1/48 F-16AM RNLAF Demo Jet (Tamiya Conversion)

[Delayar]

Hi Folks,

 

I finally began to tackle a kit, which is on my todo list for some time now.

 

It will be the F-16AM of the Solo Display Team of the Netherland Air Force in its stunning orange/black livery.

I will build it as an in-flight model, using the Syhart decals.

 

As I didn't want to wrestle with the Kinetic kit, I decide to go the route of using the Tamiya kit and the Kasl Hobby conversion kit, which includes a rear fuselage sectian and a tail apropriate for an AM Viper.

Further aftermarket accessoirs I intend to use:

• Tamiya stiffener plates and probes
• Aires resin nozzle
• Royal Resin nose cone (I am not sure yet, If I really use it or go just with the kit parts.)
• KT Model Resin Works Smokewinders

 

 

I started with the most intimidating step: the surgery of the upper fuselage, but everything went well:

 

 

 

And here, the rear parts in their place on the lower fuselage:

 

 

The fit is quite good, but of course a little bit of filler is still required. The shape and dimension match perfectly, panel line appearance fits to the Tamiya kit.

 

The fuselage parts are not glued together yet, I will do this when I attach the upper fuselage to the lower fuselage, to avoid any alignment issues.

 

Cheers,

Markus

[exdraken]

great project!

 

have the same somewhere waiting in the stash... although did not think of using the definitely better apt white Thunderbirds boxing..... sold it years ago......

 

 

[Delayar]

Work continues in amsall steps.

here is another picture of a dry fit, with the forward fuselage attached and dry fitted to the lower fuselage:

 

 

The next step was the air intake. to get a seamless intake, I used the proven method of mating the forward and rear parts of the intake, getting rid of the lateral seams, and then gluing upper and lower halfes together.

 

 

I glued a piece of styrene to the rear wall of the front wheel well on which the gear door will rest.

 

 

Here a dry fit to see if it will work:

 

 

 

Yep, looks good, even without glue.

 

Its hard to take pictures of white plastic ;-)

 

Cheers,

Markus

[Delayar]

I made some slow but steady progress over the last weeks: Capt. Stefan "Stitch" Hutton - or at least the model of him - is ready to board the plane:

 

 

 

 

 

It is the Thunderbirds pilot figure with the standard helmet. The helmet was sanded smooth.

The helmet is painted using Mr. Paint colours specifically for this jet, and the markings are self printed decals, as are the shoulder patches

 

The original helmet has a pinstriped lion on the orange part, but that is too delicate to replicate.

 

I also painted the intake and the lower fuselage in light metallic orange, using the two layered Mr. Paint MRP-207.

 

 

The first layer is more ore less the orange base colour, the second layer adds the metallic effect. White is the perfect base colour for these paint.

 

Cheers,

Markus

 

[Azgaron]

Very nice work so far!

 

Håkan

 

[exdraken]

Looking good!

Paint seems to be perfect!

[Delayar]

Thank you!

 

The pilot also received kneeboards:

 

 

The black areas on the underside of the forward fuselage were painted, and then the intake was attached and the gear doors were glued in. Again, everything fit without hassle.

 

 

Next I glued in the cockpit and attached the upper fuselage. In the first step just the kit parts without the resin spine.

 

 

 

This allows me to check the position of the in-flight mounting socket.

 

The plane will be mounted on a 15mm acrylic rod, which will be inserted through the exhaust. 15mm is also the inner diameter on the smallest piece of the Aires exhaust.

If I just mounted the rod into the resin exhaust, it would not be very stable. I therfore glued a 15mm copper fitting to the back of the compressor fan with epoxy. It will carry the weight of the aircraft, the exhaust only acts as a guide.

 

 

When the epoxy was dry, I glued in the conversion spine. It was necessary to remove any excess epoxy from the outside of the fan part, since the resin part rests upon it.

 

 

Only a small gap on the back remains to be filled. The resin part shapewise fits perfectly, if some care is used during the gluing process.

 

Cheers,

Markus

[Azgaron]

Nice work!

 

Håkan

 

[Delayar]

Thank you!

 

Markus

[Delayar]

Hi folks,

 

A few detail were added or removed to make an AM out of a C model.

 

 

Apart from the added stiffener plates, the RWR antennas on the leading edge of the wings were removed.

Also, the inboard LEF hinges lost one finger. On the underside, the forward chaff/flare buckets were filled.

 

Another thing is the vertical tail.

 

 

Although marketed as a tail for an AM, the tip is in fact the tip of a C tail.

For a Netherlands aircraft, RAM panels and sensors have to be added to the parabrake housing.

 

Cheers,

Markus

 

[Delayar]

Hi folks,

 

I continued the build, starting with the change of the tail.

I removed the position light on top and reshaped the tip to match an A(M) tail. I then added the bas for the position lieght from the kit part.

For the RAM(?) panels on the parabrake, I traced the outline on a piece of masking tape, removed it, scanned it and made some fine adjustmenst in a graphics software. I printed this out on self adhesive paper, cut it with a x-acto blade and put it in place. Afterwards, I made the sesnors from round styrene rods.

 

 

The static wicks are from Master Models (I know, the middle one is missing)

The position light itself will be cut from clear plastic, since the kit parts have the wrong shape for an AM.

 

I Then glued the reinforment plates in front of the tail, added the last tiny pieces and masked the canopy to be ready for some paint.

I still have to cut small groves into the sockets for the static wicks so that the brass ones can be fitted.

 

 

I also painted the exhaust, using Tamiya xf-66 for the grey parts of the petals, and various Alclads for the rest:

 

 

Also, there should be the NO PUSH stencils on the petals. Does anybody know which size they should be?

And finally, I decided to use the kit nose (with the metal pitot tube). After I painted it flat black, I carefully scraped the lightning stripes free from color.

 

 

So, the only thing left to do are the static wicks, then it is ready for the paint booth.

 

Cheers,

Markus

 

[planehazza]

Very nice, Markus!

[Delayar]

Thanks.

 

[planehazza]

May I ask how you painted the inside of the intake? I've just done the paint pour (2nd model I've done it with) and it was a disaster; I must have had beginners luck first time around.  I'm planning to fit a FOD cover on this model (I had planned for it to be removable, but now I'm thinking I'll just fix it in place now) but I'd still like to get the inside nice and crisp.  I'm going to try sanding it smooth, masking it again, then trying another pour, otherwise I'm either gluing the FOD cover to hide it all, or giving a paint removal bath...

[exdraken]

very nice updates!

 

you blended the resin fuselage replacement part really perfectly it seems!

 

Cheers!

[At Sea]

Brilliant work!

 

Watching this with interest as I have the desire to build this:

 

[Mr.Happy]

Delayar,

 

Love this build thread 😍

 

I’m eagerly awaiting the next update,your doing some very nice work on that conversion 👍

 

All the best & Cheers,

 

Mr.Happy (In name only)

[Avgas]

Quote

Mr. Paint MRP-207

 

Thanks for that - I had no idea this existed! I'd placed my version of this project near the bottom of the pile because the only suitable paint (Syhart if I remember correctly) was always out of stock. Looks like I can consider tackling it now

 

Great work on yours. I'm looking forward to see how it turns out!

Edited August 22, 2018 by Avgas

[Delayar]

On 8/22/2018 at 1:31 PM, planehazza said:

May I ask how you painted the inside of the intake? I've just done the paint pour (2nd model I've done it with) and it was a disaster; I must have had beginners luck first time around.  I'm planning to fit a FOD cover on this model (I had planned for it to be removable, but now I'm thinking I'll just fix it in place now) but I'd still like to get the inside nice and crisp.  I'm going to try sanding it smooth, masking it again, then trying another pour, otherwise I'm either gluing the FOD cover to hide it all, or giving a paint removal bath... 

 

I airbrushed it with low pressure and thinned Tamiya flat white, doing multiple thin layers. I didn't achieve great success with the pouring method myself, therefore, I do it with the airbrush.

 

Cheers,

Markus

[Delayar]

On 8/22/2018 at 2:08 PM, exdraken said:

very nice updates!

 

you blended the resin fuselage replacement part really perfectly it seems! 

 

Cheers!

 

Thank you.

 

But as already mentioned, the KASL part also fits very well, therefore it was less work than I thought it would be.

So I can recommend the conversion set.

 

Cheers,

Markus

[FortyEighter]

Great work so far, that reminds me I must finish my "Orange Jumper" sometime

[planehazza]

1 hour ago, Delayar said:

 

I airbrushed it with low pressure and thinned Tamiya flat white, doing multiple thin layers. I didn't achieve great success with the pouring method myself, therefore, I do it with the airbrush.

 

Cheers,

Markus

I've found the opposite in success so far.  I tried spraying it first and couldn't get a decent coverage without runs.  So i did the paint pour and it worked OK to good; I just needed some cleaning up of the edges.  This time around, it has been an utter disaster, the point I'm thinking of going down to my LHS tonight and picking up 5x each Tamiya gloss and matt whites, mixing them together to form a satin, and doing the paint pour with that. The whole intake assembly has already had one paint strip bath, not in a rush to do it again

[Delayar]

On 8/22/2018 at 4:42 PM, Avgas said:

 

Thanks for that - I had no idea this existed! I'd placed my version of this project near the bottom of the pile because the only suitable paint (Syhart if I remember correctly) was always out of stock. Looks like I can consider tackling it now

 

Great work on yours. I'm looking forward to see how it turns out!

Thanks.

 

There is also MRP-206, which is the darker orange. I will try this on the arresting hook and see if I can omit the decal on it.

 

Cheers,

Markus

[Delayar]

2 hours ago, planehazza said:

I've found the opposite in success so far.  I tried spraying it first and couldn't get a decent coverage without runs.  So i did the paint pour and it worked OK to good; I just needed some cleaning up of the edges.  This time around, it has been an utter disaster, the point I'm thinking of going down to my LHS tonight and picking up 5x each Tamiya gloss and matt whites, mixing them together to form a satin, and doing the paint pour with that. The whole intake assembly has already had one paint strip bath, not in a rush to do it again

If spraying, you have to be careful to prevent runs. Go with light coats, let dry a little bit, spray the next coat. Low pressure, low paintflow.

 

cheers,

Markus

[planehazza]

1 minute ago, Delayar said:

If spraying, you have to be careful to prevent runs. Go with light coats, let dry a little bit, spray the next coat. Low pressure, low paintflow.

 

cheers,

Markus

Yeah I was doing that, but I obviously need more practice. I didn't put any flow enhancer in stupidly, but I thinned the Vallejo white to about 1:1 with UMP thinner, and knocked the PSI back to about 15. The tip kept drying, so often in fact that it would clog after almost every blast, meaning that once I'd let go of the trigger I'd have to clean the tip again.  Acrylics are so frustrating to spray some times, but then it's part of being an airbrush novice.  It's really doing my head in, as "it'll do" simply won't do. I want it to be to my best, which may not be very good, but I want to put in everything I can into my F-16 builds.  I'm at the point where the build simply cannot progress until I get this intake done, and having built Tamiya F-16s yourself, I'm sure you understand why haha.