academy not-a-blitz phantom

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academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

I'll be taking a stab at this one tomorrow:

Image

Just so as we're all clear on this, this is not a blitz. It is merely a model that will be built in well under 24 hours in essentially a single session, except that is was hit with varnish in lieu of primer yesterday evening, which I would rather like to be fully cured before I proceed. This unsporting behaviour clearly disqualifies the project as a blitz, so please pretend the clock showing up in pictures, and the high frequency updates once I get started tomorrow, have nothing to do with blitzery at all :twisted:

With that out of the way, a peek at what's in the box:

Image

This is one of those newfangled almost-snap-tites, almost-moulded-in-colour affairs, and while I can easily do without yet another Phantom, I want to find out what these things are made off, so to speak. Also, I want to see how this looks in bare plastic, to the extent that it doesn't get in the way of producing an accurate model, hence the varnish used as primer.

Rattlecan stinks up the place like nothing else, so I leave things in the shed to dry and get rid of the vapours. Unfortunately, it's freezing over here, and I have a lot of plastic to cover, so the usual approach of letting things dry under a box in the shed will take forever. So I improvised a clothes line for sprues an let fly with the paint.

Image

This morning, they sprues were almost touch-dry, and no longer very smelly, so they transferred indoors to fully cure, awaiting the start of building tomorrow. I was rather relieved to note that no uninvited bits of whatever had landed on the sprues overnight :grin:
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by ShaunW »

Interesting, Rob, I always like to see a Spook on the go and this isn't the simplest looking of kits to tackle in 24 hours! I'm not entirely sure that your quick primer of varnish before the start should have disqualified it as an official blitz entry (I have just seen the rather sharp reply to your asking on the blitz section) and it might have been worth checking with Jeff Selesky who is running the show down there.
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

ShaunW wrote:Interesting, Rob, I always like to see a Spook on the go and this isn't the simplest looking of kits to tackle in 24 hours! I'm not entirely sure that your quick primer of varnish before the start should have disqualified it as an official blitz entry (I have just seen the rather sharp reply to your asking on the blitz section) and it might have been worth checking with Jeff Selesky who is running the show down there.
I rather obviously agree that this might not have been the desired implementation and/or interpretation of the blitz rules, but getting into a discussion about that while a blitz is running doesn't seem like a good idea. I do intend to pick this up shortly after the current blitz ends. I intend for that to be an open and honest discussion about what we really want from a blitz, and how we can lay down to rules to accomplish that without turning it into a convoluted lawyers mess.

Later. First I'm ging to deal with ol' Spook here :twisted:
I'm hoping fit will be somewhere near the Bandai kits based on the same principles; if not, I'm in for one heck of a fight. I have found a set of markings that has the entire plane in the same colour, so that should help; only one trip to the paintshop for airbrushing, with spot painting with the hairy stick.
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by Zee28 »

Looking forward to this Rob, a near-blitz!
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

Right then, it's a bit after 9, parts of my body sufficient for shambling around the house like a zombie have woken up, and I have a pile of parts sitting in a box on the bench. Most of my brain is still booting, but I think that technically, this is the start of the build.

Image

Since zombies have lousy motor control and a remarkable lack of intellect, I think I'll leave the plastic alone for a bit until more of me has booted up, but this is a good time to publicly take stock of what is there.

<shambles downstairs to grab some tea..>

As said, this kit is a semi-snaptite, and pretends to work well enough without paint. The fit and such have yet to prove themselves, but the colours, sadly, will not satisfy anyone with the slightest notion of what a high visibility Navy Phantom looks like. They couldn't mess up the white, of course, and there's a lot of that, and the black is fine too, but the grey and metallic are pants. The metallic is hard to distinguish from black (anyone remember when most kits were nasty grey metallic plastic), and the grey is very greenish, pretty much the standard Academy material, which is fine, but cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called gull grey. Serious paint work will be needed.

The plastic has fine but limited detail on it, certainly adequate for a basic kit. There a compromises to the snap-tite nature of the model that will send the AMS crowd running for the hills screaming, and that will raise eyebrows on the rest of us. Not unexpected, but I think Bandai does a better job of this. Bandai don't do Phantoms though ;-) Oddly, there are also features to the plastic that only the new tool Airfix has as well, so in that respect it is a rather advanced kit. Full engine intakes are provided, as are auxiliary doors next to the undercarriage (the most recent Fujimis also had those). Separate airbrakes are also nice. No posable control surfaces though.

The kit comes with both decals and stickers for Showtime100, and the decals at least seem perfectly workable and comprehensive. I'm not even going to consider the stickers, I grew out of that forty years ago. Adequate or not, the decals will not come into play here, as the associated paint work is too complex to pull of in a single day (three colours, meaning two passes with masking tape, meaning thoroughly dry previous paints, meaning three consecutive weekends at the fastest). I've found a Superscale sheet languishing in the disposal pile that has two overall gull grey Phantoms of either VMFA-115 of VMFA-333, which I intend to use, assuming the model looks worthy after painting.

Now then, I might have woken up sufficiently to dunk the canopy in Clear, so I'd better get to it.

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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by iggie »

Looks a decent 'starter' kit for youngsters, and I like the dual sticker/decal approach a la Bandai which also encourages new modellers.

It will be interesting to see how good the fit actually is; again Bandai really have that aspect of the 'snap-tight' process absolutely nailed!

Good luck Rob, will be looking in as much as possible
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

Some parts that really have to be white weren't, so this build started with firing up the airbrush. For the record: it's fleeping cold out there :shock:

Image

The sprue gates on the two-part main wheels spilled over to the joining surfaces. Nothing an old hand will have trouble with, but if these kits are intended for beginners, this is not a good thing. Stangely, the main wheel wells are completely bare, except for a few ejector marks, which I left in to break up the surface.

The figures in the back also needed a helping of white, so I allowed them to intrude here.

My stomach has finally woken up, so I'll take a break for an appointment with a piece of dead cow before continuing.
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

rob_van_riel wrote:I'm hoping fit will be somewhere near the Bandai kits based on the same principles; if not, I'm in for one heck of a fight.
Prophetic words :roll:
This is no beginner's kit. I've been playing with the (otherwise lovely) air intakes, and they took rather more effort to get the parts to join up than should be expected of a beginner. Parts should fit, not have to be made to fit. Again, nothing a more experienced builder will have trouble with, but those would prefer a model without the snip-tite artifacts.

I've also suffered a minor interruption by she-who-must-be-cuddled:

Image

Although I've dealt with the fit issues, the air intakes are as yet unassembled, since they will have to be painted on the inside before assembly makes that impossible. Back to the paintshop it is..
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

rob_van_riel wrote:Although I've dealt with the fit issues, the air intakes are as yet unassembled, since they will have to be painted on the inside before assembly makes that impossible. Back to the paintshop it is..
Image

The intakes are done. After fiddling with fit and painting, they're quite nice. Pity hardly anything on the inside is visible once assembled, but they do give a nice impression op depth.
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

I've built up the office, mostly without cement, and so far without the benefit of any paint. It looks adequate for the intended purpose, but I'll be adding some paint here none the less.

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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by MarkyM607 »

rob_van_riel wrote:Right then, it's a bit after 9, parts of my body sufficient for shambling around the house like a zombie have woken up, and I have a pile of parts sitting in a box on the bench. Most of my brain is still booting, but I think that technically, this is the start of the build.

Image

Since zombies have lousy motor control and a remarkable lack of intellect, I think I'll leave the plastic alone for a bit until more of me has booted up, but this is a good time to publicly take stock of what is there.

<shambles downstairs to grab some tea..>

As said, this kit is a semi-snaptite, and pretends to work well enough without paint. The fit and such have yet to prove themselves, but the colours, sadly, will not satisfy anyone with the slightest notion of what a high visibility Navy Phantom looks like. They couldn't mess up the white, of course, and there's a lot of that, and the black is fine too, but the grey and metallic are pants. The metallic is hard to distinguish from black (anyone remember when most kits were nasty grey metallic plastic), and the grey is very greenish, pretty much the standard Academy material, which is fine, but cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called gull grey. Serious paint work will be needed.

The plastic has fine but limited detail on it, certainly adequate for a basic kit. There a compromises to the snap-tite nature of the model that will send the AMS crowd running for the hills screaming, and that will raise eyebrows on the rest of us. Not unexpected, but I think Bandai does a better job of this. Bandai don't do Phantoms though ;-) Oddly, there are also features to the plastic that only the new tool Airfix has as well, so in that respect it is a rather advanced kit. Full engine intakes are provided, as are auxiliary doors next to the undercarriage (the most recent Fujimis also had those). Separate airbrakes are also nice. No posable control surfaces though.

The kit comes with both decals and stickers for Showtime100, and the decals at least seem perfectly workable and comprehensive. I'm not even going to consider the stickers, I grew out of that forty years ago. Adequate or not, the decals will not come into play here, as the associated paint work is too complex to pull of in a single day (three colours, meaning two passes with masking tape, meaning thoroughly dry previous paints, meaning three consecutive weekends at the fastest). I've found a Superscale sheet languishing in the disposal pile that has two overall gull grey Phantoms of either VMFA-115 of VMFA-333, which I intend to use, assuming the model looks worthy after painting.

Now then, I might have woken up sufficiently to dunk the canopy in Clear, so I'd better get to it.

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Don't dunk the canopy in your tea!! :lol:
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

MarkyM607 wrote:Don't dunk the canopy in your tea!! :lol:
That's called tinting the canopy. Tastes horrible, but apparently that's all part of the hobby :-D
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

It's not very visible in the pictures, but the office was dirtied up a bit with a wash, details were picked out with a bit of rough drybrushing, and the headrests were painted.

Image

The fuselage is now closed up, and it's beginning to be recognisable as a Phantom. Unfortunately, the HUD took off somewhere during all this, and has been very elusive since. I blobbed over the hole in the console, rather than spend the rest of the week looking for it.

Since I had olive green on my brush anyway, I also painted up the bombs.
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

Yep. That's a Phantom :grin:

Image

Not all that pleased with the kit though. I've had to make way too many shape corrections, and fit between the main parts is nowhere near tight enough to be able to make do without cement. Academy also appear to have given exactly no thought to how the intakes were supposed to be moved into place, with some mutually obstructive locking tabs, one of which I had to file off in the end. It can't be built without resorting to our usual tricks and glue, and the snap-tite connections for the various small bits will put of many more demanding builders. It tries to be two things, and ends up being neither.
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Re: academy not-a-blitz phantom

Post by rob_van_riel »

I've had to hit some of the joins with filler. Inevitably, this will take time to cure before I can continue. Things are looking grim :sad:
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