Full Review

Zoukei-Mura

F-4EJ Kai Phantom II Phantom Forever 2020

1:48 scale

Super Wing Series No.11

with Geoff Coughlin (February 2021)

Copyright www.scalemodellingnow.com 2021

Intro comments… We are very lucky to have an early sample of this new kit that includes the small number of parts to make the F-4EK Kai - an additional sprue is included this time with those new parts.

You may know that I completed an in-depth full build of ZM’s first release of their F-4E…

…and you can find the full build in the usual place for all completed Zoukei-Mura aircraft projects in SMN (Aircraft-Finished Now-Zoukei-Mura).

I strongly recommend that you also take a look at the In-Box Here Now review that I’ve done for this kit as it contains some detailed information on the identifying features for the F-4EJ Kai over the F-4E. And of course you can see the new parts.

What a scheme… On April 15, 2020, the 301st Squadron of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force Hyakuri Base unveiled the F-4EJ Kai Phantom II, which will be the "second frog" and the last commemorative painting machine. The model number of the commemorative painting machine is “07-8436”.

Based on metallic blue, the F-4 Phantom character "Spook" is depicted on the vertical tail and the underside of the main wing, and the intake faithfully reproduces the successive squadron marks where the F-4 was deployed by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.

In Ibaraki Prefecture, where the Hyakuri base is located.

Date : From 15.4.2020

You tube clip: https://youtu.be/5veguvP1gGc

The plan… Here’s the plan for this build…

Video 1

References… If you search Facebook you should find quite a few images for this aircraft and the ‘Metallic Blue’ scheme

applied to F-4EJ kai 07-8436.

The manufacturer’s website also has some good info and I recommend you visit that too.

The fact is that you will get pretty much all you need to know in the box when it arrives and I have found the above websites useful for the finer points for paint and weathering application and much more of this later as that will be the focus for this build. I mention in my video above that all the details for constructing this kit are contained in my full build in SMN for the F-4E and I plan to replicate that again here with this build so I won’t dwell very much at all on construction this time in terms of videos.

Let’s face it, we all can’t wait to get to that colour scheme! Right?

And here’s a pic of the manufacturer’s completed model…

Additions… • eduard Set: 49231 F-4E • scratched items in the cockpit - small details like wiring behind the seats etc.

Let’s get underway… Inevitably starting in the cockpit and the ease of fit and lovely detail already gives me a sense of deja vu!

Video 2

Assembling the cockpit is very straightforward, just be sure to take your time securing the parts exactly, so that they line up perfectly and all will be well. The raised detail on all the panels is superb and also works perfectly with the decals provided.

Prepare the cockpit parts by spraying black first and then Dark Sea Grey, allowing some of the shadows to give a decent 3-D look. You can add some dry-brushing and then the fine detail painting using a cocktail stick for the various knobs and switches.

The decals settle down really well by first wetting each main panel with Johnson’s Klear (or use Micro Set/Sol) and when in position apply heat from a hairdryer. Sounds risky but it isn’t really, just a medium heat and not too close. Keep the heat on until the decal draws down fully over the raised detail. It’s incredible how this works, even over very pronounced detail :) love it.

Intakes… I think it’s a good idea to add the engine intakes at this point - it’s easier to get everything lined up now and then tape securely. The fit is perfect, you just need to get the join perfectly lined up.

Wings and engines… Unless you plan to do some serious surgery to the airframe, the engines won’t be seen. This project is all about the paint scheme and so the engines can just be made up and inserted into the airframe without any need for paint. I also plan to add some FOD guards to the intake faces so also no need to worry about the insides of the intakes - happy days.

The lower wing section with the engines attaches to the separate upper wing sections and taped that up to dry. Again, flawless - no filler at all for the main wing join and you definitely feel progress is rapid :)

Decide how you want to position the flaps and leading edge slats (retracted or blown), use the appropriate parts, assemble and very soon you have a very nice shape forming - the unmistakeable lines of the F-4E Kai. I added the nose cone at

this stage too, along with a little plasticine and metal weights to make sure there’s no chance of the model tail-sitting. The nice gun fairing is also added now.

Ready for paint… I prepped lots of the smaller parts - mainly things like the undercarriage doors inner faces), wheel wells etc and sprayed them dark grey - we’ll add some gloss white later on, the dark grey will add depth to the final look.

The cockpit is masked and I settled on using MRP paint - here their US Dark Ghost Gray. The grey is almost an exact match for the grey plastic.

Videos 3-5

Canopy… One of my regrets in my first build of the ZM F-4E Early, is that I didn’t add canopy latches to the kit parts. You notice these latches on the real aircraft - I guess that I had added so much else in terms of finer detailing that I’d had enough! Either way, this time they are going on and eduard does a good PE set with plenty of canopy detail. The parts with the hooks just need to be trimmed to fit - no big task really.

First the clear parts are masked with Tamiya tape, inside and out, then you can happily work away adding whatever details you like. Some small things I’ll leave off to avoid damage and add them towards the end of the build.

Black up next… Again I used MRP paints and their Black gives a nice contrast to the dark grey used in and around the cockpit area. You have some serious masking to do first to protect the rest of the grey airframe.

Video 6

Back end metallic… I think it’s a good idea to get the base metallic onto the rear underside now and I used AK’s Xtreme Metal Dark Aluminium for that. Several areas on the underside and stabilisers will need detail colouring and that’ll come later.

Next we’ll decide on the best way forward for the metallic blue area - looking forward to that :)

Here’s how she looks ahead of the gloss varnish. The MRP paints really do spray superbly - smooth, good coverage and opaque.

Gloss varnish - preparation for the epic decal task ahead… Following a heads up from Jamie H some time ago I have really got to like the acrylic varnishes from Galleria (available from Hobbycraft and elsewhere in the UK). I bought their gloss, satin and matt and they come in large plastic bottles that last a long time and don’t seem to yellow at all. The varnish is water-based and has not discernible odour and cleans up quickly in water.

The manufacturer says not to spray the varnish too thickly, just lay it down in a couple of thin coats and it works a treat - in the sense that it should dry well in a couple of days. For me, it’s really important to get a good gloss finish onto which you can apply your decals and so the model is set aside while we grasp the nettle and find a suitable metallic blue paint mix for the front of the drop tanks.

Into the blue… I’ve certainly had long enough to think about this and you may well come up with your own approach, so what follows in my adventure that ended up with an acceptable match to the pearlescent blue decal striping on the tanks - not perfect by any means but close enough for me.

I’ve edited and stitched together about 6 short videos that show how I got there with the blue paint mix and if you want to know how you could probably get there quicker than I did, I would start with Tamiya Clear Blue and slowly add small amounts of acrylic silver to get a decent match. As you’ll see, I started with too much silver and kept adding clear blue and that just took too long, so good luck with how you get on. You get a spare, slightly different centreline tank in the box and this is good for the practice as you’ll see in the videos.

• Tamiya Clear Blue X-23 • Vallejo acrylic White Aluminium

Video 7a-i (one longer video)

I think the end result is acceptable and take care to make sure you spray enough of each tank blue - I misjudged this and didn’t go far enough up to the pylon, so beware.

Notice the slight pearlescent look to the kit blue on the decal sheet - a feat for the decal manufacturer - Cartograf.

Decal time… The kit decal sheet really is something special and the painting/decal guide included in the kit is incredibly helpful. The decals are batched on the sheet too - especially useful when applying all the tiny stencils as you don’t have to do much hunting early on. Later, when you’ve cut the sheet up into small pieces it’s useful to try and keep some sort of order on your bench or you’ll go mad trying to find some of the smaller items.

Have a plan… I found it helpful to really think about how you are going to approach this epic task - it took me 4 days to apply all the decals (well, that’s 4 long sessions spread over four days).

What seems to work well is to apply the larger decals first - this makes sure you get everything in the right place, or so I thought. It only dawned on me when I started to apply the stencils that some of the these need to go under the big decals, although the majority don’t and do sit on top. The instructions are quite clear - I just missed that element. In hindsight, I don’t think I would do anything different in my approach though and it matters not that a few of the smaller stencils actually sit across the joins with the larger decals.

It might all sound a bit confusing although it really isn’t in practice - honestly.

The other tip I would offer is to cut the larger wing decals into three smaller sections, it’ll make placing them much easier - for example, cutting around the Hinomaru roundels.

Video 8

Don’t forget the tailplanes…

The underside takes the most work - luckily, there are a few decals that have groups of small decals all in one that saves time - just be incredibly careful and use enough water to position all decals quickly and accurately.

The tank decals take a lot of work to fit and I also needed to make numerous cuts in key places plus copious amounts of Micro Sol to get them to conform and position properly. They will fit, it’s just that there’s

precious little room for error in their positioning.

I had planned to include a video but the decaling process requires a huge amount of concentration and adding a video would have been just too stressful, sorry.

The undercarriage doors had all been prepped too so that their decals can go on at the same time.

Again I left everything for a couple of days and then sprayed more gloss varnish to seal the decals in - this is another crucial stage if you want to avoid any silvering. Leave for another couple of days at warm room temperature - this is key to ensuring the varnish dries thoroughly at each stage.

For some of the small stencils, they don’t completely go down into the panel lines on the underside and so an easy fix is to take a new scalpel blade and carefully score along the panel lines that have stencils across them and add plenty more Micro Sol, that way the decals will conform nicely when dry which is great.

The final phase of this stage is to spray matt varnish onto the grey areas and I also did it randomly across the black and some of the blue to tie everything together. I am pleased that there isn’t any silvering that I can see.

While the model dries (yet again!) I can work on all the small sub-assemblies like the gear and cockpit that’ll come in the next part - hopefully the final one for this build that has been an absolute pleasure so far.

On the home leg now… Time really to start bringing everything together and see the full effect of all the hard work.

We need to start getting some grime and weathering onto the underside - especially the back end that stains heavily, even on ‘anniversary’ aircraft! If you check out facebook there are some great photos and one in particular of the underside of this machine and I used that for reference.

What you see here is done completely with pastel chalks - various browns, greys and yellows. Your Techniques Bank has quite a lot on how I do all this.

Finishing off that back end… The metallic areas are further weathered using pastels and also some ordinary pencil graphite applied with a cotton bud. Dark grey pastels stippled onto the undersurfaces of the stabilisers and rear fuselage to represent spotty deposits give a convincing look to this area I think.

The grey panel lines are slightly enhanced by using a slightly darker grey than the base colour - just carefully ‘painted’ along the panel lines - just take your time and build this effect up gradually.

Undercarriage… Invariably when the Phantom II is parked, locking jacks are fitted around the oleo legs to prevent accidental retraction and I wanted to add these - they are easy to manufacture by simply adding small lengths of fuse wire (3-4) sections for each part. Then just paint them red and add some weathering and also RBF tags for completeness. I think the effect looks good (see pics here and on the final shots).

I also sanded flats on the tyres and added brake lines to the legs. The main omission from all F-4 kits that I’m aware of is the metallic rod that stick up behind

each leg at about 45 degrees. I added these from thick wire. Some stencils were also added from coloured metal foil. A little oil wash added some depth to finish. The legs click into place very well so it should be easy to get all the legs at the correct angles.

Bang seats… The Martin Baker Mk.7 seats provided are a good base on which to build. They need a harness and again, although the overhead ejection handles are provided in plastic, I just found it impossible to remove and clean these up without damaging them. So eduard comes to the rescue with a nice pre-painted detail set (FE1013).

I think the seats look realistic enough when done…

Final bits and bobs… The speed brakes are painted Tamiya Flat Red XF-7, have their decals applied and weathered with pencil graphite.

The burner cans are sprayed Tamiya Rubber Black XF-85 and some chipping using a silver pencil, graphite pencil, some pastels and pushed into place.

Pylons and AAM-3… The pylons are weathered in just the same way as the rest of the grey areas.

I notice that in many photos of ‘436’ that she carries an AAM-3 drill round.

I think this looks really good and you can adapt one of the AIM-9’s included in the kit by sanding the rear fins to shape, shortening and making the nose a bit more blunt and finally fabricating new front fins from thin placard or metal foil as I have done here. Notice too the design of those forward fins. I made one that looked right and then used that as a template for the other three. If using foil, take great care when handling to avoid bending the delicate fins - in fact I added the AAM-3

right at the end of the build because of this.

Phinal cockpit details… The main task at this stage is to add the prominent wiring behind the pilot and RIO. Previously I had drilled out some holes in the back of the RIOs instruments and this helped to locate the wires. I used fine lead detailing wire that’s perfect for the task.

Other additions included finely coiled wire to represent the oxygen hoses and an eduard canopy detailing set (a tip is to insert a piece of flexible wire into the coil to help it to keep it’s shape). This is great because you get the canopy rails, hooks, mirrors etc that help to finish this area nicely. I also added a couple of RBF tags just stowed to add a bit more interest. If I had my time again I would definitely add the canopy set to my earlier build of my ZM F-4E Early that you may have seen.

Video 9

Here are a few photos showing the cockpit nearing completion.

Just the canopies to add…

And that, as they say is that!

Closing thoughts… The F-4EJ Kai Phantom II in 1:48 scale from ZM is nearly flawless in terms of fit. It has great detail and is a joy to build. Obviously this scheme is something very special and the decals are outstanding quality. You do need to find a seat harness

and canopy details as well as add some extra wiring behind the seats and for me this is all par for the course when building a model of any F-4.

I absolutely loved this build and I cannot recommend it highly enough. A number of you guys out there have said that you either are planning on buying this kit, have it on order or have just received it - fantastic! I know that you’ll love building and finishing it.

I have no hesitating in giving this release our coveted SMN 5-Star Rating - very well deserved for sure.

And a closing thought just as we are going to press with this final part of the build… Tamiya has announced an all-new-tool F-4B Phantom II in 1:48 - quite a surprise to be honest and I already have one on order and I’ll be building that too just as soon as it lands :) It’ll be very interesting to see the similarities and differences that each manufacturer takes.

Video 10

Geoff C