Tamiya 1/32nd Viper

[Reilly]

After getting a good fit with the main undercart well I decided to work again on the nose wheel well. Here's the fit plus the panel linking both the nose and main wheel wells.  

 

 

 

The small gap on the right hand side will go once everything is in its final place. Without the Aires well the fit is as good as perfect. Spent another couple of hours scraping away the underside of the well and the underside of the intake until both of them are transparent if held up to the light and its still a tight fit. Next I decided to add the undercarriage leg. @#$#@ !! Not only will it need to be adjusted through removal of the metal flap that Tamiya added but it will hardly fit the Aires part. 

 

 

 

I'm going to have to think long and hard as to how I get this to fit. The detail on the Airers part and the location of the leg is closer to the position of the real thing than the Tamiya solution but as good as it is it doesn't fit the Tamiya parts. A comment I have read on a couple of fora. I've almost nowhere to go in making sufficient space for the leg. I hope whatever I can come up with will also be able to support the weight of the model. The metal lug solution from Tamiya, although it isn't accurate, is elegant in setting the correct angle of the leg and maintaining that under the weight of the model. 

 

I'll be happy when I can get past all this fitting and get on to some construction and paint. 

Edited August 15, 2017 by Reilly
Removal of dead photobacket links

[Reilly]

Having given up on the nose wheel for the moment until I have some ideas I decided to go back to work on the pit, bite the bullet and start hacking away to make it fit. Here's the work to date.

 

 

In the above the  back of the pit fits into the hole I made in the Tamiya part. Additionally it should only take a small adjustment of the canopy lifting mechanism to allow it to fit as well. 

 

 

And at this point the problems begin. The following photo shows where the back wall behind the seat should be located. The back wall should be in line with the left hand side of the hinged panel.

 

 

 

Now I have a lot to fill, the front of the pit has been moved too far forward, the position of the canopy locks are in the correct position but the opening mechanism will no longer fit. Furthermore the nose weight can no longer be used in its current form but that could be cut up. In addition Aires provides a cutout at the back of the pit which is, I expect, supposed to fit with the appropriate lug in the underside of the fuselage shown below. This only works when the pit is moved back to the incorrect position in the first figure of this post. 

 

 

Conclusion Aires has made a mistake in the dimensions of the pit; its too short. A pity as I like the detail. While looking at it I was checking to see if it had this that or the other switch, panel etc and its all there. I think I'm going to be forced to fix it in the "incorrect" position with the canopy open. The work to correct the mistake is just far too extensive. I think I'll have a look to see what other options are on the market. 

 

Ordered the Sniper pod from GTResin and its now on its way to Europe. 

Edited March 11, 2017 by Reilly

[AndrewE]

The pit looks like it has some excellent detail, a shame it does not fit the kit properly.  Could you not make a horizontal cut from the rear to remove the rear section and move that back to the correct position. The small gap would then be at the rear of the side console and could easily be filled in.

 

[simmerit]

I'd cut the seat off and move it back 2mm or whatever it is to seat it correctly. Can't see how you'd notice???

[Blue_Centurion]

The Tamiya cockpit is an excellent 1/32 pit out of the box. You have courage to want to replace it with something that will require much work. Braver soul than me I'm afraid.

[Reilly]

21 hours ago, AndrewE said:

The pit looks like it has some excellent detail, a shame it does not fit the kit properly.  Could you not make a horizontal cut from the rear to remove the rear section and move that back to the correct position. The small gap would then be at the rear of the side console and could easily be filled in.

 

 

20 hours ago, simmerit said:

I'd cut the seat off and move it back 2mm or whatever it is to seat it correctly. Can't see how you'd notice???

 

18 hours ago, Blue_Centurion said:

The Tamiya cockpit is an excellent 1/32 pit out of the box. You have courage to want to replace it with something that will require much work. Braver soul than me I'm afraid.

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys. It helps prompting me to look at things from a different angle. Firstly the detail on the Aires pit is a lot better then the standard Tamiya version however the dimensions of the Tamiya version are better. With the Aires pit they've added everything. When I saw that they even had the stowaway holes for the piddle pak I had a feeling I was on to a good thing. The only thing I have to add that isn't in the kit is the connector for the JHMCS. 

 

Last night I realised that the Aires pit is out of scale. Its too small. I found a link to somebody else who installed it in his viper; a few mm further back than mine: http://zone-five.net/showthread.php?t=5551 I wish I'd seen the comments about Aires before I started this. In the viper in the link the canopy would fit however noyt only is the back of the pit to far to the rear but the cover for the instrument panel is also too far back. Its edge should fall between the forward panel and the rescue panel. In the picture its almost past the rescue panel. I think I'll go for something in-between and bluff it out. If anybody comes round who should know we'll play find the mistake. I'm now also considering getting hold of the CMK resin wheel well for the nose wheel. 

 

 

[Reilly]

While considering how to get a decent fit with the Aires pit I've tried a few other things. Firstly a sniper and HTS pods arrived from from GT Resin. Huzzah, problem solved on that score. 

 

 

I've also been experimenting with recreating Have Glass. Below is the best result so far. A piece of plastic card was first sprayed with grey primer then a coating of Vallejo's aluminium Metal Colour. That was then coated with Vallejo gun metal gray.

 

 

 

The above result gives a metallic sheen where the light falls on it and the more grey when its not in direct light. Its work in progress and the grey is a bit dark. Close up it was possible to see that the metallic layer had blistered a little with the grey filling the gaps. Not sure yet whether this is an issue or a solution.

 

Moving on to the undercarriage I ordered up the CMS resin set planning to use the nose wheel bay only. Bad mistake and a bit rash on my part. CMS recommends that the kit part for the intake be thinned down to 0.5mm in order to get it to fit. My intake has been thinned down to 0.17mm and its still like trying to fit an elephant into a matchbox. Its back to the Aires set and a remodelling of the nose gear so that it fits. 

[Reilly]

I ordered up some paints from Hataka in Poland, namely their set of USAF greys. The reason for this is that the FS numbers on the Vallejo paints that I normally use are all over the place and their own reference tables contain contradictions. Over in the thread on the Trumpeter Chinook there was a discussion on Hataka paints with some poor results; Trumpeter Chinook. The manufacturer replaced the products concerned but there were some reservations until they have been shown to work. In a fit of rashness I decided to take the gamble and order up a set. This is the results of a quick test comparing the Hataka paint to the Vallejo that I normally use.  

 

When I received the set I was reasonably impressed. Some of the bottles contain a bead to help in mixing while shaking. The tops are childproof which is a little inconvenient if you want to refill the airbrush with one hand. 

 

 

Some of the tops could do to be closed properly before leaving the production line. Some of the bottles had paint round the dropper which should have been inside the bottle. Not serious but it is a general quality issue. I choose three colours where I was reasonably sure that the FS numbers were correct.

 

 

Strangely Vallejo thinks that its okay to use primer as a final layer. The surface primer was in a set of Vallejo USAF colours. For testing I decided to choose the two bottles in the centre. Thats medium grey/gray FS36270. I sprayed a piece of plastic card with Vallejo grey primer. The result is basically the same as Holts primer, at least thats what it smells like. I then sprayed half the card with the Vallejo Model Air and the second half with the Hataka paint. Both were sprayed under the same conditions. I use a Harder and Steenbeck Infinity airbrush with a 0.4mm needle. The airflow was around 1.6 bar. No thinner was added to either paint. In both cases the paint was left overnight to dry and there was no tackiness in the Hataka. The airbrush was also easily cleaned with Vallejo airbrush cleaner. On the Chinook thread both these points were an issue when using the earlier Hataka paints. 

 

 

The RHS is Vallejo and the LHS is the Hataka. The black arrows top and bottom indicate the border between the two. The grey from Hataka is slightly lighter. Close up is shown below. There is no difference in feel between the two in terms of feel. 

 

 

Conclusion is that I'm happy to use the Hataka paints on the model when I get that far. 

[crushkill]

I will definitely be following this build! I've always wanted to build an F-16, but those landing gear bays always intimated me, someday maybe.

[Ludicrus Sextus]

I like this, but one question - why use resin when the kit's cockpit and wheel wells are so good?

[Reilly]

6 hours ago, Ludicrus Sextus said:

I like this, but one question - why use resin when the kit's cockpit and wheel wells are so good?

 

Maybe a bit of a rash decision on my part. I looked at the wheel wells from Aires and the detail looked a lot better than the Tamiya kit. Okay, it would be possible to add the extra detail I just thought the resin would give me a heads start. In the case of the cockpit the detail in the Aires version is better than the Tamiya offering in both the instrumentation and the seat. Again it could be added to the Tamiya version and after my trials with the fitting of the Aires part which is too small I'm starting to regret cutting up the frame to try and fit it in the first place. I've had a look for a Blackbox pit but haven't found one yet. 

 

I saw your Pudycat and Cobra threads. Holy mother of Kazan the detail is beyond astounding. I lost the will to live when I saw your Viper thread. By the way, how's that job at Lockheed Martin working out?

Edited April 4, 2017 by Reilly

[Ludicrus Sextus]

"Holy mother of Kazan"   I have never heard this before.

 

You're doing a brilliant job and I'm sure the cockpit fit problem can be thought around, the nosewheel fits great 

[Delayar]

11 hours ago, Reilly said:

I've had a look for a Blackbox pit but haven't found one yet. 

 

Hi!

 

Blackbox is now sold under the Avionix brand. It is available here: https://www.squadron.com/1-32-Avionix-F-16C-J-Fighting-Falcon-Cockpit-Set-p/blc32024.htm

I used this set in my build, and it fits perfectly, only very little surgery is needed.

 

Cheers,

Markus

 

 

 

[Reilly]

4 hours ago, Delayar said:

 

Hi!

 

Blackbox is now sold under the Avionix brand. It is available here: https://www.squadron.com/1-32-Avionix-F-16C-J-Fighting-Falcon-Cockpit-Set-p/blc32024.htm

I used this set in my build, and it fits perfectly, only very little surgery is needed.

 

Cheers,

Markus

 

 

 

 

Hi Markus,

 

Thanks for the pointer.

 

Cheers

John.

[Reilly]

10 hours ago, Ludicrus Sextus said:

"Holy mother of Kazan"   I have never heard this before.

 

Ah, some may remember this from days gone by. It was an often used expression of Obergefreiter Joseph Porta from the books of Sven Hassel. In the 80's I doubt there was a crewroom or guardroom at any UK base that didn't have a few well thumbed volumes amongst the "literature collection" .    

[simmerit]

Mandatory reading for 18 yer olds and above.  Tiny, Porter, the Old Man.  I cant remember the rest of em.  I have them all in the loft still.  There was another absolute classic as well about a French lad with a German father that ended up in the Gross Deutschland - cant remember the name now.  Ace read.

 

Guy Sajer was the bloke

Edited April 5, 2017 by simmerit

[Reilly]

On 4/5/2017 at 3:28 PM, simmerit said:

Mandatory reading for 18 yer olds and above.  Tiny, Porter, the Old Man.  I cant remember the rest of em.  I have them all in the loft still.  There was another absolute classic as well about a French lad with a German father that ended up in the Gross Deutschland - cant remember the name now.  Ace read.

 

Guy Sajer was the bloke

 

I read them all again last year, memories, memories. Have them on a Kindle. I looked up Guy Sajer and his book "Forgotten Soldier" is still around. I'll give it a read. Thanks for the tip.

[Reilly]

I think I might rename this thread "How not to build an F-16". Apologies in advance for my skills not being up to those of many others on this site who turn out true works of art. Hopefully my tales of woe will help others from making some of the same mistakes. 

 

The following shows the turkey feathers after having been sprayed in two colours. Or at least that was the plan.

 

 

After spraying the initial colour spent a considerable amount of time masking of the vanes using a paper form to ensure symmetry. Added black to the base colour of the vanes and sprayed again. Removed the masking tape and discovered that the difference in colour was ...non-existant! After quite a bit of foul language, pushed to one side for later. Next decided to work on the undercart wells.

 

 

Painted the nose well well with white containing a small amount of blue. The idea being to generate shadows as well as toning down the white a tick. Clearly the small amount of blue was not small enough. Next after having cleaned the resin parts in detergent tried spraying it with Vallejo black primer. Not a good idea, I ended up with puddles of primer. The picture above shows the result after a bit of a clean up. Went back and sprayed it with bog standard grey primer which worked a treat. Then roughly brushed it with Nato black which isn't as intense as black. The result makes it look like they've been in a fire but I was reasonably pleased with the result.

 

 

Then went on with spraying white and added some blue vapours from the blue paint bottle. This was the end result. 

 

 

I'll now use white to highlight leaving the darker shade in the shadows which will hopefully reproduce the shadows normally seen on the full size version. At the centre is the nozzle for the engine. I tried to recreate the patina of black normally found on the convergent and divergent parts of the nozzle. Used Nato black again along with some grey wash. Then gave it a light spraying of white grey. With a bit more work as in repeat I hope to get the result I'm looking for. I used white grey as it looked closer to the colour of the ceramic material found in the afterburner ducting.

 

After the tip from Markus I decided to get hold of the Blackbox (Avionix) pit. I had spent some time wondering how best to cut the Aires version to extend it and after a few experiments with plastic card decided that it was just going to make a bad job look worse. Here's the Aires pit (upper) and Blackbox (lower) version side by side. 

 

 

As far as I'm concerned the problem is immediately visible. What were Aires thinking about? The part after the wall behind the seat in the Blackbox version is much deeper ensuring that rest of the pit is located in the right place. The detail is just as good and all the buttons and switches bar, one small panel, are all present. On the side panels the octopus is in the closed position but that can be corrected if I leave the canopy open. Just one small problem I've now cut away too much of the fuselage side walls when trying to fit the Aires pit. The Blackbox version doesn't have the seals or locking pins and these have been cut away. I'll have to see what I can build up but it won't be easy (at least for me). 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2017 by Reilly

[simmerit]

On 4/16/2017 at 8:42 PM, Reilly said:

 

I read them all again last year, memories, memories. Have them on a Kindle. I looked up Guy Sajer and his book "Forgotten Soldier" is still around. I'll give it a read. Thanks for the tip.

 

Great book - I remember it now you've dug the title out.  Absolutely class + he was gen also, so a different read to the Sven H books which are obviously  entertaining war book/tales for bored bill oddies.  I shall  dig my copy out an dust  off the cover

[Delayar]

On 16.4.2017 at 10:38 PM, Reilly said:

As far as I'm concerned the problem is immediately visible. What were Aires thinking about?

 

I think they just took their pit they made for the Hasegawa kit and added this strange extension at the front of the IP coaming. AFAIK, the pit in 1/48 has the same issue, so that is probably a modified Hasegawa replacement as well. 

 

As for the exhaust: The rivets on the Aires part are a little on the heavy side. I applied Mr. Surfacer and sanded the exhaust a little to make them less obvious. 

 

Cheers,

Markus

[Reilly]

6 hours ago, Delayar said:

 

I think they just took their pit they made for the Hasegawa kit and added this strange extension at the front of the IP coaming. AFAIK, the pit in 1/48 has the same issue, so that is probably a modified Hasegawa replacement as well. 

 

As for the exhaust: The rivets on the Aires part are a little on the heavy side. I applied Mr. Surfacer and sanded the exhaust a little to make them less obvious. 

 

Cheers,

Markus

 

Thanks for the tip on the rivets. They are a bit prominent, I might take them back a bit but they should still be visible.

[Reilly]

Things have been progressing slowly here at Loxheed Moron. I've been working on the engine of the Viper with the idea of displaying it separately. It would get all the Tamiya parts and I'd use the Aires parts on the airframe. 

 

I tried mixing various metal paints to get the results I wanted, namely Alclad and Vallejo. I'd realised that I had to be careful with the primer type but it seems that not all the metals react in the same way. I tried to tone down one of the aluminium colours on the engine with another duller colour. Bad idea, the mess that was left behind looked like treacle and took quite a bit of cleaning up. Similar applied to spraying metals from the same manufacturer. On the turkey feathers I cut out a mask and spent a tedious evening masking of 12 of the things. Sprayed the next metal colour. What a shambles. Went back to a brush and compounded said mess. Paint everywhere and no two blades with the same size shading. Lesson: test first when working with metallic paints and don't assume that all metals of the same manufacturer spray with the same characteristics.

 

 

 

I sanded everything off the blades and started again. I also added some the detail to the back of the blades but thats hardly visible once assembled. I also had a go at scribing a line which runs along the outer edge. I binned the idea after various attempts, none of which worked well. 

 

I took a step back and started experimenting with various metal paints on some gash parts and I've finally finished the main I've finished the main body of the engine. As far as Tamiya is concerned it all supposed to be one colour with the exception of the doughnut which I think is far from realistic. Apart from the main body it eventually it took 5 stages for the doughnut and another 10 to reproduce the colours on the nozzle blades. 

 

 

 

 

As to Tamiya's over all effort at an engine I'd give it a 2 out of 10 and I guess if somebody has never seen one then it isn't a problem. However there is so much basic detail missing its an embarrassment. As I'm not going to use this on the finished jet its tempting to put it to one side and write it off as an experimentation in painting metals but I know at some point I'm going back to it to try and improve on the thing by adding some of the larger wiring looms. I refuse however to add the missing rivets.

 

Here's the list of colours for the turkey feathers:

 

Vallejo gloss black surface primer
Vallejo pale burnt metal (overall coverage)
Vallejo metal varnish
AK extreme metal titanium (sprayed from a distance to give a marble effect together with the burnt metal)
Tamiya clear varnish
Vallejo dark aluminium (top part of the blades, again sprayed sparingly)
Vallejo acrylic gloss varnish (rattle can). 
Blade overlap with Vallejo dark grey 70.994.

Vallejo matt varnish on blade overlap. 

Tamiya smoke X-19 around underside of blades.

 

When I get to the Aires part I'll use oils instead of the Tamiya smoke. 

 

Similar was used on the metals of the engine itself. The goal there was to take the shine out of some of the metals. Various darker and duller metals from Vallejo were dry brushed, After that different oils were used as a filter.

Edited June 13, 2017 by Reilly

[Reilly]

Have completed the basics on the bang seat. I had a choice of three, the original from Tamiya (LHS) and a smaller one from Aires (RHS). The one painted up is a latter version from Avionix and still needs some finishing for general wear and tear. 

 

 

 

 

On the right hand side the picture are the rails from Avionix that the seat is supposed to slide into. Their moulding hasn't worked out too well and you can see the distortion in the picture. Fortunately the rails from Aires are a little better and with some adjustment should work well enough.