You'll dreaming about the stencils, looks great, Louis!

David, @dirtylittlefokker
There was a time when the stenciling decals almost,... almost drove me to the point of insanity. If that were to happen, it would have been a very short trip... but I prevailed !

Robert, @roofrat
Two nights ago I finished these nasty little "stencil" devils that Grumman happily plastered over 90 percent of the Gloss Sea Blue finish. As of yet, no nightmares, but I have been scarred... Since you are a former Phantom Phixer, is it actually necessary to place these stencils all over an aircraft ? We had a lot of things to check on our tanks when we operated them or performed maintenance. Yet I don't recall any stenciling on our Tanks other than the occasional "LIFT HERE" or the bumper number showing what unit the tank belonged to... The crazy thing is that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to qualify for entrance into the Army. The lowest Army acceptance scores are reserved for Armor, Artillery and Infantry candidates... yet we don't have the need for stencils like what is commonly found on aircraft. Wouldn't it look silly if someone had stenciled on the side of the breech of the main gun of a tank "The Big Bullets Go in here. Pointed End First"... I think my fellow tanker buddy Jeff Bailey would agree.

Paul, @yellow10
I sincerely thank you for the kind words about the recovery on this one. There was a time however when I thought, this one just might not make it. It was consigned to the shelf of doom for a little while as I regrouped.

Please stay tuned for the next installment of "Brubakers Panther" or, "How I almost lost my sanity with 50 plus odd stencils"...

Stencils and more stencils! Took me 3 weekends to stencil this baby.

I'm still cross eyed...good thing traffic is light these days. Beautiful job though.

Louis , she looking great. About the stencil thing, The doors and access panels were stenciled with a number and or description of what was behind it. One such door on the Phantoms wing was I think was panel #111 that had about one hundred screws. I've mentioned it before when an aircraft was brand new or fresh out of NARF [navel air rework facility] it will have all the stencils. but once it reached the fleet and was subject to daily wear and tear some will disappear usually by the corrosion control crew or the airframe divisions, I once replaced a door panel which the original was corroded beyond repair, painted it gull gray but never put the door number on it. Within a short time you become familiar with the panels and doors that concern the maintenance that you were responsible for so you really didn't concern your self with the stencils. Besides which the maintenance manuals will tell you what's where. of course I can only relate to the gull gray and white scheme era. I guess as far as modeling is concerned it depends on the scale, and preference of the modeler.

Ok I'll try this again, as it looks like I can add pictures now.

I added the main landing gear.

I used ultra bright bare metal foil on the shock absorber oleo struts. It looks much better in my opinion that just painting this area silver.

The gear doors and retraction struts were then added next. Finally I painted the brake hoses flat black, and installed the main wheels.

Now it can stand on it's own feet...

The nose gear doors and pilot's entry step were added next.

I wasn't going to install the air brakes in the open position. But I want this thing done, so I went ahead and added them. They're posed in the "OPEN" position, so I added the hydraulic cylinders and painted the inner portion of the doors red.

I placed the canopy on top of the fuselage, but it's not glued down just yet. Here you can see it's posed in the "Open" position. I have yet to decide on how I will pose the canopy. The metal cannon barrels will also need to be installed in the nose.

I also gave the entire plane a few light coats of my home brewed Tamiya X-21 Flat Base that's mixed with rubbing alcohol and Future floor acrylic. This knocked down the shine somewhat.

Now it looks more like a plane that has been at sea for a little while. I'm very happy with how it looks.

But most of all, I'm happy to have this one done !

Thanks to all of you who have been following along with this build. It took me forever, and it seemed that on every step of the way, this one fought me. Luckily I prevailed.

Please stay tuned for this one to show up in the headlines section soon.

Stay safe, and as always, comments are encouraged.

Nothing like a Panther jet! This is a real jem,Louis. The eleventh hour, the eleventh day, the eleventh month... Stay safe! @lgardner.

Louis, I thought I had commented on this build, but I guess I didn't. It popped up when I was looking online for Bridges at Toko-Ri info for that diorama that has been kicking around in the back of my head.

Your model came out great. It could be the inspirational spark to get me going, except my model will be all banged up. Now to find the time to get going.