Last month we finished by thinning the trailing edge of the main wing.
Leave each wingtip 3–5 mm longer than final length, and fasten the wing firmly to the fuselage with small nails or bamboo pins. Take great care with the incidence and dihedral when joining wing and fuselage.
Once fully bonded, we tackle the troublesome task of adding dihedral. Make a dihedral gauge from the front view; mark the saw line and, using a coping saw, cut gradually and carefully.
When the wing can bend to almost match the gauge, insert a wedge at the cut. Apply a generous amount of adhesive in both the upper and lower kerfs.
If, unfortunately, your wing snaps, you may depict the aircraft with wings folded, or you can reinforce the joint with wire or nails and adhesive; afterwards, fair the area with putty. Shape the leading-edge cutout accurately at this stage.
On the real aircraft, the wedge area swells slightly, so make use of the excess wedge material to fair in the bulge—or glue on a thin strip and shape it. This completes the wing-to-fuselage attachment.

Carve the vertical tail in the same manner as the main wing and attach it—again, mind the angles.
Carve the left and right horizontal tails together as one piece, finish the airfoil, then separate and mount them on the fuselage.
Once the mock-up is complete, hollow the wheel bays. The infrared seeker blister under the radome and the small intake scoops on each side of the nose will be added later.

Priming is the most monotonous task, but it cannot be skipped. Feel free to work while watching TV or listening to music.
As with skincare, it is a cycle of “apply and cut back, apply and cut back.”
First, stick an awl into a hidden spot (e.g., the seat opening) to use as a handle, then apply three to four coats of thinned clear lacquer. Clear lacquer not only seals the grain but also protects ultra-thin edges—on jets we want the trailing edge extremely thin—so that when you later wet-sand, you can stop as soon as the wood barely shows and still proceed to color coats safely. After a day, the surface will feel slightly rough.
Over this, apply five to six coats of lacquer surfacer thinned to taste. Before the first surfacer coat, lightly knock down the roughness with fine paper.
The number of surfacer coats varies, but for beginners it is safer to build up a thicker coat and then wet-sand it back.
Gray surfacer is common, but I buy small cans of white surfacer at the hobby shop—convenient because naval aircraft typically have white on the undersides.
Similarly, while most putties are brown, I prefer white putty (available at larger paint stores).
When dry, wet-sand with about 240-grit paper and a little soap. Hold to the light and ensure all ripples are gone.
At the trailing edge and similar spots, stop sanding as soon as the wood just begins to show.
After sanding, surfacer will have pooled at the joints (wing–fuselage, fin–fuselage). Trim away the ridge cleanly with a knife, then lightly wet-sand the area with the corner of the paper.
Modern jets have almost no fillets, so keep these junctions crisp.
Now form the infrared seeker blister beneath the radome from a small wood block and glue it on; minor gaps will be filled by subsequent surfacer.
Next, make the small intakes on each side of the nose. The drawing shows them a bit oversized, so correct them by studying photos. Tinplate is too thick; I used the thin inner sheet from a cigarette tin. Fix them with a strong adhesive exactly at the right positions.
You should now sense the Phantom’s nose coming to life. Cross-check with the drawing and photos; if all looks good, fair the intakes with putty.

Make a separate wooden plug for the canopy.
Study the area around the F-4B canopy carefully. The lower frame of the canopy aligns with the fuselage curvature—think of a frame-less lower edge sitting atop the fuselage skin. The forward windscreen likewise has virtually no lower frame. Many modern jets use canopies with this “difficult” look, which gives modelers headaches.
You can plunge-press without finishing the plug, but coating it with surfacer and polishing first yields a clearer canopy.
Do not cut the vinyl sheet too small—be bold and cut it large, then press in one go. The more the sheet stretches, the poorer the clarity becomes—remember this.
After forming, pencil the rough trim line on the plug, cut away the excess, and gradually fit the canopy to the fuselage curvature. Fold wet-and-dry paper into a curve and true the mating edge. Once the fit is good, place the canopy back over the plug and draw the frame lines on the outside.
If you scribe the frames first “per the drawing” and only then try to fit the canopy, you will end up with wrong angles or frame widths, especially along the lower edge. Masters may not need this step, but most of us do.
After lightly scribing the frames with a knife, apply two layers of clear tape over them. Re-cut along the visible scribe lines with the knife, then peel away the tape only where the frames will be. Brush on a thin coat of adhesive formulated for vinyl. This keeps paint from flaking off later.
Where the lower canopy frame merges with the fuselage, pinch a crease with pliers and bend the edge; cut a shallow rebate in the fuselage equal to the vinyl thickness so there is no step.
The bottom of the forward windscreen has no frame, but you must still bond it—so scribe a very fine line as a gluing strip.
When the canopy is roughly finished, tape it in place temporarily and compare once more with drawing and photos.
Now enlarge the cockpit opening you previously hollowed, to match the canopy.
Make a “cheat” ejection seat like the one in the figure. You must infer the shape from photos, but most modern jet seats share similar forms—focus on capturing the impression of an ejection seat rather than perfect fidelity.
I laminated thin sheet from a cigarette tin with strong adhesive; the emergency pull ring is fine wire. The headrest is an eraser painted black. The upper portion of the seat remains visible after installation, so study photos and dress it up convincingly.
If you build plastic kits, you can repurpose a 1/50–1/48 pilot figure—it gives a plausible look with minimal effort.
For the instrument panel, paint bristol board gray, cut to shape, and dot in black circles for dials—at a little distance it reads well. If that feels insufficient, see the instrument panel reference in Kōkū Fan, January 1964, and improvise from there.
At 1:50 scale, even with references you cannot fully reproduce the cockpit interior, so conveying the feel of a cockpit is sufficient.
Glue the seat to the floor. From photos, confirm the seat position and the clearance to the canopy frame. If the opening is too deep, shim with card. Once positioned, glue permanently; when dry, paint the inside of the forward windscreen flat black, attach the instrument panel and control column, then install the canopy. Avoid excess cement—too much will attack the surfacer and greatly slow drying. Let it cure for a full day, then fair any gaps with putty.

With the canopy done, shape the wingtips. On the F-4B, the tips of the main wing and the vertical tail have a slight fullness.
Saw off the raw wingtip ends; near the trailing edge, glue in a round toothpick as a core with strong adhesive. When dry, carve to the exact contour. Because the horizontal tail is very thin, build up with putty and then carve the fullness after it dries. You may also build up the main-wing tips with putty.
At the root of the fin, there is what appears to be a fuel dump pipe; cut it free with a fine saw, flatten a nail head, file to shape, and insert it.
For the arresting-hook tip, cut a piece of sheet to width, bend and insert it; then build up with putty and finish.
Cut the slots for the Sparrow missile mounts now; I gouged them with a carving chisel at this stage.
Apply another four or five coats of surfacer. When dry, wet-sand again with soapy water. As this completes the undercoat, finish with a finer paper and cleanly trim away any paint ridges at the wing-root joints.

— To be continued —

* f-4b start * 1965 May Issue * 1965 June Issue * 1965 July Issue * Image Gallery