Solvent Parrot

Following with interest. I lived pretty much under Bentwaters flight path when these were there, with that and Iron Eagle watched at a formative age I was always going to be an F16 fan. The film however has not stood the test of time. I was going to say smoked canopy but I see bar side has already evidenced the point.

Looking like MkXIV Spitfire is a good match on production timing and it'll be nice to have a go at a Griffon engined variant. Time to do some more reading.

The Revell has arrived. I have persuaded eldest that he might like to have a crack at it since he needs to back up some research for Scouts and his Air Spotter badge by building a model. It's definitely light on detail in some areas (cockpit is a bit of a non event for example) but it might just give him a more manageable build as a consequence. I'm going to have a good look at the decal sets/schemes for this one with him and see what appeals. Then I think maybe we will either build it an earlier variant buddy in 1/48 so he can use for a compare and contrast or one of it's Allied equivalents from the same era. I'd just need to do a bit of research to work out what would be it's 'mirror' aircraft. Might make a good paired build/WIP in my head as well as a research project for his badge. Any further input definitely welcomed if anyone has suggestions on good earlier variant or Allied equivalent aircraft to look into.

That's lovely. Had to check the scale twice.

That really is a great piece of work.

It seems that is even more so than I thought - I guess that this was a bi-product of the needs of war and particularly of later in the war. I am just taking a look at the Eduard kits as well as two of you seem to have recommended. The Revell was only a tenner so if it gets consigned to experimental duties in favour of something a little nicer it won't have me crying in my cornflakes. I'm not that familiar with the different brands yet - although I was very impressed with the Eduard weekend Hellcat that my younger son made. It has - it's given me cause to pause and think about how I'm going to get to the end goal here which is something that looks good as a thank you rather than some mad experimental project for me! Thanks for all those - I'll have a look with a pc in front of me rather than the phone screen later. 🙂 I've just started looking as you're the second one to say that. Thank you very much all - lots of good/helpful stuff and maybe a good chance/incentive for me to rethink whether I have got the best base to start from. A look at the Eduard kits seems a must. I've seen the profipack one in stock somewhere on a quick search so maybe that's a place to start.

My eldest is a big Bf109 fan. He's not really into building and painting kits but he is absolutely mad/nerdy on planes. Over the last couple of weeks he's done some really good things for the family and I want to say thank you by building him a Bf109 for display in his room. I'm slightly cheekily looking to tap into the much greater knowledge of people on here in the hope of saving a bit of learning curve. I've got a Revell 1/48 Bf109 G10 on it's way as my starting point but I'm looking for some "upgrades" to make it a bit special as it looks a fairly simple kit so there must be some obvious enhancements but not sure what will give good bang for buck? I'm new to the upgrade world and this isn't a plane / variant I know a great deal about so I'm googling around product names I see mentioned on here. I've so far found... Aires do a cockpit kit (7143) which looks ok and is a brand I keep seeing mentioned on here. Also found some Quickboost exhausts p/n 48899 and pitot tubes p/n 48051 Some wheels Eduard Brassin (648158) or Barracuda 48391 I'm sure there's more but if anyone has built one of these and can offer any feedback on these or better alternatives I would be most grateful. Likewise if anyone who has good knowledge of this variant knows of any cool schemes for which I stand a chance of finding decals that would be awesome. Any suggestions or advice gratefully received. 🙂

Well I suppose someone had to say it. 😂 Mighty fine pair of Falcons there and loving the two seater in splinter.

Magnificent. 🙂

That's superb. Such a commitment to detail and I assume an insane amount of research not just on the aircraft, schemes etc but on the aftermarket bits.

It's certainly cheerful. Thanks very much for the info on the Dettol. Lots of this still new / relearning for me. Looking forward to the rest of the thread.

Really enjoying watching this restoration job. I found a box of badly builts in my parents' loft a few weeks back and they've managed to make it back into the model pile for the kids to play with but maybe for a bit of experimental improvement by me. May I just ask...Dettol...is that being used as paint stripper for enamels or acrylics or both? There's an F16B, a Tomcat and a Hornet that could all do with a bath if it's enamel 🙂 .

Load out decision time... I have 3 wing tip missile options The box depicts the AMRAAM and there's some other photos online with these loaded. I quite fancy this on the wing tip because it's bigger and is clearly therefore better 😏 There's also options for Sidewinders with or without the front fins. I can only find the "no front fins" variant in a Google search in this busy looking livery. The other thing I cannot quite work out is whether this aircraft had had its outer pylon removed from each wing - it may not be very distinct in the photos but to me it looks like it's missing. Has anyone got the knowledge?

Very, very nice

Great job and looks great in the RFI too.

Looks great to me. Does anyone remember the UK magazine Take Off that launched probably around the mid to late 80s? One of the earliest articles in that was with a Falklands Sea Harrier pilot. Edit Google says it was actually 1993, issue 2.

That's terrific. One of my boys is a big Bf109 fan. Echo the colour scheme comments too.

Interested to see how one of these can turn out in an experienced pair of hands. I'm only a brush painter (time, cost, expense, maintenance and learning curve of airbrush puts me off).

A little progress today mainly on the cockpit area I decided that given this is a cockpit closed job in 1/72 and the fragility/irritation factor of cockpit decals and I just fancied giving it a go...that I'd try picking out some of the lumps and bumps with paint. It's not great but I learned a couple of lessons. I definitely found the very pointy cocktail stick dabber more controllable than a brush. What I couldn't work out was whether thinned paint (Revell acrylics mainly) would have been better. The fetching green colour is actually an ancient Citadel / Games Workshop colour that had a previous life painting space orks. The seat area also got a bit more attention. I started trying to be clever with the floor colour then realised it would be completely invisible, there's doing it for the love and there's just full blown wasting your time and I really had to conclude the floor was the latter (others opinions will vary!). Main things not in the picture were the box and I couldn't find an exact match picture for the seat but I've tried to pick out some obvious bits in (broadly) the right colours with a whiff of artistic license/exaggerated colour so that when the canopy is on it might give a bit of an impression of control panels etc. Time will tell if it just looks bad! The colour scheme in the box was slightly at odds with the pictures I found too. The cockpit is now glued in but I forgot to take a picture. So far this was the worst fitting bit by a country mile. The IP just refused to sit at the right angle and location to go under the front cockpit coaming. A lot of scraping was needed to get the edges of the IP to sit on the humps at the front end of the cockpit. Even then I had to scrape the rear of the cockpit section to get it to sit just inside the fitting lip on the upper fuselage. Was a bit disappointing when most of the rest so far has been to a decent tolerance. One last thing - how much flash is on the sprues. This is my first Revell kit in a long while but junior parrot had similar on one of his. I found some childhood F16 builds while visiting family the other week including the remains of this ancient Matchbox kit. https://flic.kr/p/2mmct18

Another returnee to kit models here who joined here a few months back. Welcome, I'm just finding my way round all the stuff but I've restarted in the basis of try and get the basics right and just started my first WIP thread. Some of the Ready for Inspection stuff is intimidatingly good but I'm learning a fair bit from other more skilled modellers' WIP threads. Watching the process they follow and techniques they use. It's a bit easier going than wading through advice threads.

That looks great.

Bit of progress today using various bits of helpful advice on the jet exhaust in particular. Haven't been able to find a pot of anthracite paint so that's a matt black / aluminium by eye mix for the cockpit surround and exhaust. The jet exhaust / tail pipe is now fitting lots better, after a bit of fine tuning of the upper fuselage fit and removing it using @Gondor44 suggestion with the extra thin and a little knife work and pressure then reattaching. I think the actual problem was in some small imperfections in the upper fuselage not in the way I glued it in first time but having pulled it apart and rebuilt it and it fitting I'm.still not 100% sure what the main issue was. Fuselage not assembled yet as the cockpit section and rear undercarriage bay are still very much in WIP / paint stage. Wish I'd painted the pipe BEFORE I'd assembled it anyway job done now. 🙄 This isn't looking too great just now and I maybe need to look up some cockpit pics when I've some more time for inspiration. A little filler also went in the lower fuselage after some ham fisted removal from the sprue of one part. Final job of the day was test fitting the front and rear upper fuselage and testing the fit against the lower. A little filing and scraping was needed to get them to sit comfortably and there will be some fine filling once it's bonded. Need to find a decent fine and maybe slightly runny/flowing filler as the Humbrol stuff I have is going to be hard to use neatly for such fine work.

Thanks. Will look those threads up. Anything I buy now I'm going with acrylics as they seem to have come on a long way in the last 30 years. Thank you. Hopefully get a chance to have a pop at fixing that over the weekend amongst family staying and domestic duties. 🙂

Thank you, from memory the wretched thing is even notched to go on the way up I've put it as well. 😕 I am however sure you are totally right looking again that it's upside down. Now it's a question of do I risk separation damage or cut my losses and push on and try not to look at the back of the finished product. Should have asked that with a dry fit picture and tape instead of after the glue - lesson learned I hope.

One last post tools and stuff... I have available... Scalpels Little snips for cutting sprues Sanding boards (think nail board things) with variety of roughness Micro drills Fine grade sanding sheets down to about 2400 grade iirc Selection of brushes from 5/0 pointy to flat brushes "Glue" Revell Exacta and Tamiya extra thin Decal fix and the Revell equivalent Paints I'm increasingly using Revell acrylics for big surfaces but also got some colours in Humbrol/Airfix enamels and acrylics depending on what I could get at the time. I have some Humbrol acrylic rattle cans in basic colours. I definitely lack a decent filler and something decent for sticking canopies.