Revell Germany F-4F Phantom II

It's me, back at it again. Today's activity took me to photetch. What I thought would take only maybe half an hour took me ALL AFTERNOON! I had started to bend my parts another day, so I finished that today. I then prepped the parts, in this case the little metal doobobby that goes at the back side of the engine exhaust, for gun blue. For those of you who are not familiar with gun blue (I was in that boat at this time last year), gun blue is just a liquid (actually blue!) that etches certain metals. Guns, knives, and yes, photoetch are among those metals.

 

To prep the PE for the blue, you have to use steel wool to 'roughen' the metal up, then clean it with a degeraser. The last time I blued, I omited both of those steps, but today I figured that there must be steps for a reason.

So after that, I immersed my two parts into the blue, and watched the magic happen. After a quick dunk in water, they were done. 

I think I will dry brush a little silver on them, just to give them some pop (also so they stand out a bit in the dark, almost black engines).

Next, I started with the curvy panels that go on the inside of the exhaust walls, towards the openings. Now, I thought this would be easier then it was. First of all, the tool that I was bending the parts around, although fitting perfectly into the exhausts, was a little bigger then the panels. Hmmmm...unfortunate. So after getting them into a reasonably round shape, I then fought for the next 2 hours trying to superglue it close with glue I had figured 2 months previously didn't work. However, the efficiency of it gluing fingers to parts was not diminished. :\

I finally relented, got up and got the good superglue and it glued like a charm. Now, if I could have just started it out that way.....

At this point I have yet to blue the above parts, but I think once that is done I will also give it a dry brush of silver.

Cheers!

Looking forward to getting further into the build.

Thanks mississippivol for the advice, but I , err went headlong with the steps on the instructions. 

I have attached the front nose cone, a little out-of-order with the instructions, but hey, oh well. Instructions are more like a guideline anyways.

I think a little sanding is going to be required to even out the minor difference between the nose and the rest of the fuselage. Now, on to more pressing things. I have as-of-yet to purchase the two main colours that are going to be the 'stars' of the show. Black, I think gloss black, and carmine red. This being said, I have prepped the engine intake plates for priming and colour.

That's it for now folks!!

 

One tip for the front fuselage. Glue the front to the rear for each half, then join both halves. It helps to eliminate the steps in the seams that usually occurs with those asemblies. Hasegawa's Phantoms have that issue and the parts in yours break down similarly.

I think I am now done with the cockpit. I figure that once it is all closed up and the canopy added, not a whole lot of the pretty detail will be seen, so why spend more time on it?

My next task is to prep that silly front 'nose' section to be joined with the main fuselage/wings portion. After that, I expect some minor filling/sanding will be required, then I guess off to the spray booth. 

 

Very nicely done.  I love the cockpit detail, and am looking forward to the progress of your build sir.

Toshi

For a 1/72 pit, man that one is great! If you do the same amount of work on the rest, that will be one show winner for sure.

Jim