Tamiya F-16 Aggressor, Kicked Up a Notch, April 11/24: Lighting Details

[Anthony in NZ]

Great to see you back here Chuck!  Great renovation with the model cabinet...love it!

 

Yes the model scene is going through a lot of change (for the better) but it is hard to keep up at times.

 

Great to see you back on your gorgeous F-16!

Cheers Anthony

[chukw]

Welcome back, Chuck! Glad tp hear the home renno is all done- I feel your pain! I've got a stalled project in my studio/shop- getting the glass doors to my four display cabinets. You have the doors exactly as I've envisioned them.  The Glass shop we've worked with before really dropped the ball -for months- finally admitting that they didn't usually do that/didn't want to do it. That's island life, I guess.  I want similar lighting, but with a solid strip to shield the eyes from the LED strips. I also want a white panel at the rear, which was unavailable from the cabinet shop.  If it's not too pricey I'd like to get locks for the doors to satisfy my paranoia. 

 

 

[Neo]

Welcome back chuck! 

 

Love the display case. 

 

Your right about all the amazing reskit stuff it looks amazing, i still have some classic AM and its still relevant i think, especially with your skill set. 

[chuck540z3]

January 19/24

 

Thank you everyone for your kind comments!  It’s great to be back, but I have to admit, it took me awhile to jump back in.  I don’t know if was like “Writers Block” or lack of modeling Mojo, but I would just stare at some of the kit pieces then put them back in the box for another day.  The only way out of this modeling funk is to force yourself to glue a few pieces of plastic together and see what happens and if you have a few challenges, even better.  Problem solving is the most fun for me and this kit has lots of problems, especially with all the Aires resin.

 

I was going to start painting the landing gear wells and cockpit, but there are a few things that were still bugging me when I left this build a year ago.  One is the gap at the front of the glare shield/coaming, which even the kit parts have for some reason.  Normally a gap like this would be hidden by a windshield, but with the F-16 canopy serving as the windshield as well, any flaws up front stick out like a sore thumb.   There are also gaps along the sides of the Aires glare shield once the kit ridges are removed.  Here’s where I left off.

 

 

The front was partially filled with a strip of styrene, but the sides of the coaming still need attention, because the gap is quite large.

 

 

Strip styrene to the rescue again, filling most of the side gap and the recess in the Aires coaming, which doesn’t exist.  There should be a ridge along the sides that joins the ridges at the front of the coaming and the styrene now sort of replicates the weather strip gasket against the ridge.

 

 

Another angle from the top.  When the cockpit is painted and installed, the small gaps can now be easily be filled, while the side lip of the front and rear will be merged together into one continuous unit.

 

 

Like most fighter jet kits, the intake has a big seam that needs to be filled and eliminated.  For this particular kit, the seam fit is pretty darn good as is, but still very noticeable if you peek inside the intake, which is an automatic deduction at a model contest for sure.  The fix is usually putty with lots of internal sanding, which can be a real pain in such a tight space, or even the dip in white latex paint trick, invented by Pete Fleischman years ago on one of his F-16 projects.  I used latex paint on my last F-16CJ and found that it worked very well, but I wanted to see if I could try something new, and maybe less complicated.

 

 

I rarely use putty to fill anymore, relying mostly on CA glue when I can sand it easily, which isn’t going to work in the tight confines of this intake.  The next best “putty” is ordinary Tamiya Extra Thin Cement (TETC), if the gap is small.  For this intake I used lots of it and let it ooze out, while squeezing the two intake halves together to create a firm bond with as few gaps as possible.  When that dried after a day, I used some more along the seam line, which melts the plastic some more as it flows together into one solid piece.  When that’s good and dry- maybe another 24 hours-, I sanded it down with thin foam “Madworks” sanding blocks I bought from Troy Molitor a few years ago.  These sanding blocks are now my sanding staple for just about everything, because they are so easy to use and do a great job.  To get them inside the intake, I taped them to a putty knife and sanded away, starting with 400 grit and finished with 1500 grit.

 

 

This worked out very well and all seam lines are now gone, or at least all that I can see with a flashlight.  Shadows of the old seam line and connecting joins remain when lit from behind, but to my eye they are now totally gone inside.  This is also one of the few times that the white Thunderbirds plastic will come in handy, because now I don't need to paint it white.

 

 

 

 

That’s it for now and thanks for tagging along, even if this build does take forever.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited January 20 by chuck540z3

[chuck540z3]

8 hours ago, chukw said:

Welcome back, Chuck! Glad tp hear the home renno is all done- I feel your pain! I've got a stalled project in my studio/shop- getting the glass doors to my four display cabinets. You have the doors exactly as I've envisioned them.  The Glass shop we've worked with before really dropped the ball -for months- finally admitting that they didn't usually do that/didn't want to do it. That's island life, I guess.  I want similar lighting, but with a solid strip to shield the eyes from the LED strips. I also want a white panel at the rear, which was unavailable from the cabinet shop.  If it's not too pricey I'd like to get locks for the doors to satisfy my paranoia. 

 

Hi Chuk!  Great to have you along.  My display cabinet is a mash of wanting to see my models clearly with plenty of room, protecting them from dust and little hands, but also integrating them into my basement bar area so that they looked like part of it, rather than an add-on.  If I just wanted to see them clearly I would have had spot lighting and maybe the white background as you mention, but the LED strip lighting worked out much better than I thought, mostly because the cabinet is so wide that the lights are not directly in your eyes.  Overall it worked out to a 9/10 with all things considered and every time somebody comes downstairs, they are immediately attracted to it and start to ask questions.  I spent a lot of time discussing my models with all the plumbers, electricians, and other trades that worked on my renovation.  It's fun. 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Cicciuzzo]

Ho seguito fino a qui tutto il work in progres e stai facendo un lavoro eccezionale. Continua così

 

I have followed all the work in progres so far and you are doing an outstanding job. Keep up the good work.

[chuck540z3]

January 23/24

 

Before I start painting stuff, I thought I’d re-check the fit of the entire intake to engine parts.  I’m glad I did, because the front engine fan part P24 will not fit the resin block that holds the landing gear below.

 

 

As always, I use the kit parts to see how things should have fit, vs what Aires came up with, which usually has no instructions.  Here is the same upper intake part B31 on the kit landing gear part B24, which provides a thin cylinder for the fan to slip onto.

 

 

It slips on easily as shown, but those “ears” on the fan serve no purpose with the resin block in the way, so I cut them off.

 

 

The other problem with the resin block is that it holds up the rear engine part C15, leaving a small gap where the engine assembly is screwed to the bottom fuselage.

 

 

The reason the fit is poor is due to a ledge that remains on the Aires resin, while the kit part B24 on the right has a cutout.

 

 

So it’s clear that I need to do more resin surgery, which I wish I had known about before I glued the landing gear bay to the bottom fuselage.  I glued this block early, because of so many landing gear tolerance issues, so I wanted to fix the position permanently while I still remembered what exactly they all were.  Not a big deal, but it made cutting into the resin block a lot more difficult than it needed to be.

 

 

Using my David Union “Router” as they call it, also purchased from Troy Molitor a few years ago, I carefully dug away at the resin block to allow the engine fan and other parts to fit better.  This surgery isn’t pretty and you have to be very careful to not let the router get away from you and scar adjacent parts, but it’s highly effective and thankfully totally hidden.

 

 

Using the front intake parts as a guide to determine where the rear intake part should fit, the engine fan just slips on now like it should.

 

 

The rear engine parts now clear the landing gear block and can now be screwed down properly.

 

 

With those adjustments out of the way, I can now start painting the landing gear and cockpit parts!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited January 23 by chuck540z3

[F`s are my favs]

Hi there, I just found this fb post about the painting stage of a new F-16 aggressor, and thought it would be of innterest - https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=895577872215276&set=pcb.895578145548582 .  Not the same color scheme though...

[chuck540z3]

8 hours ago, F`s are my favs said:

Hi there, I just found this fb post about the painting stage of a new F-16 aggressor, and thought it would be of innterest - https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=895577872215276&set=pcb.895578145548582 .  Not the same color scheme though...

Thanks for that.  Very interesting!

 

Here's some more links for the "Ghost" paint scheme on F-16 Aggressors.  There are at least two of them, 84-220 and 86-299, and I was able to see both of them in person at Nellis AFB 14 months ago in November.

 

First F-16 Ghost

 

Second F-16 Ghost

 

Second F-16 Ghost -II

 

First F-16 Ghost Video

 

And of course a pic I took of #1 flying last year...

 

 

 

While #2 was on the ground.

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

 

Edited January 27 by chuck540z3

[JayW]

You know many of these aftermarket resin kits show signs of poor homework.  As beautiful and detailed as resin kits can be, I do not think it should be hard to design them to fit better into the model the purchaser is modifying.   Great problem solving Chuck.  And glad to see you back at it.  Love F-16's BTW.    

[Lemonstein]

Nice work on the surgery Chuck! Resin wrangling is something I think nearly every modeler has experienced but with 3D printing becoming increasingly common for companies and for individuals, it might be a thing of the past! Reckon you'll miss it? 

 

Looking forward to more updates on this now that you're back!

[chuck540z3]

February 1/24

February already?  I’ve been modeling close to a month now and I’m only starting to feel comfortable with all things plastic, resin and paint again.  After taking a modeling hiatus for a year, simple things like paint mix ratios, airbrush pressures and gluing techniques had left me, but it’s all coming back to me now.  For instance, I know that with a certain airbrush and type of paint I need the air pressure regulator to be about “there”, without even reading what the numbers are.  With a few paint splatters and quick adjustments, I figured it out in a hurry! 

 

One small item I didn’t mention earlier is the HUD, which is the earlier version for this Block 25, which is the one supplied with the kit using parts using parts N4, N5 and the clear part L1.  The Aires version at the bottom is just the sides of the HUD glass with no overlap on top of the glass, which is more accurate.  Further, gluing clear parts to metal can be a nightmare, especially when using CA glue, so I opted to use the kit HUD instead, by cutting off the side portions from parts N4 and N5.

 

Here it is assembled and carefully glued with Tamiya extra thin cement instead, leaving no glue marks.  More on this below.

 

It's finally time to paint the Aires landing gear bays and cockpit, which I always start with gloss white and black respectively.

 

I use Tamiya lacquer from a rattle can, but I’m sure the “LP” line of Tamiya lacquer paints in a bottle work just as well.  When that has dried, I applied a good coat of Tamiya X-22 acrylic clear gloss.  Why so much gloss black paint?

 

·        Many instrument panels are black to begin with

·        Black paint creates interesting shadow areas in areas hard to paint

·        I use a lot of cockpit decals, which need a smooth surface

·        Subsequent coats of enamel paint can be easily removed with solvent, if there is a protective layer of X-22

 

 

I did the same for the landing gear bays, only this time with white, with roughly the same logic as above.

 

 

To keep the black areas black, I applied a mask of Mr. Masking Sol Neo, which I find works really well when you need to remove it from small tight places after it dries.  Micro-Mask on the other hand, is almost impossible to remove from these same areas, so I never use it in cockpits.

 

 

This next pic is sad to me, because my extensive line of Model Master enamel paints are no longer made by Testors.  I use enamels in cockpits and landing gear bays, because painting flaws can easily be removed with solvent, which you can’t do with acrylics.  Thankfully I still have about 70 bottles of MM paint, although I didn’t have the exact F-16 color noted below, so I used Neutral Grey (FS36270) instead, which is really close.  After a little weathering, you’ll never notice the difference.

 

 

After carefully removed the liquid mask, most black areas came out looking pretty good, but there are always rough looking areas where the grey paint leaked underneath.  No worries, because a little solvent on a brush- with X-22 protecting the black lacquer underneath- removes these flaws easily.

 

 

The Aires kit comes with 4 pieces of acetate (1 small one missing below) that are perfectly clear, so you need to paint the back of them white, or you’ll never see the gauges against a dark background.  The Aires instructions, if you can call them that, don’t mention this critical step.

 

 

Using a very iterative procedure of painting certain areas grey and black, then correcting overlapping flaws, the margins of the black instrument panels become sharper.  The many switches and small dials were then painted using a plastic toothpick from an old microbrush.  After applying many tiny labeling decals, I then sprayed everything with Tamiya Flat Clear lacquer and added a few pastels here and there to make the cockpit look used.  I left a few of the smaller parts off for fear of breakage and loss, until final assembly.

 

 

 

The joystick and HUD are only dry fit for these pics and will be installed permanently at the end of the build.

 

 

 

That HUD might be a bit too high, so I'll likely drop it a mil or two by sanding the base before I glue it on.

 

 

With the coaming removed, you can see where I added some boot wear to the floor to match what I see in Jake Melampy’s Viper Guide, that shows clear chromate green exposed along the side of the deepest wear that looks dark grey/black.

As mentioned above I used lots of tiny cockpit decals, mostly from Airscale and Barracuda.  The P-51D decals from Barracuda are especially good for cockpits, because there’s lots of them with tiny plain white lettering that you can’t read anyway, which work very well on a black background.  The Airscale 1/32 Jet Cockpit Labels and Warnings (AS32) set will come in real handy when I paint the seat, as you will see soon enough.  Placement of the decals was a hit and miss affair to make things look busy, while trying to mimic some of the pics in Jake’s book.

 

 

A lot of what you see on the floor and rear wall will be hidden when the seat is installed, so I think I might leave the seat loose so that it can be removed later.  Speaking of the seat, I am NOT looking forward to using those Aires (or Tamiya) metal seat-belts.  How do you paint them, then insert them into sharp buckles without scraping off the paint?!

 

 

 

So that’s it for now guys.  It’s great to get passionate about modeling again, although my retirement is getting in the way of modeling again far too soon.  My wife and I are going on a 6-week cruise to New Zealand, Australia and Polynesia in a bit over 2 weeks, so there will be no more modeling during that time until April.  I’ll see what additional stuff I can get done to this Viper before that happens!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited February 2 by chuck540z3

[zaxos345]

Exceptional as always Chuck!!!! 

 

John

[chuck540z3]

Dang!  I just noticed that the Joystick is backwards!      Oh well, it's only dry fit anyway.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[geedubelyer]

Super sharp as always Chuck. 

The tub looks a treat.

 

Could you use strips of flexible wine bottle metal foil to replace the etched seat belts? The foil that's used on corked bottles is much more malleable than most etched metal.

 

2 weeks? Bah, you'll have this finished by then