Here’s a few shots of the F-16 I’m currently building. I haven’t decided whether it’s going to be in a hangar with ground crew working on it or on an airfield tarmac. Right now, I’m leaning toward her being fully loaded and sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off on a SEAD mission. Loadout will be 2x AMRAAM; 2x AIM-9 (haven’t decided if it will be AIM-9M or X); 2x HARM; 2x 370 gal. tanks; AN/ALQ-87 ECM, and the HTS pod.
And a couple of quick overview shots. Still a bit of touch-up to do on various things, but this being the first halfway-decent model I’ll probably actually finish, I’m very happy:
Kit is the Tamiya 1:48, and so far, aside from the intake and some minor fit issues, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks for looking, and critiques are welcome. If it looks good, tell me, and if it stinks, well, tell me that, too…don’t be gentle, now folks [:)].
He said “Lawn Dart” snicker snickerheh heh [:-^] (sorry, I always have to chuckle at that nickname [:D])
Well, to answer your questions, the kit pretty much falls together except for the front intake/nose gear bay assembly. Little bit of filling and sanding required there, and the lip that goes on the front of the intake to complete the assembly is a bear…doesn’t want to fit evenly at all, you will have a nasty step to deal with there.
It will be done in the kit markings featuring the Wing King bird from Misawa, circa 2005.
Today’s progress…got the display base almost done (still needs to be weathered), and, unfortunately found out that I got the ghost gray/gunship gray demarcation line way too far forward on the fuselage. Oh well…live and learn I guess [:(]. Here it is with a couple of 1:48 figures just to see how it’d look.
Looking good so far my friend… In terms of the demarcation line, I would not really worry about it…
When you look at all the 16’s out there, the paint schemes varied from a/c to a/c. When they came off the assembly line, they all followed the same suit in general.
After being in service for some time and going into Depot Level maintanence for a little R&R, it all depended on the paint shop and how they basically interpreterd the orders and who did the painting.
Hey yea know, is that the “NEW” 16 that they did? How does the canopy look?? From what I remember seeing, the canopy had a really big seam running down the center… Is this true? If I am not mistaken, if memory serves me correctly, Hasegaw’s seam was not all that bad compared to Tamiya’s…
But after seeing your build I amy actually get on and its all your fault…!! Looking forward to the completed build…
Yes, this is the new Tamiya release and, in typical Tamiya fashion, the seam line in the canopy is horrendous [:(!]. It comes with a tinted and clear, and guess what…I’ve already managed to fudge the tinted one, so it looks like we’re going clear if I can’t make some repairs.
All I can say is OUCH… I feel your pain my friend. Just curious thats all, how fudged is your canopy??
Depending on how bad it is, there is a way to possibly fix it… Are you up for the challenge??
First off, you’ll need a tooth brush, sanding sticks by squadron(Medium & fine(three sides;Fine, pre buff and the buffing side), tooth paste and Future Floor wax(or the equavalent).
You begin by masking the canopy partially leaving the seam and some of the canopy open.
-From there you will start to sand the seam using the medium sanding stick to bring it down to the surface. Checking as you go…
-Now using the Fine sanding stick, start to smooth the seam so it is flush w/ the rest of the canopy. Go as you see fit.
-Take the tooth paste & brush and essentially you will sand the area as well. This is a finer grit yet it is very effective… Once you are happy w/ the results, switch to the pre buffing side of the stick(off white) and finally switch to the buffing side.
In all this will take some time and yes you may have to sand a few times to get the results that make you the happiest… Do this carefully and do not rush…
Once you have the results that you want, dip the canopy into the Future floor wax which not only puts a nice finish on her, it also fills out any minor imperfections… Basically if there are any minor scratches, this particular floor wax will find its level which will cover the scratches and will look darn near flawless [;)]
The final results are awesome… How do I know, I built a few 16’s in my time… Laughs… I hope that this helps and if you have any questions, please feel free and ask either here or email me @ Falcon42177@yahoo.com
Well, the seam isn’t what fudged me. It looks very far from perfect, but acceptable. I used the Squadron sanding sticks, went from Coarse, to Medium, to Fine, then to the Tri-grit. After that, I used Micromesh to polish it up. My fudging came when I had paint bleed-through issues. I’ll take a picture tomorrow, and you can see what I’m talking about.
A lot I will be interested in seeing your canopy… I have a pre wax used for the real deal and it helps remove paint with out harming the plastic especailly clear plastic.
As far as my canopy frustration goes, I think I’ve got past that. I really wanted to do the tinted canopy on this, but as I said, I fudged it up. A friend of mine, who was using the clear on his project, came through with a tinted canopy for me, so WOO-HOO!!!
I’m also re-doing the display base. I’m keeping the first one I made, because I’m very happy with the way that turned out, but I wanted something a bit bigger. So…I cut a larger piece of foamboard, got some of that grass mat used for model trains, glued that to the foamboard and tomorrow I’m going to put the “concrete” on. I’m going to put some chain-link fence along the edge of the display base to add more.
Here’s a shot of some of the accessories I’m going to use with the diorama. I haven’t decided exactly which ones I’m going to use. It’ll come down to a) what I’ve got room for and b) what fits in with the “theme”, I guess you could call it.
Well, here’s the first shot of the display base (with the paint still drying). Still have to put the chain-link fence in (if that ever arrives [zzz]), and I’m going to add some various shrubs and weeds to the grass-mat to give it some “life”. And I obviously still have to do the markings on the “concrete”.
Now that I’ve figured out how to do that, I will [:)]. I tried posting images from photobucket but when I previewed them, they’d show full-size and not thumbnail…anyway, long story short, I’m a doofus when it comes to computers.
A little bit more progress (with images now posted directly to the forum [:-^]):
Almost done with the display base…just need to weather the tarmac a bit and wait (and wait, and wait) for my chain-link fence to arrive:
I got the weathering of the light gray sections mostly finished, just a bit more fine tuning to do. I want to make it dirty since it’s in a desert environment, but not too dirty because the USAF tends to keep their a/c fairly clean:
Some more progress today…finished the drop tanks, put the nose cone on (the pitot tube isn’t going on until LAST…guess why), and just wanted to see what it looked like with the canopy on:
Wasn’t the F-16 originally known as the “Falcon” or “Fighting Falcon”? Hence the falcon symbol that is usually found just behind the cockpit? When did it start to be called the Viper? Is Viper the offical name now? Enquiring minds want to know . . .
I want to say that viper is a nickname givin to the aircraft by the pilots based on the fictional fighter from battlestar galactica, but I have been known to be wrong constantly
