Eduard 1/32 F-4 Exhaust Nozzles USN Late Kit 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 otherwisebland subjects, and have taken even the best-produced models and kicked them up a notch ortwo 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, butthey'll also go out and gather specific resin enhancements as well. Eduard has stepped up witha 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-etchas well.

In this release, Eduard has produced a beautiful afterburner detail set for the Tamiya 1/32 F-4J Phantom II. Eduard has produced two other sets so far in this series, one for the F-4E, and one for the F-4C/D. What are the differences? The J79 engine in the early Phantoms used a shorter afterburner nozzle including the F-4B, F-4C, F-4D, F-4N, RF-4B, and RF-4C. The J79 engine in the late Phantoms had the larger afterburner nozzle and these included the F-4E, F-4F, F-4G, F-4J, F-4S, and RF-4E. All were equiped with a hydraulic operated tailhook that could be raised and lowered from the cockpit.

This set comes with the larger J79 nozzles with the interior nozzles, afterburner chambers, turbine faces all in resin, plus the afterburner injector spray ring and flame holder shield in photo-etch. In addition, this set provides the J79 compressor faces that go on the end of the kits intake ducts, plus a resin tailhook, up-lock, and photo-etched backing pad to replace the kit's molded-on details. The rectangular object in the image is the spacer that mounts between the afterburner chambers to provide proper spacing and a mounting point inside the kit's rear fusealge.

This set is intended for the Tamiya 1/32 F-4J and is also valid should you update your F-4J to the F-4S variant. The casting details are nice and you can really enhance the look of your model with these engine parts. The only down side to this set is the suggested retail price which is almost half the price of the Tamiya kit itself. If you're an AMS modeler, you're still going to want one (or more).

You should be able to find this detail set at your local hobby retailer or one of the many online hobby shops. Trust me, this is worthlooking for!

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!