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RNoAF F-16s Part 1-- A and B


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Hi guys,

 

Long time no modelling, time to change that! After stalling on a few mojo restoring ideas, trying to build up some GB ideas/motivation and failing, I have settled on building two 1/72 RNoAF F-16s. One a F-16A Block 5 and the other, a more up to date F-16BM MLU. More photos to come on the details and parts for each but for now here is some of the work done so far. Those interested, I hope you are prepared for a lot of F-16 rambling and some plain grey F-16s!

 

I had a nice Tamiya F-16 on the shelf and thought, hmm, is it possible to backdate a Block 50 to early A standard? Yes, with the help of Revell of course! Having purchased many Revell F-16s over the years, I have plenty of spares and mothballed kits laying around so donor parts were available to do this. After comparing the Revell and Tamiya kits, taking Tamiya as accurate as you would ever want in 1/72, the Revell kit matches up almost identically, only fractions of a mm out in various dimensions, not bad Revell given the age of the tooling now.

 

So why not just use the Revell kit? I like the Revell kit but for me it has some short comings compared to standard of Tamiya and I want to make this one a really nice 1/72 F-16A. For me the big three are; a proper bubble canopy (gives the Viper look), much superior surface detail and a more defined nose and LERX shape. These three swayed me to convert the Tamiya kit and give it a go. Typically, after a little thought, I just jumped in the 'deep end' with the modelling and started cutting and trying to backdate, very much a figure it out as I go process. An added bonus to this is, if it is possible to backdate to Block 5 standard, any version of the F-16 can be done using donor parts from Revell kits.

 

Lets get started. The Tamiya Block 50 kit only comes with the larger MCID intake, GE engine and C tail. I need the NSI (smaller intake), PW nozzle and A parabrake tail. The NSI and A tail come from Revell and the exhaust courtesy of Aires, a bit undersized but very nicely done. This project would only work if these parts can be mated to the Tamiya kit. Maybe you can do it with Hasegawa donor parts too but I doubt they fit as well as Revell's seem to here. 

 

First I assembled the Revell NSI to gauge how to cut up the Tamiya MCID and adapt. This will only really make sense if you have the kits at hand but the red arrows point to the parts cut off the Tamiya MCID intake and glued to the Tamiya kit, the Revell NSI can then be mated to these rather well after some test fitting/sanding. Now despite admittedly being quite obsessive about details, I'm still very much a 'if it looks right, it is right modeller.' I was concerned about intake lengths and whether the Revell NSI would need to be shortened or extended to be correct when mated to the Tamiya kit. It turns out that the Revell NSI and MCID (Revell C kit) intakes are exactly the same length as the Tamiya MCID intake, hence you should be able to attach as is without any length adjustment and it will be as accurate as Tamiya or Revell OOB. After comparing the adapted parts to bang on side profile pictures, it all matches up extremely well, if not perfectly. I wanted to get a picture of this to show you but I couldn't get a good one, if you have the parts at hand you can see for yourself. The 'gap' in the picture must be cut out wider to match the Revell NSI side profiles. The intake splitter might be different for the MCID vs NSI in real life but they are very close, at least in any of the Tamiya 1/48 kits and Revell kits the intake splitter plates are all the same, hence they should all be as accurate as each other and good enough for me. Hopefully this is making sense! 

 

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The splitter must then be carefully sanded to match the upper profile of the Revell NSI intake, my photos showing it tested fitted here are only loose and when properly glued it should only need a little filler in various places, I'll take that as this was the main obstacle between the intake mating. You can also see here the difference in panel line quality between the kits, will work on the Revell ones to try and match them up better. BTW, both these models will use intake covers, having done the whole miliput method on numerous Revell intakes I just don't fancy the effort needed on these mojo restorers. Also note how nice and sharp the LERX is oob

 

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I cut off the Tamiya later ECS exhaust and installed the early (I think only pre Block 10) ECS from Revell. Filler of choice will be Zap-a-gap as some rescribing will be needed. 

 

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Revell early gun muzzle in and yet to be filled. The Tamiya canopy is just fantastic, super clear and much better than any of my Revell ones. 

 

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So with the basics of the intake being sorted, next up I cut out the Revell A tail base and installed on the Tamiya kit.The panel line there match up very well on the whole, though I will need to do some filling with ZAP and plenty of rescribing to get the correct panels as they differ quite a lot between A and C. 

 

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The two main stumbling blocks for the conversion look to be ok to make a proper go of this. A lot more work to do but having done this in 1/48 I know by now in general what to expect, it didn't even take long to mate these parts much to my surprise. 

 

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There are many other differences between the Block 5 and 50 F-16s and I'll tackle most but one or two might be left given the small scale, time will tell. The F-16BM will be the Revell B kit and Vingtor decals, will get pics soon. I was tempted to also convert that from a Tamiya kit but that gets rather expensive for a 1/72 Falcon, plus it is a lot of work, negatives outweigh the positives on that one IMO so I will attempt to address the Revell surface detail which should have them looking more like each other when stood side by side. 

 

Hope you enjoy (another) F-16 thread! I find doing WIPs on here really helps me get things finished.

 

Cheers,

 

David. 

Edited by mirageiv
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Happy to have you guys along :)

 

You may have noticed I have changed the topic title. I decided to change plans and make this initial part of the thread a pair of A and B models, instead of an A and BM as originally planned. Due to similar construction steps, research and colours in the airbrush etc...it saves time to do this (which I will soon be quite short of). Part 2 will be where I tackle a RNoAF F-16AM (yes, the very colourful '686') and a F-16BM, probably Tamiya conversions also. For these I will use the excellent Vingtor decals shown below (sorry Nils, you will have to wait a little until I get to show how good your decals are! :) ), I hope to construct these maybe around Christmas time/new year and end up with a nice quartet of RNoAF F-16s spanning nearly 40 years of service. 

 

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With that said here is what I have been working on for Part 1.

 

The F-16A will be a Block 5 machine ('280') circa 1980 and the B, a Block 15 example ( '691') from 334 skv 'armed' with inert Mk.3 Penguin missiles in a training configuration, circa 1989.

 

The Tamiya kit is a C so the cockpit needs to be modified. I used a Revell 'A' IP as the base, to which some scratch details were added and some Eduard etch. The Tamiya instrument coaming is smaller than the Revell IP and etch (considerably-designed for Hasegawa kit) so I thinned it as much as I dared and slightly modified the IP to fit, the picture explains it really. Other details added to the sidewalls, coamings etc...to backdate it from a C.  The Revell B uses the kit IPs with some modification, the Eduard 'B' etch set has the IP configurations for Blocks 1-10, not 15, so it could not be used, however the etch will be used on the consoles. Sidewalls were made from plasticard, other details such as throttle, oxygen hoses etc..are ready to be added but I must paint and assemble the cockpits first. I will be using a combo of etch and instrument decals. 

 

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Both these models will have closed canopies to preserve the unique lines of the F-16, so I spent a good deal of time trying to get them as clear as possible to show the details added to the cockpits. The Tamiya canopy is perfect OOB, to which I just added a light smoke tint as seen on the very early A F-16s and a dip in Pledge floor care for protection. The Revell B canopy was a different story with many marks, flaws and suspended bits in the clear part (seems to be the most annoying part about Revell F-16 kits). I sanded from 400 to 12000 grit the inside of the canopy to thin it and remove these blemishes, it has made a good deal of difference fortunately. Then the rear part was given a light smoke tint compared to the front which has a darker, more yellow/orange tint and finally a dip in clear. The tinting attempts were numerous as I kept getting tiny specks of dust or whatever trapped from the airbrush which stands out a lot on a small 1/72 canopy, after 5-6 of paint/strip attempts I got something dust free, luck more than anything on my part! The little build up on the B front part luckily will be overpainted by the black canopy frame. 

 

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And why I have gone to the effort of adding details to the inside is hopefully demonstrated below (it is much easier to see in real life), you can see pretty much everything despite the canopy being closed. I quite like the idea of looking into the canopy and still seeing some little details.

 

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To bring up the Revell B kit to a more Tamiya-ish standard I sanded and sharpened the panel lines, then added rivets. Some corrections still but nearly there.

 

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The backdating of the Tamiya C fuselage to A is nearly done, I'm finding it pretty difficult tbh in this scale!

 

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Some aftermarket I'll be using. To decal an early RNoAF F-16 fully you need to combine sheets (since Vingtor early F-16s is OOP), stencils from DACO/Syhart/Revell, walkways in Gunship grey from Techmod and early Fokker roundels from Flying Colors. Reskit provide the early type wheels which look nice (Revell kit only provides MLU and Tamiya only later C) and master pitot probes for durability.

 

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Once the cockpits are installed, construction should be pretty swift as I have assembled most of the sub assemblies already, just waiting to join the fuselages and these will be on their way. 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

David. 

 

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I remember two Norwegian F-16s coming to Woodford airshow many years ago. One had a rather delectable female pilot called Mary whom I got chatting to for quite a while. Perhaps I made an impression as I asked if she'd do a fly-by on departure day. Lo and behold, the only aircraft to beat up Woodford's runway on the Monday morning were the Norwegian F-16s, super low and in full reheat. Boom! 😎 

 

 

Edited by Lord Riot
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Your builds are always worth following David, and I'm really looking forward to this one.

 

The re-scribing, re-riveting effort is already top class. I really like the look of the Aires P&W exhausts - I have one set in the stash (for an Italian ADF), and am anxious to see how they fit the Tamiya and Revell kits.

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Great Start......Here are some reference shots of '686' which you may find helpful as you complete this colourful jet. I'm pretty sure it is covered in Nils' excellent notes that accompany his decal sheet but, as you will see from the head on shot, the scheme is not quite asymmetric and there is a slight difference with the application of the Blue upper surfaces.....one for the purists !.

 

These shots were taken during the Sola-Stavanger Air Show in 2012....quite a challenge running an Air Show from a largely commercial airport/airfield where we had to manage departures/arrivals and displays in between routine scheduled flights !. 

 

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On Arrival - Notice the Travel Pod still fitted (see photo below for close up)

 

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Departure for Display Sequence - Military Section of Sola-Stavanger

 

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Note - non asymmetric application of upper blue colour across the nose

 

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The RNoAF Display Team Ground Crew had some rather nice headgear too !

 

 

 

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Glad to have you along chaps!

 

Lord Riot- I probably walked passed this 'Mary' unknowingly as a kid if a 90's show, nice to know your input helped make departures more interesting :) I miss Woodford airshows, great memories! 

 

Cookie- Thank you and happy to see you are into the thread! The  Aires exhaust fits nicely after a little sanding of the adaptor, fortunately the Tamiya and Revell kits are nearly identical in dimensions so no problems on either, will show you in a future post. Very nice bit of resin given the scale, the hard part will be painting it I think. 

 

Tiger- Wow, excellent reference shots, thank you for posting these! They will be very useful when the time comes, maybe I will tackle it in 1/48 as the scheme deserves the presence of a larger model (hmmm 1/32?), fortunately Nils' sheet allows all 3 scales to be built. If I try to mask it symmetrically it will probably end up being asymmetrical anyways :) Will give it a go however.

 

Cheers guys,

 

David. 

 

 

 

Edited by mirageiv
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  • 2 weeks later...

The cockpits are pretty much finished now, apologies for the not so great photos due to lighting. 

 

 

I used decals mainly on the instruments and made some micro instrument covers to place over. Maybe a little too small for me to keep it all looking really neat but I'm happy with how they turned out given the modifications needed. 

 

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A comparison of the Aires seats with what Tamiya provides in the box. The Aires seats are very good for this scale, if a little fiddly to not damage when painting, they had to be thinned at the base to fit in either the Revell or Tamiya cockpit tubs, this won't be seen though. I made orange RBF seat add ons for the F-16B as often seen through the canopy in the 80's-90's. 

 

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With a test fit, they should look busy and colourful enough under the canopies.

 

 

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Thanks for looking,

 

David. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 10/23/2018 at 2:59 PM, Cookenbacher said:

Sorry for the late catch up David, your detail work in 1/72 continues to amaze.

 

Hi Cookie, always glad you enjoy the thread, you are too kind! :) 

23 hours ago, exdraken said:

that is way fantastic and a clean build cockpit!

 

:thumbsup:

 

Thank you Werner, I will take some better photos I think because these sort of make dry brushing etc disappear.

 

I took a break from these for a while but have restarted them these last few weeks. The single seat Tamiya A kit is nearly ready for some primer, most of the backdating and kit bashing between Revell and Tamiya is complete, everything fits ok but quite a bit of work. Some bad news on the Revell B model however, I tried to sharpen and refine the LERX for a more scale appearance, in doing this I rather clumsily messed up the LERX shape something bad. I tried rebuilding it with plasticard and reshaping but it really became a dogs dinner, one of those situations where the more your try to fix the mistake the worse you make it, it was rather annoying tbh after adding all the surface detail to the kit! So, I ordered another Tamiya kit to which I'm converting that to a 'B' model, not sure how yet but there are some 1/48 Tamiya twin stick conversions online that I'll attempt to replicate in 1/72 using the Revell B kit donor parts. Hopefully I can update the thread this weekend or at least soon.

 

Cheers guys,

 

David.

 

 

Edited by mirageiv
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How on earth did you managed to do all those rivets??? The patience you must have!!! I am amazed, truly! They all look spot on!

 

I'm building the ESCI F-16B which is not a bad kit and I only did some rivets' lines on the top/bottom of the wings. I didn't even think of adding the rivets on the panels.

 

Definitely, looing forward to see the next step of your builds!!!

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Glad to have you along chaps :)

 

Shalako- I made the rivets on the wings with a Trumpeter rivet wheel (I find the actual tool/handle more difficult (clumsy) to use than the isolated wheel itself) and the panels by eye with a piece of rescribing tape and needle, parallel to the chosen panel line to get straight rivet lines. I don't count them (obvs-I would go mad! :D ) but look at the subject and see how close they roughly are together and try to replicate, it took a while to do but not forever, in this scale as long as they busy up the surface I'm not too fused. F-16s seem to have quite visible rivets so I thought it was worthwhile to do in this scale, unfortunately I screwed the Revell build up (post 15) so it has now become a donor for the Tamiya B conversion. 

 

I haven't had much free time yet but I made a start on the B conversion, a teaser photo of the first rough cuts. I've moved on from this but will be in the next proper post. 

 

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I've taken more photos of the steps and will explain in more detail how I've done this if it helps anyone, just my take on how I've done it and why, there are quite a few ways to go about it. It is helpful that the Revell and Tamiya kits are very close in most dimensions making this easier than it probably could have been.

 

Anyways next update should be a more interesting one, thanks for looking,

 

David

Edited by mirageiv
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi guys,

 

I've held off an update for a while so quite a lot of pictures here if it helps anyone else converting the Tamiya kit.

 

First off the B conversion. 

 

I started by loosely cutting off the single seat rear cockpit after measuring the B canopy length, then carefully sanded the rear cockpit sidewall height by using the canopy as a guide. There is a downward kink in the B canopy side profile. I didn't try to do the cut in one go and divided it into two parts, mainly to reduce the amount I could mess it up! 

 

 

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Then the second cut where I chose to insert the whole rear B section rather than just the hump. I didn't want to build up the canopy hinge area, looks tricky. To get a good lengthwise canopy fit a small spacer was needed, which put some of the panel lines out of whack with the Tamiya kit. As I decided to have the cockpit open I eventually removed the spacer and the panel lines matched quite well. 

 

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Small plasticard strips were used for the sidewalls, this made the rear canopy sides nice and square. I still need to add the canopy seal around. The rear seater's IP cover fit pretty well and lengthwise everything fits nicely with a combo of the Tamiya front cockpit and Revell rear. 

 

 

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The front of the canopy is raised slightly here because you need to thin the interior frame to get a flush fit. This is the spare 'test' canopy btw, thankfully the B kit came with two!

 

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A small plastic shim was needed to make everything line up better, this was my fault as I oversanded the B insert when test fitting, oops, but everything is ok now I think. 

 

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The Revell rear insert matched up to the Tamiya panels really well, my 2nd go at this helped a lot. I've deepened the panel lines and rivets around areas I know will need sanding. If there is a downside with the Tamiya kit, it is that the panel lines are very fine, easily the best I've seen in this scale but they can be lost from sanding very easily and difficult to replace. So I deepen them all to prevent them being erased then lightly sand and bring them to the correct depth later. 

 

 

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Tail test fit,

 

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Some interior strength was needed,

 

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Result of panel line filling and changes to match the B, nearly there,

 

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The cockpits test fitted. I've tried to preserve as much as possible from the Revell B, work still needed such as rear sidewalls etc..

 

 

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Some more panels filled this side too

 

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And the rear B fuselage as it stands atm, just finishing up the rescribing here. 

 

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Now for the F-16A.

 

Construction is mostly complete. I've applied some Surfacer primer and polished it with micro mesh, hence there are a few patchy bits here and there. 

 

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Some surface detail added to the Revell tail to match up to the Tamiya kit. I removed the RAM panel on the rear parachute tail as at this time it wasn't present, early-mid 80's from what I gather.

 

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This is the B bottom fuselage below but it shows some of the little mods done to the A also, Block 15+ differences vs Block 1-10. I've missed the flush load door but the difference is so small to me I didn't bother. 

 

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F-16A below, I still need to make some other small things. I'm using the Revell wing tip launchers as they are not included in the Tamiya kit. The Aires exhaust resin adaptor (designed for the Hasegawa kit) needed a good amount of sanding in the end to fit but it does. 

 

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The Revell small mouth intake blended in pretty well eventually with the Tamiya kit. I forgot to take a photo but the non-bulged main gear doors from the Revell kit fit nearly perfectly with the Tamiya kit, so again that is another straight swap in this conversion. 

 

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A 'bag-style' intake cover was made from tissue paper and PVA as its all I've seen on RNoAF F-16s, it fits pretty snug but is very delicate ( I used one layer of tissue for scale). I'm adding it to help bring some colour and saves the faff that is making the Revell intake seamless, needs a bit of tiding up around the edges still I think.

 

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I dropped the Ailerons by first building up the cut off edge with plasticard for the missing volume then sanded flush.

 

 

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Not as ideal as building up the rotating part with round rod but in this scale I found it impossible to make a 'V' goove in the wing to accept a rounded profile of an aileron. Still careful sanding got a good fit top and bottom,

 

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The F-16A will have the earlier small tailerons, I used the Revell parts with some little mods. At this time I think there was only a small RAM layer applied to the leading and trailing edges, this was before the yellowish protective tape was applied so I will mark that with RAM paint. The leading and trailing edges I fear are too delicate to scribe a line into now. These tails are universal  so the static dischargers appear above left and below right.

 

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Whilst blending the Master Pitot to the nose, I lost some of the upper static discharger which proved to be extremely difficult to redo nicely. I used a tiny bit of stretched sprue and blended it in as much as I could, not great and I'm hoping the grey nose paint will blend it in better. This was the 4th or 5th attempt so for the B I will just replace the whole centre static discharger to make a cleaner result. 

 

 

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The black canopy lining was masked and painted, a did the interior too to avoid the shiney interior look of only painting the outside. Given you can see most of the inside, it was worthwhile imho here. The fit is good but I'll still blend the canopy in with a bit of super glue I think. Anyways, pretty much ready for paint finally, I think I'll focus more on the A now and get some decals on as doing two at once really seems to drag on. This will be a 331st Skvadron example with some Aim-9Ls or Aim-9Ps and a centre tank, maybe like the linked airliners.net picture below:

 

 https://www.airliners.net/photo/Norway-Air-Force/General-Dynamics-Fokker-F-16A-Fighting-Falcon-401/231790/L?qsp=eJwtjLEOwjAMRP/FMwxREEgd%2BQE6sDBaidtEhCZyLEFU9d9xo253905vBZcXoZ88WyEYoBKyC3CCgoyfCsMKGDnFZYcXY29W2ZvaN7NXCtPZXHWpmeXetHsUGkOWPDOWQP6lvoM/2BPrBavr/lmVRgPx2DPY3eRjLQm7igRjgm37A2VANV4%3D

 

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A shot of some of the stores in progress. The Tamiya Aim-9Ls are probably the best I've seen in a kit in this scale but they have some awkward ejectior pin marks but some Surfacer should sort those nicely. I began to modify the Penguin missiles (two tubes) as the Hasegawa weapon set versions are really not great for a MK.3 (or 2) as carried by the F-16. I'm still undecided if I want to build the F-16B with Penguins to be honest, I think I'd do that build better in 1/48 or 1/32. Hence, I think I'll progress with an F-16BM (MLU) as originally planned and not use Penguins, more on that later in the next update.  

 

 

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A minor thing I noticed, the Tamiya wing tanks seem a little more accurate in their shapes (double conical nose in particular) compared to Revell's, also they are a bit wider (despite this pic doing it's best to hide this!) The centre tanks are pretty much identical however. 

 

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Well I think that covers a lot of the work done. I've also drilled lights in various places such as the search light on the F-16A, just the Surfacer primer is hiding them atm, I will get a picture before paint. Maybe a bigger post than I'd like but hopefully my take on the little differences will help anyone else backdating a Tamiya kit. 

 

Thanks for looking and I hope I haven't bored you to death with the little differences :D ,

 

David

Edited by mirageiv
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