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All the main parts are now complete and some of the weapons pylons, plus the smaller parts have been added. Since these photos were taken I have sprayed the U/C bays white, and given the undersides a first coat of paint.

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By centre pylon I mean the middle one on the wing if you discount the wing tip rail. Thanks for what you have said about modification, I guess I will just leave that pylon empty for this GB until your one comes on line.

Ok, I see now. Yes, those are the Wing Weapons Pylons. I should note that there are two types of them as well; Early and late. The way to tell them apart is that the late pylons ahve the MAU-12 rack sway brace fairings and the early does not. Also, the late pylons havea much larger (length wise) sway brace.

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I have just run into a couple of small problems with the progress of this one. The first one is that after painting the aircraft I came to paint the nose cone only to find that the colour was a lot lighter than it should have been. I know that the colour of the nose cone can vary but this was too wrong. On checking the paints that I am using all seemed alright with the labelling on each pot against the colour references that I am using, but when I opened certain pots one was darker than the other to what it should have been. So now I am repainting the undercolour using the paint meant for the nose and visa versa with the undercolour paint. The other problem is that I have not added the IFF aerials to the intake area just in front of the nose U/C. When I saw them in the conversion kit I thought, as there were no instructions, that they were extras if I made a mistake. After looking at some photos I founs that they had to be added and so they have. So it is on with repainting the lower fuselage with the correct colour. Oh the joys of modelling.

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The main camo has now been painted on. I found a grey for the nose cone, it may not be uite correct but it looks about right and it will do for me. I have also painted the U/C so I will be fitting that soon so that when I apply a coat or two of Klear it can stand on its own feet whilst drying.

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F-16Viper020.jpg

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Coming along nicely-don't worry about the right grey for the nose cone-there is no really correct colour as it changes with age. Some are nearly black! THere are some really good photos out there with groups of F-16s, and each one nearly always has a differently shaded radome!

Joel

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What Joel said! I used the kit call-out for the radome colour, but when I looked at the ref pics, it was a lot darker. There is literally no right or wrong with grey radomes.

Liking the tri-grey, always a classy look!

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All majoe decals have now been applied including two rather tricky ones near the intakes. I will apply some of the smaller stencilling during this week. I have still left the centre wing pylon off at the moment, but have found in the loft a better one from the Tamiya kit that I will not be using on that. This will only be fitted as a temporary measure until I am able to get a correct pylon from Mike V so that I can fit AIM-7s to them. I will also not be doing too much weathering when all the decalling is done as this aircraft is a Sqn flagship aircraft, plus I will start to look at the fuel tanks and weapons. Any comments gratefully received.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Had a bit of a disaster last night. Weathered the main U/C bays with dirty thinners and placed back on desk. Looked up about 10 mins later to find one of the U/C legs had collapsed and broken away from the model. I thinks that this is due to the fact that I had to remove some plastic from one U/C leg before it would fit correctly, and I didn't repaint over this area afterwards. Luckily I have a spare kit so the relevent parts were sprayed up last night and hopefully will be fitted tonight without too much of a drama.

Still the wonders of modelling.

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Ouch, hope it's all good now.

The trials and tribulations of modelling as you say!

U/C refitted last night, so I will re-weather this evening, hopefully with no complications.

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U/C refitted last night, so I will re-weather this evening, hopefully with no complications.

After a little painting I added the wash of dirty thinners and waited. Then after about 5 mins the newly fitted U/C started to sag again. Luckily this time it was a clean break across the lower strut. So after a wait of about half and hour I glue the strut together and placed the model on its back for the night. This morning I gave the offending U/C a gentle pull, and it did not come apart, so I place the model on its wheels where she stands quite happily now.

I have been painting the fuel tanks and missiles whilst this U/C problem has been going on, and will hopefully decal them in the next few days.

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Was it the strut going from gear to mid-bay? If so, I had the same snap on mine, you can just notice the join in the close up of the undercarriage.

Pain in the gwaf. Hope no more dramas for you Jabba.

Edited by Parabat
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Was it the strut going from gear to mid-bay? If so, I had the same snap on mine, you can just notice the join in the close up of the undercarriage.

Pain in the gwaf. Hope no more dramas for you Hannah.

No this was the main 'V' strut that holds the wheel. Part D21/22 in my kit, that was why I was surprised at what happened.

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Jabba, just re-read this - I blame auto-correct for NOT recognising 'Jabba' and turning you into 'Hannah'!

I've edited my post, please accept my apologies.

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I think that I am almost there with this model. I still have another coat of matt varnish to be applied to the fuel tanks and weapons before they can be fitted. I borrowed the middle wing pylons from a Tamiya kit that I am not going to use them on and adapted them so that a Sparrow missile will fit them on them. I know that it is probably not technically correct but it is only temporarily fitted until I can get the correct pylon. Ejection seat is painted up and needs a little weathering and belts fitting. Any comment are welcome.

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Edited by Jabba
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After almost losing the will to live when coping with photobucket and my computer over the past two nights (almost 40 mins each night for just 6 photos) I now have photos in the completed build section. Will try and post some here tomorrow, if I have not destroyed the computer beforehand.

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