docdodj01

putting on the decals

More details. Also notice that I have also painted the landing gear bays, and detailed painted the necessary areas. I have also painted the burner can, per photo references. I'll weather the inside of the afterburner section later.

After some minor paint corrections, a gloss coat is place on. Missiles have already been painted. Note that the missiles are just temporarily attached on the rails using 1mm magnets. The reason is so I can detach them during decaling and in the future, knocking off the missiles won't be a hassle.

Once the underside was done, and dried, on to the gunship grey top. Again, the necessary masking was placed and paint applied.

After the paint dried, I place the necessary masks and started painting in the underside colors. Along with the fuel tanks. The missiles will be dealt with on a later time.

primer coat on! After waiting for a day for the primer to cure, I painted the rear burner and exhaust using tamiya lacquer metallics For the rear, there is a characteristic bluish burn to it, so I sprayed on a light coat of clear blue to replicate it.

Yup, the curse of scratch conversion. But to be fair, I don't think Kinetic would release an ADF variant. From what I understand, they'll be releasing an MLU variant

Looking like a proper F-16ADF at this point!

Added the unique bird slicer antennae on the kit. I originally planned to use a kinetic spare, but alas, the shape was wrong. Revell's may be clunky, but other than that, they are accurately shaped.

With the tail corrected, the F-16 now looks much a proper A model. Will add more detail, clean out some seams, and hopefully by the weekend, off to painting!

Work on correcting the tail base continues. Here I am now, sharpening the front, making sure tail is symmetric, and removing any seams, scratches, or bumps Here is the tail. Am very tempted to cast this one. Any potential takers? For those who might be confused when I say the front of the tail should just go a little beyond a panel line, this is what I was taking about The tail front should cross over that point. I have checked all references and it should be that.

After looking at different references, I came to the conclusion that the base of the tail looked to short in height and length. The tip of the tail base forward should reach at least the tip of the scab plate, reach a panel line. So after much deliberation, I decided to correct this problem. I glued scrap styrene to the base of the tail to correct the height and length. here it is after shaving off a lot of styrene. Sadly, my sausage fingers broke of the tip, the reason for a glued in repair. From there, I added apoxie putty to fill in the gaps, and the carefully sand it flush. Here's where I am at the moment. Using the KASL F-16A tail, the Revell tail is almost as long and as tall as the resin F-16A tail And when dry fitted on the Viper, it looks a lot better, to my eye.

Of course it wouldn't be an ADF version without the spotlight on the left side. I have a spare part from the kinetic kit that corresponded to the left side cheek plate part, but it was a little too short, and the spotlight hole was too big. sooo, back to the original tamiya part, eyeballed the hole, and viola. I used a clear sprue part originally for a missile head. fits will enough. Will try and fix the transparency later And from there, the nose area done

Checking decal fit on the tail. I might try and correct the tail a bit since appears a little too short. I also DIY'd my own stiffener plates using my silhouette cutter. Looks ok to me. Also, a little more sanding looks to be in order

From what I read is that the academy F-16 is not accurate shape wise. So fitting it may be difficult.