Eduard 1/48 F-4B Afterburner Nozzle Set First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Eduard from the Czech Republic is easily the most prolific producer of aftermarket details. Period. Their series of photo-etched detail sets have brought additional fidelity to otherwise bland subjects, and have taken even the best-produced models and kicked them up a notch or two with details that cannot be produced with injection-molded plastic. Many AMS modelers will collect the relevant Eduard photo-etch sets for a given project, but they'll also go out and gather specific resin enhancements as well. Eduard has stepped up with a new product line to complement their photo-etched detail series - Brassin. Brassin is a play on words with Brass and Resin, and in many sets in this series, the resin details also include a set of color photo-etch as well.

In this release, Eduard has produced a nice pair of J79 afterburner sections for the Academy 1/48 F-4B Phantom II. You might recall that they did a great set of nozzles for the Tamiya 1/32 Phantoms and now they've put that data to work for Academy's 1/48 scale gem. This set is molded in gray resin, three pieces per engine plus a pair of photo-etched parts per engine. What you've got here is the distinctive J79 afterburner chamber tube with the equally distinctive J79 turbine section on one end and the correct short-nozzle on the other. Before you install the turbine section part, you add the thick photo-etched part which is the spray bar shield followed by the thin photo-etched part which is the afterburner spray bar assembly. Paint and weather to taste, and you've got some nice details to show those flashlight-equipped judges.

This set is billed for the Academy 1/48 F-4B but it will be correct on the Academy 1/48 F-4C as well as work fine on the Hasegawa 1/48 F-4B/C/D and RF-4B/C kits. This is a must-have enhancement for the AMS modeler!

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!