Hard-to-miss F-16
- Thread starter Jakko
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Very nice work so far Jakko.
Neat looking office Jakko.
Nice looking mods to the wings too for the inflight look.
Nice looking mods to the wings too for the inflight look.
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- Jakko
I’ve finally gotten round to the smoke pods. I initially intended to use 2 mm plastic rod, but when I zoomed in on a photo of the real plane on my iPad so that the length of the wingtip launch rail matched that on the model, I found it needed to be about 2.5 mm. A lot of searching though sprues (nearly all 3 mm, some larger, some smaller, but none 2.5) and spares parts boxes later, I discovered that the exact size needed were … the AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles that came with this F-16 kit in the first place 
All I needed to do was remove all of the fins, cut the missiles down to about 45 mm long, fill all the grooves moulded into them, then add new fins. I also drilled a hole into the rear of each, as I intend to use them to support the model on twin steel rods. This entailed outting them into a lathe and drilling them out to 1.3 mm, but unfortunately, that went slightly wrong on the first one:
Too high RPM and drilling too quickly meant the plastic melted a little; the second attempt (slower for both) went better. If I’d had another AMRAAM I would have just made a third one, but no such luck, so I had to deal with the damaged one. What I did was shave off the melted plastic, which left holes in the sides, so I glued in the 1.2 mm steel rod and then just filled the holes and grooves with putty. Two days later (that is, about an hour ago) I sanded the putty smooth. In retrospect, I should have inserted the rod without glue, filled and sanded the holes, and then removed the rod again as this would have made it easier to handle the model for painting.
All that remained was to make the fins from 0.25 mm plastic card. They’re just eight bits, 3 mm high, 7 mm along the bottom edge and 5 mm along the top edge, with the rear corners at 90 degrees.
And glued them the model:
Once painting is finished, there will be one rod in each of the smoke pods to hold the model in an in-flight pose.
All I needed to do was remove all of the fins, cut the missiles down to about 45 mm long, fill all the grooves moulded into them, then add new fins. I also drilled a hole into the rear of each, as I intend to use them to support the model on twin steel rods. This entailed outting them into a lathe and drilling them out to 1.3 mm, but unfortunately, that went slightly wrong on the first one:
Too high RPM and drilling too quickly meant the plastic melted a little; the second attempt (slower for both) went better. If I’d had another AMRAAM I would have just made a third one, but no such luck, so I had to deal with the damaged one. What I did was shave off the melted plastic, which left holes in the sides, so I glued in the 1.2 mm steel rod and then just filled the holes and grooves with putty. Two days later (that is, about an hour ago) I sanded the putty smooth. In retrospect, I should have inserted the rod without glue, filled and sanded the holes, and then removed the rod again as this would have made it easier to handle the model for painting.
All that remained was to make the fins from 0.25 mm plastic card. They’re just eight bits, 3 mm high, 7 mm along the bottom edge and 5 mm along the top edge, with the rear corners at 90 degrees.
And glued them the model:
Once painting is finished, there will be one rod in each of the smoke pods to hold the model in an in-flight pose.
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After three light coats of primer, it’s now a black F-16. Unfortunately this has turned up that I need to re-fill and sand the holes in the undersides of the wing for the weapons pylons, as they appear very clearly under the paint.
I don't know, you wait ages for an F16 then two turn up together. I'm looking forward to see this one develop.
boatman
SMF Supporter
Any thing happening on this build ?
Jim R
SMF Supporter
Hi Jakko
Just caught up with this as Christopher pushed the thread to the top of the list. Primer does have a habit of showing blemishes which were not apparent before. Good job to sort it
Jim
Just caught up with this as Christopher pushed the thread to the top of the list. Primer does have a habit of showing blemishes which were not apparent before. Good job to sort it
Jim
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I need to get on with this, yes … First spray black over the front half to hopefully get rid of the glue stains showing, then mask that part off and spray the orange.
Coming along very nicely Jakko
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- Jakko
Because the black primer showed up deficiencies like glue marks, I sprayed flat black over it on the front of the plane, then masked off the areas that need to stay black.
This isn’t too difficult, but is made harder by the instructions not being all that clear. On investigating, they don’t match up with the real aircraft in a few areas, which explains why I had trouble translating the drawings into actually putting masking tape onto the model. It’s mainly the side views, which suggest that the top of the air intake is black, with a demarcation line running fore and aft just above the lights. On the real plane, the upper side of the air intake seems to be orange all the way, with only the vertical bit between fuselage and air intake being black, and even then only the part in front of the small auxiliary intakes. I tried to mask this, but couldn’t really get the tape in there so instead, I’ll paint it with a fine brush after the tape comes off.
I’ve already discovered that the primer doesn’t adhere as well as I would expect of primer, though:
I had put on the masking tape, then cut it to shape and removed the excess — and some of the black undercoat with it
Hopefully, I’ll spray the orange tomorrow. I’ve not yet decided if I’ll spray it silver and then put a coat of clear orange over it, or try to mix a metallic orange from silver paint plus orange paint or ink, though. In any case I suspect I’ll have to touch up the black later on when I remove the tape.
This isn’t too difficult, but is made harder by the instructions not being all that clear. On investigating, they don’t match up with the real aircraft in a few areas, which explains why I had trouble translating the drawings into actually putting masking tape onto the model. It’s mainly the side views, which suggest that the top of the air intake is black, with a demarcation line running fore and aft just above the lights. On the real plane, the upper side of the air intake seems to be orange all the way, with only the vertical bit between fuselage and air intake being black, and even then only the part in front of the small auxiliary intakes. I tried to mask this, but couldn’t really get the tape in there so instead, I’ll paint it with a fine brush after the tape comes off.
I’ve already discovered that the primer doesn’t adhere as well as I would expect of primer, though:
I had put on the masking tape, then cut it to shape and removed the excess — and some of the black undercoat with it
Hopefully, I’ll spray the orange tomorrow. I’ve not yet decided if I’ll spray it silver and then put a coat of clear orange over it, or try to mix a metallic orange from silver paint plus orange paint or ink, though. In any case I suspect I’ll have to touch up the black later on when I remove the tape.