JHM's Leigh-Build

[John Howling Mouse]

Hmmn

I think the tidy bench is just a sign that JMN has to share his workroom with Mrs Hitler and as a result has to keep it tidy for fear of being banished to the Garage or similar cold dark place most blokes get exiled to when attempting to do a hobby that may effect the aura of neatness that surrounds a womans home....

Youch---watch the JMN versus JHM!!!    
I can prove I DO NOT KNOW how many rivets are on an FW-190 type blab-blab-blab in 194X which served in squadron blab-blab-blab!!!  

And here is Ms. Hitler's side of the room------and this is as CLEAN as her side ever gets!



Okay, back to Phantom Phiasco (painting on the sprues has taken waaaaay longer than I thought but the glue's gonna hit plastic today finally).

[John Howling Mouse]

Have ordnance, will travel.

Well, pieces of ordnance, anyhow!  This represents some three hours' worth of snipping, filing and scraping.

Since I took this pic, I've assembled all halves from one of the two batches together.

I've also noticed that, in addition to the different radomes, the tailfins on each kit are different.  Now, if each kit was supposed to have all optional parts required to make either the M or the K version as depicted on the box cover, I'd understand.

But, since the old versus newer kit release each have only the parts for one version, I'm confused.

[John Howling Mouse]

Well, my hat's truly off to all you 1:72 guys!

Forgot just how hard it is to work with fiddley bits at this scale.

And what a challenge to make something with virtually no features look, ah, "detailed" in this scale!

[John Howling Mouse]

Here's that fin comparison.  One must be some kind of ECW box atop the tail?
Just weird that the two kits are actually not from the same mold, even though the box says they're both the same bi-model type...

[John Howling Mouse]

There are differences in the center canopy framing and the leading part of the fuselage, too.  

[John Howling Mouse]

The differences include the contrasting radomes, too.
Wish each kit had come with both variants.  

[John Howling Mouse]

Second kit's cockpit (no pilots; handpainted harness straps with painted silver lanyards).

Man, 1:72 is a tough scale to play in.  I mean, for us older guys, anyhow...

[elmayerle]

Just a thought, could one of those kits be the old Frog/Hasegawa mold?

[nev]

the box on top of the fin is for the RWR that was added to RAF birds from the early 80s.

No idea why the radomes would be different though...

[John Howling Mouse]

Just a thought, could one of those kits be the old Frog/Hasegawa mold?

I believe both are original Matchbox molds, judging by the engraved panel lines.  Really, the sprues are nearly identical except for the radomes, the tailfins, canopy's central framing (and respective glazing supplied or not) and the subtle difference of the fwd fuselage.

I have the first release Hasegawa Phantom and it actually had raised rivets throughout.  Just seems weird that the same kit would have been re-tooled to be nearly identical yet...not...even though it's shown as being the same type...

[John Howling Mouse]

Hey, did somebody say PHANTOMS?

^_^

You can practically fit a dime in the wing-root joints but, that's what filler is for, after all.

[John Howling Mouse]

Did I mention one will be gear up (for living room attacks on the wife, kid, and cats) and the unoccupied one will be on the tarmac?  Now, displaying the canopies in the "open" position is going to be fun as there's really no provision for that with the kit...

[Captain Canada]

Sweet, Baz...I just love Phanotms !

The perfect balance between grace, power and beauty......

 

[Geoff_B]

Did I mention one will be gear up (for living room attacks on the wife, kid, and cats) and the unoccupied one will be on the tarmac?  Now, displaying the canopies in the "open" position is going to be fun as there's really no provision for that with the kit...

Yeap that the only pain really with the Matchbox kit is that the canopy frames are moulded into the airframe with just the glass area provided - so major surgery if you wish to open the canopies. Bit of a pain really as they actually provide the crew ladders !!!.

Matchbox revised the mould in the early 80's when they added the fin RWR, they also refined the nose and added the windows. Alot better representation than the Revell or Frog F-4K's but blown away by the Fujimi versions.

Looking good JHM, any ideas on schemes & markings yet ?.

G

[John Howling Mouse]

Did I mention one will be gear up (for living room attacks on the wife, kid, and cats) and the unoccupied one will be on the tarmac?  Now, displaying the canopies in the "open" position is going to be fun as there's really no provision for that with the kit...

Yeap that the only pain really with the Matchbox kit is that the canopy frames are moulded into the airframe with just the glass area provided - so major surgery if you wish to open the canopies. Bit of a pain really as they actually provide the crew ladders !!!.

Matchbox revised the mould in the early 80's when they added the fin RWR, they also refined the nose and added the windows. Alot better representation than the Revell or Frog F-4K's but blown away by the Fujimi versions.

Looking good JHM, any ideas on schemes & markings yet ?.

G

Thanks for clearing up the history of the molds.  Was weirding me out.  That's big bucks even to make apparently "minor" changes to any mold.  Never pictured Matchbox doing that, though.

For scheme: I want to do something I've never seen on a Phantom (wait for it...here come 14 photos of existing real-life schemes I should have known about but didn't):

multi-tone tan/earth brown desert version.  

And you thought I was going to say "T-Tail"  (silly humans, that's coming up later!).

For markings, if I can find my Matchbox BAC Strikemaster kits, I would use their Saudi markings or something similar.