to this one Dirk.

Yeah, me to. They are big, cumbersome, and loud. In other words purely American!

LOL :) :) :)

Here's the cockpit. The decals aren't excessively thick but they took forever to come free from the paper.





Cockpit in place and the fuselage closed up






Till next time.... Stay safe.

Superb work on the cockpit Dirk.

Assembling the wings. Nice detail but the panel lines, while recessed they are quite shallow. I'm worried about them come time to paint.



Fuselage set and the sanding and filling of the joints has commenced. Not a lot to do when it comes to the seems on this kit





Wings and fuselage joined together.



It was at this point I had my first "Oh Crap" moment of this build. I realized after i attached the wings that i forgot to drill out the attaching points for the pylons...







Till next time, guys... Stay safe and B - Strong

Brilliant progress, these things are sent to try us!

It's one of the worlds most iconic fighters. The McDonald Douglas F-4 PhantomII Supersonic foul weather fighter bomber. Its one bad **EXPLETIVE** airplane.

Nick names:
The Double Ugly
The Rhino
The Mig Killer

When this aircraft came charging onto the scene, it didn't ask permission, it just barged in, said "here we are, Who wants to fight?" It wasn't designed to be a dog fighter. In fact, initially it didn't have any guns at all. It was designed to be a high altitude, fast, long range interceptor. It became the standard in which every fighter of its time was measured against.

Nearly 60,000lbs of brute force, just over 58 feet long, and 38 feet from wingtip to wingtip. The F4 Phantom is a monster. My favorite nickname  for this aircraft was "The Double Ugly," derived from its two engines and two man crew. The Phantom served in all three branches of the US military, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Its also served in just about every roll from air-to-air and air-to-ground. Some planes do one thing well, the Phantom does them all well! Basically the greatest front line aircraft of the time.

Moving forward with my Phantom build. More sanding of the seams was required.

These antennas needed to be removed in order to install the AAA-4 Infra-red detector





Once it sets I'll trim this bit down





Till next time... Stay safe and B - Strong

Great work Dirk, Ill follow along with this one.

This is coming together nicely Dirk. The cockpit looks great.

Thanks, guys. It is a sharp aircraft

I trimmed the IR sensor on the Phantom. Removed the tab being pointed at in the photo



I then masked the 4 part canopy and installed.



Then I shot some of the interior color onto the window frames. Once the frame work dried the model was given a coat of white primer.

Great progress Dirk.

Time for some paint. For this I'll be going with the model Masters enamel line of paints. The instructions call for the bottom of the aircraft to be white, but due to the scale of this model I felt that white would be to bright. So to make it look more in scale and to add contrast to the interior landing gear bays which I did paint white I choose to paint the bottom of the aircraft light gray. I also used this color on the radar dome, the upper flaps and the upper surfaces of the rear stabilizers.





In this picture you can see the difference between the underside of the aircraft and the main landing gear interior.



After a couple days of drying time I masked the upper surfaces for the top coat.



Masking to protect the bottom paint work



The instructions call the top to be painted "Gray." As we all know there are all types and shades of gray. I painted the top with Light Ghost Gray, but later after it dried it looked way to dark. It wasn't right. So back to the drawing board. This time I made a home brew of gray, using Light Sea Gray and Light Gray.

While the pictures don't show the colors properly, the upper surfaces now better reflect the colors of the "Jolly Rogers" F-4's

Great work.

Good looking build, and a great plane. I have a 1/48 E version in the stash. Will be an RAAF bird.

Thank you for the kind words, guys

Engines painted and decaling has begun. Lots and lots of tiny decals for this one





Now for another one of those "AUGH" moments

I realized as I was decaling that I had forgotten and lost these access panels. There is one on each side





I am having way to many of these type of issues lately. Anyway time to take a step back, reflect and formulate a plan to fix this.

These things are sent to try us. Looks superb Dirk.

Time to paint some ordinance. I started with the AIM Sidewinders. They get two yellow stripes. I painted a large yellow band where the stripes go



Next is the Sparrows. They have a yellow and gray bands





I then took some painters tape, made some really thin strips and masked the bands







I sanded the back end of the Sparrows and stick a toothpick (Cocktail stick) up its "tailpipe"





Next out to do some painting





Once dried I removed the masks

They have worked out great.

nightflier wrote:They have worked out great.

Thanks, I was worried how i would get those bands on there, but it worked and I'm pleased. In my haste i forgot to paint the nose cone of the sparrows but I can live with that. I'mm make sure i paint the sidewinders.

Next up, landing gear. The gear doors on an F4 are 3 pieces, this kit made them as one and you the modeler have to dissect the parts if you want to display it on the ground. Not a difficult task if you take your time and use a sharp knife





Main gear doors are in place along with the actuator arms



I will add a wash to these areas later

Here is one of the photos that was sent to me showing the location of the mounting holes. You can see here that the holes are right in the middle of those, albeit faint, panels. This will be the mounting point to the rocket hard points



My panel lines are nearly invisible but I was able to locate them and using a circuit board drill bit I made my holes



This photo shows the locations for the External tanks

That is looking seriously good.

Ok, time to take a break from the Phantom, Other then some weathering she is good to go but I decided I want a base for for this build. To do this we are going to start with a wood base. 11 1/2 x 12 1/2 by 1/2 thick that I got from Hobby Lobby. I also used two pieces of Silly Winks craft foam. One piece is 2mm thick the the other is 4mm thick.



My goal is to represent a carrier deck with a blast shield and catapult. Before i get to far into this, I want to be clear, I'm not going for exactness. I just want a base that when someone looks at it they go, "Hey, that's a carrier deck." I don't want to spend a lot of time or money either. So looking at photos, I got an idea of how big to make my blast shield. I transferred these measurements to the 4mm foam and cut.... I then glued the 2mm foam whole, to the wood using contact cement. Placed some weight to make sure it was flat and put it aside.



While that dries I turned to making the blast door. To make this i turn to some evergreen styrene.





The top of the blast door is smooth, but the underside is pretty detailed. To make this detail on the cheap i took a trip to my local dollar store where i bought some 20" by 30" 1/4" foam core poster board for a buck ($1).



I cut this material down to small strips and removed the paper backing.













Now with everything dry its time to seal the foam. To do this I took some Modge Poge, and some black paint and made a mixture. The purpose of the black paint is so I can see what i sealed and so i don't miss anything.



Now we have the basics for the blast shield



That's all for now... Till next time, B - Strong

Great work Dirk, it’ll look brilliant.

Transferring the size of the blast door to the main deck



Fitting the blast door





Laying out the grid work for the flight deck detail



All laid out. The center line for the catapult was created using my wood burner.



With the grid marked out I took a sharp blade and just cut the surface of the foam. When this is done you can hardly see the cuts



But once you pass a heat gun over them, they open like magic.



Now turning back to my wood burner and a different tip I set to work laying out the pattern for the Not sure which) the tie down anchor or the static discharge grounding point. They are a little big I know but it is what it is. Once painted and weathered they should be good enough for this purpose



Thanks for taking the time to look at my project

A truly stunning build Dirk.  Decades ago I would walk a security post in front of an alert RF4C when I was based in Korea and have loved the design of this ever since.  You inspired me to look for one to build.

I don't know what it is about this kit that it doesn't want to get built. This time its a huge double "AUGH"

I don't know what happened but I noticed today that the wingtip was broken off.



Frekin! Frakin! motherless... son of a.... Donkey jibs,...



After calming down and cleaning up the mess from my tantrum I started by cleaning and squaring off the break



I then took some Evergreen styrene and set to work



I doubled up the Evergreen and glued the pieces together. This gave me a thickness to match the wingtip.



After some trial and error I go the right fit and glued it in place. After this drys I will try and match the paint.

Till next time... B - Strong

Spanky 19 wrote:A truly stunning build Dirk.  Decades ago I would walk a security post in front of an alert RF4C when I was based in Korea and have loved the design of this ever since.  You inspired me to look for one to build.

Thank you for the kind words, Spanky. I look forward to your build

Close enough



Paint next

The build is completed and photos have been posted in the completed section of the forum. I'd like to tank all those that took the time to look at my build and a special thanks to those that took time from their day to comment. It made the build more enjoyable and interactive.

You can jump to the finished photos by clicking : HERE