1/48 Tamiya F-16C 25/32 ANG

[planehazza]

Hi all,

 

I hadn't planned to do a WIP thread but I changed my mind part way into the build. So, this won't be a detailed thread, just a collection of pics as I go.

 

The main reason I got back into modelling is because I really wanted a really detailed F-16 on my desk, and I thought it was as good an excuse as any to get back into the hobby properly. I could have paid one of the many pros to do one for me and the results would be 10x better than I could ever achieve, but I wanted to do it myself

 

So, off to the LHS I went I bought two Tamyia kits.  When I saw the options, I knew immediately which example I wanted to build - #83-1144, I block 25 ANG F-16C.  The reason? It is the livery/scheme shown on the box art of the flight sim I have been studying/flying for 20 years, Falcon 4.0.  

        

Neither of the above images is 100% accurate for the jet it represents, but it's close enough to show the airframe I'm modelling

 

• AIRE4364 Aires F-16C 25/32 resin/PE cockpit set
• QAB480025 Aires AIM-9L/M Seeker Cover and RBF tag set
• I was going to get the Tamiya detail up set too, but decided to scratch build the strengthening plates instead

 

On to the build!

 

Landing gear bay is nicely detailed, but lacking some details.  I'm not too fussed about everything being perfect, but the cockpit tub (ICP and UFC in particualar) is surprisingly lacking for a Tamiya kit.  Undercarriage I can live with though, and will beef it up a bit with wires etc later on. Sadly though, there are many injector pin marks, some in obviously visible areas, so they will need to be filled. Thankfully, many are raised flashed edges, so they can be scraped off without the need for filler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next thing I wanted to tackle was the engine intake.  I've built F-16s before and am aware of the 'challenge' of getting a nice seam free assembly AND somehow paint it.  It went together well, but I had to get creative with tools to get the innards smooth and seam free.  

 

   Getting there... More on this later.

 

 

Next, I turned my attention to the cockpit tub, as I was looking forward to taking advantage of the details.  It takes LOTS of fiddling and plastic/resin removal to get it to fit.  The photos aren't up to date, but at the time of writing I have it about 95% ready to fit, before all the filling starts.

The PE parts are tiny!

 

Cockpit painted, ready for gloss and wash:

 

 

Side walls aren't fitted yet, but they're painted and ready to attach (not photo'd).  As you can see, there are lot of gaps that will need addressing. I have since scrape away the lip at the front that forms part of the canopy seal.  I have scratchbuilt a part to bridge the gap, and the rest will be done with putty.

 

 

Whilst the oil wash dries over the week, little bits of sub assemblies have come together. I've joined together the main upper parts of the fuselage, filled in panel lines that don't exist, and started scratch building some strengthening plates that were fitted to the block 40s and older to keep them going to 8000 hour rating. These were just mate from the flat bits of sprue that are stamped with tree labels and branding etc.  A little rough around the edges, and not as good as PE part but I've spent far too much on this hobby over the last month so I had to draw the line. Once they're cleaned up and primed, they'll just look like part of the kit.

 

 

 

 

To be continued...

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2018 by planehazza

[planehazza]

Intake has had the paint pour treatment. Didn't go exactly to plan, but was far from a disaster.  The Wilko quick dry emulsion was very thick, so I should have probably thinned it with some water first.  Oh well, it has levelled fairly well considering.  It's obviously going to dry in a very thick layer so I'm going to have to carefully sand the lip so to remove any visible step.  

When I do this on the next model, I will certainly consider thinning the paint.  I will probably next time fill the whole intake right up to the top then sand the edges to remove the lip, then go over with the grey colour. All in all, not bad for my first attempt.

 

If I decide I'm not happy after all, I will do my best to clean it up, then make a removable FOD cover to hide it

 

 

 

 

 

Cockpit items have been flat coated and CA'd together. Almost ready to fit!

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly, the tops of the side walls leave about a 2mm gap between them and the stock fuselage part.  To rememdy this, sprue comes to the rescue again:

 

    

 

 

 

 

No going back now - tub is in, and copious amounts of thick and medium CA hold it place.  I've added scrap bit of sprue as a support also.  

 

 

And the filling is almost done:

 

 

The perfect plastic putty is great! It does tend to dry a little too quick, but mixed with a bit of water and it works wonders. I doubt I'll need to take sandpaper anywhere near it!

 

 

 

Moving on... As I progress, I discover more items that I'm lacking and and would have a stockpile of if I had the space. Today's item is sheet styrene. To make this RAM panel I took the elevator of a 1/72 F-5E and thinned in down to approx 0.75mm with a blade and 400 grit sandpaper. It was cut to shape, laboriously checking and adjusting many times until I got the correct shape. It was then thinned further on wet 400 grot before being glued in place. Further trimmings were made in situ. 

 

The result:

 It looks out of scale at this point, but I have thinned them down to not much more than a couple of sheets of paper.  They're only just noticeable on the real thing, so they have to be very subtle on the model.

 

 

Edited April 28, 2018 by planehazza

[planehazza]

I wasn't happy with the filler, as I couldn't get the hard edge I wanted on one of the side. So, out it came with a sharpened tooth pick, and I fabricated another strip of flat sprue which I CA'd into place.  I didn't photo it, but I was much happier with the result.  I continued to carefully apply small amounts of putty, as typically I spotted that tub was about 0.3mm lower than the joining fuselage piece. Not much, but noticeable in 1/48

 

Now that I'm more or less happy with the fit, I can move onto recreating the canopy seal that runs along the tub sides.  This was replicated fairly well on the stock part, but as part of fitting the resin tub, it had been removed a while ago. In hindsight, I could have kept it and been very careful around it, but it was just easier to remove it and rebuild it later.  And so I did.  Back to the candle to make some stretched sprue.

 

 

Working my way around, checking regularly and tacking in place with medium CA, before properly bonding with tamiya thin, this was the result (couldn't get the camera to focus, too much grey...)

 

 

 

 

And painting.  Had to get a bit creative with the masking tape (again, camera hasn't focused but you get the jist)

 

 

A bit of dry brushing and touch ups of the grey on the side walls (where watered down putty has found its way to) and I'll be done with the cockpit, finally!

 

The eagle-eyed will notice the lack of HUD.  I'm leaving that off until the very end, as has experience has taught me that they have a very low life expectancy during building.

Edited April 30, 2018 by planehazza

[planehazza]

Some updates added

[HOUSTON]

Sir,

Pretty IMPRESSIVE.

 

[planehazza]

On 30/04/2018 at 20:38, HOUSTON said:

Sir,

Pretty IMPRESSIVE.

 

 

Thanks  The compliment means a lot. I have a lot to learn still but as long as I get better each build, I'm happy.

 

 

 

Not much to report on, as the build has hit that stage where I'm just fiddling. I can't move on the big "join the big bits together" bit yet, as I want to paint the bottom of the fuselage before attaching the intake as it would be nigh on impossible to get good coverage without runs with the intake in the way.  Also, I'm really struggling to get a nice perfect straight line on the inside of the intake between the semi gloss white and the dark grey, so I'm tempted to get it looking passable, then ordering a FOD cover. Would be a real shame to hide all the work I've done on the intake, but alas it's not entirely seam free anyway.

 

 

 

 

I've sprayed up the external colours of the intake for the same reason mentioned above.  I sprayed some white into the front LG bay, and will need to prime the rest of the underside that mates to the intake so I don't have to mask it. I don't want to rely on masking because I'll end up with a hard tone difference between the two halves If I get the primer on the mating part, I can then not worry about over spray of the base colour.

 

Last night, I thought s*d it; if I don't glue these now I'll never progress, so out came the contacta for the mating faces, and the extra thin for the edges. As you can see, the forward lower part including intake has been primed, preshaded, and base coated.  Now, it means that I can spray the rest of the lower fuselage once assembled without worry of overspray. It does, however, mean that I will be covering parts of base colour with primer later on so I won't have a uniform finish, but I could not think of a better way. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I'd have much rathered non uniform paint thickness than risk paint runs trying to get the paint flow into the tiny gap between the fuselage and intake.

 

 

Another downside of painting first, is that now I'm not sure how to tackle this seam.  I will need to refer to references to see such a seam exists in real life, but I'm doubtful.  I'll probably mask off the paint, and run some watered down Perfect Putty into the gap, and use a moistened cotton bud to clean up; I can always blast some thin paint as a touch up later.

 

 

Missiles have been glued up and injector pins filled. I was going to use training munitions intentionally, but I decided I'd actually like to model live munitions on this airframe. Due to this, I needed to model the rocket motor opening on the rear of the missiles for which I used a 10 S&M blade to get a pilot hole before reaming out with a curved 11 blade. The results look good.  They will get a nice custom orange mix coat.

 

Forgot to photo the missiles, but an AIM9 is an AIM9

 

 

Edited May 3, 2018 by planehazza

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

For what its worth the intake looks good to my old Mk.1 👀

[planehazza]

15 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

For what its worth the intake looks good to my old Mk.1 👀

Thanks CorsairGunsGunsGunsUncle   Your eyes are being filtered by poor quality photos though. It was considerably more jaggy than it looks in that first photo, but it's looking better now. Still might make a removable FOD cover, as I'll be using RBF tags and seeker covers anyway.

[planehazza]

And starting to look like an aeroplane

 

 

Since taking this photo, I've added the upper airbrakes and the front nose parts where the front most bit of masking tape is in the picture.

 

Let the seam filling commence...

[planehazza]

So I've made a fair bit of progress this weekend. Had a lovely day out in the sun on Saturday, got sun burnt, have been been generally unwell since. Given that, I haven't felt guilty not taking advantage of the weather and doing some modelling instead... 

 

Sadly I have been so engrossed in the project that I kind of forgot to take photos. Here, we see the main fuses le together, seam between the intake and fuselage filled, primer down, and preshading mostly finishing. I'm very much a novice with an airbrush but I'm getting the hang of it slowly and I'm more or less satisfied with my preshading. The F16s tend to get a very uneven paint over time and the references I'm follow depict it too. Most of it will be hidden but I will be painting various panels with different shades anyway. 

 

 

It's clear that I have as much to learn in project management and planning, as I do with airbrushing, as I'm finishing I'm wasting time, resources, and effort by constantly switching between colours and primers. I'm sure practice and experience will teach me tips on maximise productivity and to waste less time and airbrush cleaner! Looking at that photo of my preshading, or abysmal attempt at doing so, I appreciate just how much skill you all have.  I thought my spraying was OK at best, but it frankly looks aweful on my big screen  Oh well, you can't be a master from day one...

 

And a seam that I thought I could live with, but I changed my mind and tackled it again.  He it is with some putty, before I went over it again with medium CA:

 

 

I was curious to see the difference first hand with black basing and preshading, so I elected to black base one AIM120, and preshade the other ordnance. It's hard to see in the photo, but there is black shading on the grey missiles.

 

 

 

Going back to what I said about wasting time, I have decided (and I'm sure the carpet monster will make me regret it) to remove all the small fiddly LG bits to clean, prime and paint in one go. Should result in a fair fewer cleaning sessions ha. Might lose some sanity though... 

Edited May 7, 2018 by planehazza

[Azgaron]

Very nice work so far! Cockpit looks great!

 

Håkan

 

[planehazza]

33 minutes ago, Azgaron said:

Very nice work so far! Cockpit looks great!

 

Håkan

 

Thanks  I've added the pictures to my post now.

[planehazza]

All the small, fiddly LG parts removed from sprue, tidied up, and in a bath of water and IPA. 

 

 

And primed

 

 

 

I hate spraying white! I don't know exactly what it is, but I suspect it's a combination of my lack of experience and the vallejo whit pigment being different to the other colours. Whatever it is, I find it hard to get good coverage without runs; it's like it's too thick and too thin at the same time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks good in the end. 

 

Question: I see lots of people prime LG parts on black, so I did. Is the goal here to just mist the whit so the black shows through as shadows? Or is it purely so it's easier to see where the white needs touching up? 

Edited May 7, 2018 by planehazza

[Azgaron]

Looking good!

 

Black can be nice base for a pre shade, but I also paint metal areas (shock absorbers, actuators and whatnot), mask them, and then white.

 

Håkan

 

[Thomas2542]

Your not the only one who struggles to airbrush white. I think the black primer gives a nice shadow effect as well as a good base for metallic paints. Its looking great though so ill be keeping an eye on it

[Azgaron]

No, white is hard to get a nice and even coverage with. Some recommend white primer as base.

 

Håkan

 

[planehazza]

10 hours ago, Azgaron said:

Looking good!

 

Black can be nice base for a pre shade, but I also paint metal areas (shock absorbers, actuators and whatnot), mask them, and then white.

 

Håkan

 

 

9 hours ago, Thomas2542 said:

Your not the only one who struggles to airbrush white. I think the black primer gives a nice shadow effect as well as a good base for metallic paints. Its looking great though so ill be keeping an eye on it

 

55 minutes ago, Azgaron said:

No, white is hard to get a nice and even coverage with. Some recommend white primer as base.

 

Håkan

 

 

Thanks all. Yeah I thought about that, but I haven't got any white primer; the only colours I currently have are black and grey.  I had originally primed the LG bays in grey, and so did the main gear doors the same.  I primed the nose door black, internally and externally, to aid the subtle differences in panels when painting.  Honestly, I don't expect to see much difference, but hopefully we'll see soon.  

 

Typically, when spraying white, I got excited and carried away and forgot to mask the hydraulic/pneumatic areas that will be chrome/aluminium. I might brush paint them black again before painting them silver.  I don't have any gloss black so flat black primer will suffice. It levels well so it's not all bad. 

 

Another bad thing about white is it doesn't hide mistakes, or areas that need more work  Just look at those pin marks on the main LG legs   I thought I'd tackled those, but I must have forgotten to address that part.  You can still see them in the doors too, and I had applied filler there believe it or not.  I'm starting to learn to ignore the hype of "just use water to remove the Perfect Plastic Putty", as it removes too much material from what you're filling.  I'm going to stick to the old fashioned leave to dry for an hour then sand. Urgh, but then I hate dust...

Edited May 8, 2018 by planehazza

[planehazza]

Progress is slow, but I've attached the LG legs, some actuators, and started making some hydraulic lines from copper wire.  Getting the ends to stick is tricky!

 

 

Everything is just flat white currently, and have started adding a bit of chrome and some colours here and there.  Those lines are supposed to be blue but I made the colour a little too dark so it appears black.  Not that fussed as they're so small; on the real thing you'd struggle to see that they weren't black unless you were right up close anyway.

 

Some scratch building done tonight. Made some hoses from thin wire and painted them blue to model the anti chafing costing. 

 

These suckers took 90 mins to attach.. 

 

 

 

 

Actuators fitter, touched up, and some hard lines made. I made the first one from stretched sprue but struggled to get the shape so made the others from 0.7mm solder. Sadly, one snapped so I've only got 3 of the 4 lines modelled, but they'll be hard to see anyway. 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2018 by planehazza

[planehazza]

Had a busy might, happy with the progress of yh main gear bay  shame about the solder mishap but I'll not be able to repair it, so will have to live with it... 

[planehazza]

Today I decided to take a break from the landing gear and throw some more paint at the model. I sprayed the middle grey at the front of the upper fuselage, below the canopy below letting it dry for an hour or so. Whilst it was drying I masked up the tail and edges of the underside to minimise overspray. 

 

 

I moved on and three FS36118 at the top, trying my best to avoid the urge to put down a thick coat and hide all that preshading.  Most of the preshading has vanished, but I think it wasn't dark enough and the dark base colour will naturally hide it anyway. The preshading stands out really nicely on the tail fin though

 

I wish I'd had the courage to try mixing my own shade of the top base colour, as whilst FS36118 is the 'official' colour for the Viper, reference shots show F-16C #83-1144 to have a much bluer grey than what I've sprayed.  I need to do some more research on colour changes over the years, as I'd have loved to have had the correct colour. Oh well, it still looks like a Viper to me.

 

For example, the first photo is a 'normal' F-16C, the second is a photo of the air frame I'm modelling, and the third is obviously my model

 

  

 

 

The bluetac at the bottom of the fin helped give a slightly feathered edge but sadly it has prohibited the paint from reaching the fuselage completely, so I have a bit of touching up to do.  I will probably just free hand this on a low PSI with the nozzle really close. Wish me luck!

 

 

Once I had the base colour down I had my first ever attempt at freehanding in some shading. I added a drop of white to the base colour and airbrushed it into several panels. I repeated the same with a drop of black and then masked off a couple of panels to give a hard edge. I returned to the lighter panels and put a dot of darker colour in the middle. I'm not sure if I like the effect of adding dark to the centre of the light (that make sense?!) or if I over did it, but I'm keen to hear your thoughts  Overall, I'm happy and impressed with the results of my first attempt at this technique.

 

  

 

 

I think I'm slowly getting the hang of this air briushing lark, but my God am I sick of cleaning the sod!

 

And some bad news. Not sure how I missed this until now, but this will need addressing. It fits perfectly on the opposite side so I assumed I've not fitted the panel on this side quite perfectly. I guess I just add a tiny about of putty and fix it later. The nose isn't glued in yet anyway. 

 

 

Until tomorrow!

 

Edited May 12, 2018 by planehazza

[Azgaron]

Nice with different tones on the panels!

 

Håkan

 

[planehazza]

41 minutes ago, Azgaron said:

Nice with different tones on the panels!

 

Håkan

 

 

Thanks.  I'm a little concerned I've overdone it, but the weathering should mask it a bit. I can't not notice that the vallejo verison of FS36118 is not blue enough, but I'm not doing it all again so I'll have to live with it.

[planehazza]

Quick pose with the elevators and nose cone dry fitted

 

[planehazza]

Having some problems with paint adhesion on the LERXs    I think my primer coat was a bit thin there, and I tend to hold the model from there (with gloves). I've dotted some primer into the chips by hand and will dust some base coat over the top. Fingers crossed it stays put once it's all sealed under several clear coats. I'm getting nervous...

 

I've painted the underside in the light grey and have painted the pylons and weapons.

 

I'm gutted I didn't do my research properly on the FS595 colours.  I naively thought that if the brand A list a paint as a federal standard colour, it would at least be very close.  That dark grey looks good, but many vipers have a a blueish tinge.  

[planehazza]

I've forgotten to take pictures of the stuff mentioned above, so I'll come back with those later.

 

In the meantime, disaster has struck! The stupid vallejo metal paint lids spluttered bright silver flecks all over the starboard wing! My own fault as it was a avoidable, but I'd not realised until it had dried. I've also managed to snap off the forward facing antenna on the top front of the tail fin. No idea when or where that happened so I've zero chance of finding it.  It's got an odd 'bite mark' as I call it so scratch building a replacement would be futile.

 

 

 

I should have let them fully cure and scratch them off as some of the larger ones were still tacky underneath and brought the underlying paint with them  

 

Flecks removed and lightly sanded with a sanding sponge

 

 

After I resprayed that, I decided to tweak the colours of a few more panels, so the masks went on and the black paint joined the base colour once again.

 

 

 

The light gap between the fuselage and the tail has been touched in freehand so I'm hoping I'll be ready for the first gloss coat later this week

Edited May 15, 2018 by planehazza