Jabba Posted January 21, 2019 Share Posted January 21, 2019 This is the Meng kit (a horrible to put together in my mind) using Caracal "City of Jacksonville" decal sheet to create this iconic colourful aircraft from the Florida ANG during the Bi-centennial year of 1976. The decals were wonderful until it came to the ones around the drop tanks as they were too large so I did a bit of trimming to make them fit. I am not sure if this was the decal being too large or the drop tank being too small. I also did not use to decal for the pitot probe a I could not get to bend around it, so I just painted the area red. 29 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jean Posted January 21, 2019 Share Posted January 21, 2019 Hi Jabba, superb finish, even if it is somewhat slightly flashy! Give these Americans a few pots of bright paint, and they sure go to town... I thought the Meng kit was a vast improvement on the ancient Hasegawa production, so your comment comes as a bit of a surprise... Was the build really that bad? Whatever, you ended up with a really special model. Congrats! JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feifeitim Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 Awesome finish on an awesome bird! Quite spectacular! Great work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kapam Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 That looks superb! The decal work alone must have been a painstaking task! Brilliant work all-round. I would be interested if you elaborated on your comments on the Meng kit, as I have often considered acquiring one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsairfoxfouruncle Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 (edited) Good looking 106 👍 Edited January 22, 2019 by Corsairfoxfouruncle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Joyce Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 It looks great, especially with those decals. As Jean said, I'm a little surprised to hear how bad the kit was. I built the Meng F-102 and found it a pleasure to put together. Cheers, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Fox Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 Lovely finish no matter how much of a pain it was to put together. I have the deal sheet in 1/48th but haven't dared use it so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaracalModels Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 It's great to see this scheme in a build. Excellent work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabba Posted January 22, 2019 Author Share Posted January 22, 2019 Thanks for the kind word. For those who asked about the kit. I personally found it a difficult build, in that with a lot of the parts I found very hard to get together, especially the fuselage and the wings. I am not sure if it was just me, in that I may have got one or two parts misaligned so that the rest of the parts did not follow on. I also had to remove the main U/C door struts and replace them with plastic rod. As for the detail of the kit it is far superior to the Hasegawa kit, and I do have another one to build in the future which I will do with all things hanging out so I see how I get on with that one. As for the decal sheet this is superb. Once I had got the paint scheme sorted the decals fitted like a glove, especially the fuselage and tail panels. I did have to redo the Red and Blue on the tail as I got this slightly wrong a couple of times. I did buy two sheets incase I did make a mistake when applying the decals, but the only one that I did was the rather simple one for the canopy, which you do not see that much. Plus their was the cutting of the decals for the fuel tanks in that they were too large, but I still think that this is not Caracals fault but that the tanks were too small in circumference. I do have a Detail and Scale sheet for this aircraft but did not try a photocopy of the wing tank decals on this kit. I may do soon to see what they are like. I do have this sheet in 1/48th and I am really looking forward to using this on the Monogram kit one day. @Silver Fox Do use those decals soon you will not be disappointed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spad Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 Beautiful! I have had this scheme to do for a good few years now (Scalemaster decals) but could not summon the courage to do the Hasegawa one. Having seen yours now I feel a Meng kit might be the way to go! Thanks for showing! ATB Rick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Callahan Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 14 hours ago, Mark Joyce said: It looks great, especially with those decals. As Jean said, I'm a little surprised to hear how bad the kit was. I built the Meng F-102 and found it a pleasure to put together. Cheers, Mark I too had built the Meng F-102 and found it to be a delightful experience. One of my favorite modelling efforts in ages. Did they really mess up the F-106 that badly? I ask because it is on the short list. And in those same Caracal markings too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-32 Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 Absolutely beautiful work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabba Posted January 23, 2019 Author Share Posted January 23, 2019 13 hours ago, Kevin Callahan said: I too had built the Meng F-102 and found it to be a delightful experience. One of my favorite modelling efforts in ages. Did they really mess up the F-106 that badly? I ask because it is on the short list. And in those same Caracal markings too! As I have said earlier this is hopefully not running the kit down, but more my own experience with it. It might have been that with all the internal parts in the fuselage, not getting one of these lined up correctly may have thrown the build of this in particular off. I found the fuselage to be very flexible to work with. I had to super glue and heavily clamp the fuselage in different position over 3 nights to get this to stick together. Then with this built fitting the wings was also a slight problem with yet again a night or two of super glue and clamps. Also as I have said earlier I do have another of these kits which I will build with the missile bay open and the missiles hanging out, so I have not given up on the kit hopefully learning from what I did with this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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