CORONA Virus Sanity saver (updated: Completed)

The Academy F-4J and Sword FJ-3M Fury

(Official US Navy Photograph)

(Official US Navy Photograph)

  Since we've all been sheltering in place here sunny South Carolina, USA, to avoid the Kung-flu, I've past the time tele-working, working out and building 2 model kits. 

The Academy F-4J is my first "press fit" kit. I was a little skeptical thinking it would be like the "snap-tite" kits of my long ago youth. So far, I've been impressed. The fit on the cockpit pieces is excellent, and tight enough it doesn't need glue. Regardless, I've run a little Tenex-7 round the joints. 

 On the other end of the great modeling continuum, is the Sword FJ-3M Fury. This is a limited run kit with few if any locating pins, fine engraved panel lines & thick parts trees with heavy attachment points. The ejection seat comes in two resin pieces. 

First up is the Fury cockpit: 

In my kit, the face curtain on the headrest was broken. So, I fashioned a replacement out of fine copper wire.   

After painting all the cockpit parts dark gull gray, I took flat white paint and thinned for airbrushing. Using a toothpick, I placed a drop of white paint on each of the gauges on the console. The thinned paint flowed to the raised edges and stopped yielding a perfect circle. After that dried, I did the same thing with thinned black paint. The black didn't quite cover the white with one application. The white peeking through gives the impression of gauge markings.

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The rest of the cockpit was painted and dry brushed to highlight the details. The seat was detailed with left over Eduard photo-etch parts from previous projects. (Note how thick the attachment point is one the control column.) FYI, I mistakenly thought a raised plastic circle was from an ejector pin and dutifully scraped it off. WRONG! it was to raise the seat to be even with the cockpit deck: hence, the white plastic shim.

For the Academy F-4J, I, pretty much did the same thing. Since the F-4 cockpit is a generation ahead of the FJ-3M, a little more detail is required. In all my previous Hasegawa F-4 models, I used the Eduard Zoom photo-etch parts in place of the cockpit decals and resins seats to replace the kit parts. I've kept the kit cockpit decals and the left over Zoom parts. The Academy cockpit has all the detail molded on the parts and no gauge decals. So, I used Mike Grant cockpit decals, old kit decals, painting and dry brushing to add and highlight the details. I detailed the seats with  left over Eduard photo-etch and painted masking tape.  

More as I get to it.

Back to tele-work, tomorrow!
Stay away from crowds.

Let's be careful out there!*

RJ

* Obscure cultural reference. 


Update: 4/5/20 

Here's the assembled Fury interior:

I replaced the tail pipe  kit parts with brass tubing cut to length. I didn't want to deal with an interior seam like the intake has. In addition I flatted some lead fishing weights and glued the on top of the intake forward of the cockpit. Instructions don't say anything about adding weight, but why take chances.  Added the cockpit and interior pieces to the Phantom:

Fury fuselage and wings together.  Painted the Phantom engine front and tail piece gloss black followed by Alclad Dural Aluminum.  I painted the burner cans flat black.  The Academy instructions have you install the burner cans before closing the fuselage. I figured that would, really, complicate masking for the painting, so I removed the mounting pins for the cans, I will slide and glue them in place at final assembly. 

 Phantom fuselage together. I continued to lock the parts in place with plastic weld. The fit was tight, but the seam was too large for a panel line. So, I filled them with a little Tamiya white putty and removed the excess with a paper towel moisten with lacquer thinner. When fully seated, the canopy had a bad gap where the bottom meets the sills. I'll fill them in with white glue. The seams on the Fury required filling a sanding to smooth out the joints. I sanded off the, rather, poor facsimiles of the wing fences. I'll scratch build better representations.

Until next time follow hermits!

RJ 

4/11/20 Update:

The F-4 is on hold until the Fury catches-up and I start painting white. Not much progress this week on the Fury as I pondered the best way to restore the barrier fences (or what ever they're called) on the wing edge and make the wing fences to replace the kit part that was broken on the tree. 

 The task was to place and measure the barrier fence locations. I measured them using a drawing from ref 1 then sawed the slots. 

The wing is thickest at the root and tapers down to the wing tip; this precluded just making a handful and gluing them in place. After some thought and trial and error false starts, I cut a strip of plastic into several squares. I placed a square in the slot then wrapped a length of fine wire around the wing edge. Using a .03 mm pencil, I traced the fence on the plastic square, cut it out,  glued it place and smooth the edge with a file. 

Here's how they turned out:

For the wing fence, I did, pretty, much the same thing.

 Using the unbroken kit part as a template I cut out two fences and cut two slots for them.  

I'll install them after painting. 

The press fit approach on the Academy kit limits the underwing stores options. My model will not use the outer wing tanks or the forward missile wells. So, I filled those holes with plastic rod and sanded them smooth. 

Getting close to painting I hope! 

Stay away from crowds and wear your mask! 

HAPPY EASTER! 

RJ 

4/25/20 Update:

Not much progress to report. I've been bogged down in filling & sanding. I hate that! All my model projects slow to a crawl at this stage...sigh. 

Here, you can see the filler in the Fury & Phantom. I filled in the Fury & F-4 canopy gaps with Mr Surfacer. Since it's gray, it's hard to see.  On the F-4, the white Tamiya filler blend in with the white plastic. 

The Sword kit doesn't have any locating pins & holes at all. So, I drilled out locating holes in the various pieces and on the kit. At final assembly, I'll use straight pins cut into pieces for locating pins. Now, I'm using the holes for handles to paint the parts. 

Paint is next! 

RJ 

5/9/20 Update:

Been awhile since an update. I.....ah....er....um.... run out of white paint. So, when the governor eased the plague restrictions, I donned my HAZMAT gear & scurried over to Hobby Lobby* to restock: they were out 😕. ONWARD!! to Micheal's Craft store. I bought the last 2 bottles of flat white, whew! I painted flat white on all the required kit parts, landing gear wells on the F-4 , & the underside of the Fury. 

  
The sanding & filling of the seams obliterated the detail down the center fuselage & at the wing roots. I used a drafting  pencil with an "HB" rated lead to highlight &restore the panel lines. I used a harder lead on my  A-7 models & after the final overcoats, the lines were barely viable.   So, this darker lead makes the contrast rather stark now. I'll add a coat of gloss white thinned to the consistency of water to add a sheen to the finish and tone down the pencil lines. Hopefully, they'll be a little more visible this time. 

Up next is the gloss white overcoat and assemble the F-4. 

Behave yourself or Karen will report you to the proper authorities. 

RJ 

*Since the last hobby shop in my fair city closed last year,  I'm going to have to find an online vendor & start planning ahead ack, oop, thbbbft.**
     ** obscure cultural reference. 

Update: 5/14/20:

Got all the painting complete on the F-4. 

The tail plane at the top of the picture shows the bottom with the jet exhaust. 

Here's the Fury: 

Note the wing fences.  They're just in place; I'll position and glue them in place during final assembly. 

Up next: panel lines, followed by decals. 

Today is the Memorial observance. Please take a few minutes to reflect on all those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to defend and preserve the nation. 

RJ


Update: 6/10/20:

I got to the point where I've split the project. I'll finish the Phantom then the Fury. 

Decaling & weathering complete: 

This is my first time using CtA (Cut then Add) decals. They looked a little think on the paper, but nestled down with a little setting solution, no problem. I will DEFINITELY be buying more from them. 

Most of the weathering was on the bottom. The F-4 was notorious for fluid leaks under the engine bays.   I streaked  chalk pastels across the bottom.

Next up: Decal the missiles and final assembly. I hope to finish this week-end. 

"Let's be careful out there."*

RJ  
 * obscure cultural reference.  

Update: 6/18/20:

Callin' this one done! 

Decals for the Fury is next.

RJ 

Update: 7/14/20:

Completed the decaling the Fury.  I had trouble with the decals printed by Techmod. They kept folding over themselves and some of the decals would curl up a the edges. I used several decal solutions; Microsol seem to work best. On the stars & bars, I had to use a fine paint brush to apply "Future" around edges then wicked the excess away with corner off a paper towel. As the Future dried, it pulled the edges down and dried hard. The I printed the  "O" decals on a laser printer to depict VF-84's first FJ-3M deployment. 

As you can see, the fuselage stripe decals didn't quite fit. I extended the black piping with decal stripes then filled in the gap with insignia yellow. 

One of the limitations on this short run kit is the lack of locating pins a attach the parts. There are just nubs on the parts and very slight depressions at the attachment locations. So, I made attachment pins using using straight pins and drilled a locating hole at the depression.  This worked pretty well.

Unfortunately, I couldn't do that for the landing gear. I was afraid I'd drill through the wing top and the intake bottom. So, the landing gear are, simply, glued in place making them pretty fragile. 

All the parts in place! 

 

I little pastel weathering around the wing folds and....

FINITO!  

RJ 

References: 

1. "The North American Fury" by Richard J. Curuana, Scale Aviation Modeler International, Vol 9, No.7,July 2003, SAM Publications, Bedford UK.

2. TAILHOOK TOPICS: FJ-2/3 Fury Redux, by Tommy H. Thomason, http://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/04/fj23-fury-redux.html

3. Seaforces online: VF-84 ‘Vagabonds/Jolly Rogers"
http://www.seaforces.org/usnair/VF/Fighter-Squadron-84.htm

4. "Workbench Reviews: Sword FJ-3 Fury" by Paul Boyer, Fine Scale Modeler, March 2018, Kalmbach Publishing Co, Waukesha, Wi, USA.

5. FJ Fury in Action; Aircraft Number 103, by Jim Menko, Squadron Signal Publications, Carrollton, TX, 1990.

6. Detail & Scale Vol. 12 F-4 Phantom II (part 3: USN & USMC versions) by Bert Kinzey, Aero Publications, Inc, California, USA, 1983. 

7. Fighter Squadron 102 (FITRON 102) VF-102 ‘Diamondbacks,    http://www.seaforces.org/usnair/VF/Fighter-Squadron-102.htm