F-16C Block 52+ "Raven" Polish Air Force - First LSP

[chaos07]

Greetings.

 

Not much progress over the past couple of weeks.  Major fuselage parts re-riveted/scribed.  A few bobbles here and there to repair, which should happen this week.  The aft nacelle was also repaired from the already assembled parts that had some pretty deep gouges both on what will become the painted part, and the metal section.  

 

I think I've got the transition between the engine and the nacelle defined pretty well - on the real deal there is a gap here, and the kit parts do not really show that.  There were also some very well defined steps on the engine section, that are a bit too pronounced compared to the real deal (bottom photo).  I've got a couple of ideas on adding that raised detail back, but haven't committed to a final path just yet - right now either some .005 styrene or some putty applied over some masks.  More to follow.  The can below was for the Academy boxing compliments of Reskit - and slightly smaller in diameter than the Tamiya set I have.  This is the one I'll use, and it allowed me to re-profile this section a bit and tweak the fit to be as seamless as the kit parts.  

 

 

I grabbed this shot at a museum - it is an A model, and the older engine, but the interface is the same as the -229 on the block 52.  The aircraft does not have an engine, so the forward section of the turkey feathers is missing the ring that closes the gap between the burner can and the engine.  But this shows the very low profile of what the kit parts originally had.  Still thinking on how to replicate the gap - but not sure it will happen with this build.  It took some time to get the kit part above to have more relief at the engine to nacelle interface without dinging up the transition, not sure more will bring better results.   

 

 

[chaos07]

Greetings and happy 2024 - it's been some time.  Now that the holidays are behind me, and some much-welcomed travel to see family - a little progress to show.  

 

Before the fuselage gets buttoned up, I wanted to sort out the fit of the pylon for the sniper pod on the intake.  As mentioned earlier, the pylon was liberated from an academy F-16I kit (also in the F-16CG kit) - parts H11 and 12.  The fit of the pylon was better on the Tamiya NSI intake than the Academy part .  This also held true for the same pylon for the large-mouth intake - but I don't recall the part numbers at the moment.  

 

 

The adapter for the sniper pod also comes in the Academy kit, which slots into the pylon quite well, but lacks the correct shape.  To use this piece - shown on the right in the photo below, some minor work would be needed to the adapter or the Sniper pod to allow them to fit together.  The Eduard adapter that is included with the Sniper pod, has a much better shape but has the lugs that stick out for the sway braces to make contact.  99% of the F-16 photos I've seen show the narrower adapter on this station, the one exception being a Spangdalm F-16 which was sporting the adapter as it is provided in the Eduard box.   Some minor trimming and sanding and it fits the look pretty well, though I think it looks a bit too tall - though I can address that later on.  

 

 

 

Everything stuck together with some poster tac.  When test fit together, the pylon, adapter, and Sniper pod fit like a glove with minimal gaps.

 

 

 

 

Everything appears to fit properly, and I can begin to close up the fuselage, which should show some faster progress.  

 

The intake was sanded down some after adding the intake lip, and the pink primer I thought was such a good idea at the start has started to show through.  This will get another light coat of paint before everything gets glued together if I don't strip the paint and primer altogether and start over.  This will be the last resort if the pink bleed-through pops up again.

 

Lastly, since I may do another build that needs this pylon, I've mounted the cleaned-up "master" to a casting block and will make a few and add to the stash.  The part was sanded to 3000 grit, and aside from some artifacts that found their way onto the part for the photos, looks pretty good to me.  Once I cast a few, I'll drill through the pylon and

the adapter on through to the intake to place some locating pins allowing a secure connection, and taking out any potential issues with alignment after the paint is on during final assembly.  

 

 

 

 

Not much progress, but that will hopefully change in the next few weeks.  Looking back at a previous post, I did locate some reference photos showing the area aft of the ejection seat, and the Polish vipers appear to have 2x 90degree electrical connections on either side of the ECS duct, so I'll add those in before I close up the fuselage and spray some black paint.  

 

As always, thanks for checking in, and Happy Modeling in 2024!

[chrish]

Niiiice

[Derek B]

Excellent work Duane - I am loving it! 

 

One day, I want to make a Greek one of these!

 

Derek

Edited January 16 by Derek B

[chaos07]

Well, progress is excruciatingly slow on this, but forward, or mostly forward anyway.  

 

The backward step was the original placement of the pylon on the intake.  It was placed too far forward by a few millimeters.  Another somewhat mistake was some poor sanding when the intake lip was installed, and the resulting gouge on one side led me down the path of how to fix it, with the double layer of beef-up plates or douplers under the navigation lights.  After some Google-fu, the PolAF Vipers appear to have a single-layer doubler under the extended light housing.  This makes the correction much easier.  

 

 

The new mounting location after re-drilling for the pins installed in the new Resin pylon made by the academy donor in the previous post.  It has a base coat of decanted TS-14 in place and has been buffed back.  

 

 

The yellow tape forward of the nose landing gear bay is another doubler that is present and needs to be added.  Some .010 styrene is shaped for this, and the rough-cut templates for the navigation light correction have been laid out and roughed out.  After some additional scribing on the intake, this should be complete and should allow the forward fuselage to be buttoned up.   

 

 

 

 

While I was sorting out a plan of action on the intake corrections or updates, I started to complete the Sniper pod.  The Eduard parts are very well-detailed but fall short on the clear resin lenses for the front end.  They are too small in width, and are not even in thickness, and simply won't cut it.  .015 styrene is the perfect thickness for a replacement to be cut, so I ordered some from Evergreen in clear.  The roughed-in parts are shown below.  This is the second round, as the first set didn't survive my initial efforts to glue them together, but in this form, so long as I can glue them together without too much damage at the joint, it will be far superior to the supplied parts.  It'll be easy to paint the red stripe in place around the perimeter before being glued in place - I'll take that for a win as well.

 

The RP Toolz miter jig is pretty awesome and a dream to use.

 

 

The taper on the mating surfaces is the hardest part of all this.  At present it is done free hand, should this not work out, generation 3 will be done with a sanding jig.  TET makes a joint that is strong enough, the issue will be with putting enough on there without it etching the surrounding clear styrene.  At present, I'm not sure if the tape will remain in place for this, or if I'll try and freehand it in place on the resin, a little bit at a time over a few days.  

 

 

The optical sensor was done with the holographic film from Hassegawa.  The brass part was sanded and polished to slightly round the edges, and then the self-adhesive film was placed on the PE, then glued in place. I may attempt to make a lens with a bit more depth, but this may be good enough on this build.  If the pod is configured in the stowed position, it will be barely visible.  The clear parts will be the last to go in place, so there is time to make a second lens with the spare PE part.  The intent is to place some UV resin on the PE over the holographic film, and then paint the lense clear yellow over the top.  If it works, you'll see it here, if it doesn't, I'm happy with the progress so far.

 

 

Thanks for checking in and hanging out during this slow build.  

[spyrosjzmichos]

Really nice, meticulous work Duane! 

[chaos07]

Small update for the week.  Moving slowly but surely.  I think once I get done with the little details in the sub-assemblies after the fuselage goes together, this will probably pick up the pace a bit.  

 

My initial hand-drawn doublers for the navigation lights would have worked, but I didn't want to fuss with sanding tweaks to ensure both were the same shape.  Aside from that, the PolAF jets have an asymmetric layout that was not initially accounted for.  I found a good side shot that sowed the asymmetry and allowed me to trace it in Adobe Illustrator.   After I printed them out in the scale size then glued them to some .015 styrene.

 

 

After cutting out a matching pair and sanding to shape, they were attached with some TET and allowed to dry for a couple of days.  I then sanded down the height to what I thought would be appropriate for scale, though they may be a bit too thick - but will remain regardless.  In a future build, I'd use some .010 styrene for this, and pre-bevel the edges closer to the final profile.  As shown above, the edges are blended to the intake, which I did with some thinned Mr. Disolved Putty then taken back with some sanding sponges.  In the macro shots the putty looks pretty rough, but in the bare plastic, even under 2.5 magnification with my new stereoscopes, it looks quite good.  

 

 

There are some filled-in scratches (red) and on the next shot an errant line near the intake lip - that is filled with black CA.  The extended light housing came with the CFTs from Grand Models, and fit the kit lights perfectly.  Both were attached with some JB Weld.  To ensure a more robust bond, I drilled some holes in the back of the fairings, and also into the intake.   After the epoxy dried for a couple of hours, the squeeze-out was cleaned up with some 99% IPA and a pointed Q-tip.  As can be seen above, and below, the fairings did move a slight bit after being "clamped" with several strips of Tamiya tape, but they are symmetrical from side to side and are almost dead level.  

 

Additionally, the doubler at the bottom of the intake was added with .010 styrene and affixed with more TET.  This did cause the piece to wrinkle a slight bit, and those wrinkles were filled in with some 3M glazing putty and sanded back.  The odd-shaped panel at the aft edge was something I didn't want to attempt at this point as a ton of sanding has been done so far, so I opted for an oval panel without the peak at the forward center edge.  The 6 round panels were added per my references, and thought the rivets were a bit off-center, with normal vision they are pretty close.  I need to improve my alignment for punching these.  

 

Lastly, before installing the cooling scoop on the fuselage, It was opened up with a drill bit and a diamond bit in a handheld rotary tool.  The final cleanup was done with a #11 blade.  The kit part lacks any sort of opening here.  

 

 

After a primer coat, the blending of these panels will be tweaked as necessary.  

 

The intakes on the sides of the main landing gear were thinned at the opening and the termination point on the aft edge.  On the jet, these terminate flush with the fuselage and I may attempt to do the same here.  The kit plastic was thinned to about .5mm - any thinner and I was worried the TET would melt the plastic and deform the edge.  There was a good-sized ejector pin mark that prevented these from sitting flush, which when removed with a little scraping allowed them to fit very flush.  Some light scraping made the openings look very thin and a rounded transition on the inside to the inside made the opening look considerably larger.  I think this looks pretty good - it could be made from some thin styrene, but didn't seem worth the effort here.  There are a couple of fasteners that will be added to the top aft edge of these scoops once I've decided whether or not to try and thin that termination to the fuselage.

 

 

Wow - the zoomed-in phone pic sure makes some of the scribing look pretty rough.  In-person, these lines look much smoother and straight.

 

Finally, after adding a few more wire bundles and a couple more connectors compliments of the Anyz 90-degree connector set, some black paint was laid down to move this part along.  A little dry brushing with dark gray and flat dark earth provides a basis for some light dust and weathering.  More will follow toward the end of the build after the final paint is in place.  With the canopy installed, I'll tweak the amount to show some dust accumulation, but not too dirty.  Some MRP MATT Super Clear locked in the base layers as shown below.

 

The ECS scoop was thinned with a #11 blade to make the edges as thin as I dared.  Drilling the ends of the Anyz connectors was easy enough with my handheld rotary tool, and allowed the lead wire to get a good strong connection.  Trying to do this drilling with a pin vise was fruitless as the printed resin is very brittle and resulted in the replacement of a couple of these connectors.  

 

Moving on, I'll be working on adding some final little details to add/enhance areas on the fuselage parts before they are permanently joined.  Sooner than later I'll want to mock up the exhaust parts to get them fit around the brass tube and ensure the aft nacelle fits the fuselage properly.  Once done, I should be able to close up the fuselage.  The intakes will get a bit of weathering as well, before final assembly making that task a bit easier.  

 

Thanks for checking in.

[chuck540z3]

34 minutes ago, chaos07 said:

Wow - the zoomed-in phone pic sure makes some of the scribing look pretty rough.  In-person, these lines look much smoother and straight.

 

 

The short-comings of macro-photography that I know all too well!  My rule is that if I can't see it with my regular (corrected) vision, I just leave it as is.

 

It's nice to see a couple of other F-16 builds going on at the same time as mine to give me some tips.  This particular build is very unique and challenging, so your extraordinary efforts will be well worth it when finished.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Rampenfest]

On 10/8/2023 at 7:59 AM, chaos07 said:

Greetings,

 

Not a ton of progress, or at least cool to look at progress over the past week, but a fair amount of work has been done.  I did manage to locate a Thunderbirds kit for the right price.  It was partially started with extra sprues from at least two other Thunderbird kits.  A few days later another kit showed up on eBay and it too was for the right price, and all in sealed bags, so I have another for a future project.  Since the started Thunderbirds kit will now be the base for this build, some bulged main gear doors will need to be located to replace the pair being taken from the CJ kit. 

 

The original owner of this kit was a superglue fan, which works well for me as I was able to separate some of the parts that were not glued together with the best alignment.  First off was to get the intake sorted out.  The nose wheel bulge needs to be added then and a final sanding with 3000 grit and the pink surfacer followed by white lacquer will go on.

 

 

The extended tail base is cleaned up and ready to go onto the kit part. 

 

 

 

The KASL offering compared to the Tamiya part for P&W burner can.  This is what drove my renewed search for the Thunderbirds kit.  The concave shape on the underside is entirely wrong. Building up the profile and re-shaping didn't tickle my fancy on this build, but maybe in the future.  If I get this aft section where I'm happy, I'll likely pull a mold of it for future builds.  The aftermarket intakes I picked up both fit well, but will be saved for future builds.   

 

 

Some .010 evergreen sheet was wrapped around the Reskit parts to build up a sleeve that will adapt the parts together.  While wrapping the styrene sheet plenty of Tamiya thin cement was layered on there making this tube quite rigid.  A layer of clear packing tape was wrapped on the Reskit part to ensure the final fit wasn't too tight, and the final version was done on the second attempt.  When I'm ready to commit to this mounting strategy, the tube will be affixed with more Tamiya thin and that should provide a very strong joint.  The intent is not to have any stress on these parts in the end with the acrylic rod holding the model.  A bit of cleanup will be needed on the Tamiya parts as their alignment wasn't 100% good, but this should not take too much effort.  The diameter at the back where the burner can fits will need to be reduced by .5mm or so to align flush with the Reskit parts.

 

 

 

 

I prefer to work in batches.  Clean up and prepare as many parts as possible before painting.  Hopefully, the fitment of the intake, turbine face, and exhaust section will be mocked up by the end of the extended weekend so I can mount the brass tube inside the fuselage for the base.  The goal is to have it well supported inside the fuselage so that time does not overstress any of the glue joints and open them up.  at present about 90% of that work is done.  After that, the jet will be closed up and a bulk of the assembly will be complete.  

 

 

Lastly, the new spray booth was put back together after some enamel paint and a clear coat.  The last booth was powder-coated white, and that provided a nice backdrop to work on.  This took a bit longer than desired to get set up, but FedEx did a number on the booth in delivery and damaged the booth.  Some coordination with the company and FedEx took some time, but it did finally close out and now it is in use.  The fan on this is hardly noticeable when on and the volume of air it moves seems to be at least double what I had in the old booth - a Paasche.  Looking forward to seeing how well this works out.  The workspace is huge, and will certainly help on larger builds.  

 

 

We have AMRAAMs, compliments of Eduard.  These fit the Kopecky LAU-129s with a press fit.  AIM-9X will close out the armament on this bird.  MRP paint, no clear or wash yet.

 

 

Thanks for checking in!

 

 

 

Fantastic work on everything! I was curious what brand the spray booth is in this post? Thanks!

 

[chaos07]

43 minutes ago, Rampenfest said:

Fantastic work on everything! I was curious what brand the spray booth is in this post? Thanks!

Thank you.   
 

The booth is a Pace Enterprise 36” deluxe.    It is super quiet and moves some air - far better than the Pasche booth it replaced.   With it running I don’t need to turn up then TV or strain to hear normal conversation.   Before I pout it to use I did paint it with white enamel paint as the silver unfinished metal was a bit tough on my eyes.   

[Rampenfest]

Thank you! 
 

I’ll look into this, as I am still trying to find my “once and for all” spray booth haha

 

 

[chaos07]

7 hours ago, Rampenfest said:

Thank you! 
 

I’ll look into this, as I am still trying to find my “once and for all” spray booth haha

 

 

Bill was awesome to work with when I bought mine.  I wanted to get it powder coated/painted, and he shipped it without the standard decals and such attached to facilitate that.  He does make some smaller ones too.  This is huge, especially with the extension table in the front.  Since it's made of heavy gauge flashing - the weight is not too bad, but it does have some flex so care is needed when setting it up.  It did not come with any light bulbs, but some outdoor LED bulbs spewing out just under 3000 lumens each are more than enough light to work with - almost too much to be honest.  

 

I used some half-inch thick foam core to fill in the void underneath the main part and the extension, attached with double-sided carpet tape.  This makes sure I don't dent up the bottom while working.  I would have gone with the 24-inch model, but I do hope to get to a 1/32 C-47 or similarly sized kits in the next couple of years, and this booth will be just about big enough to handle parts that size.  

 

My setup is in the living room (the dog doesn't care where I work thankfully) and the air purifier I have set up does not detect anything when I paint with any type of paint.  The older booth would not remove enough of the fumes, and the purifier would light up and go into overdrive.  

 

Good luck on the hunt for the perfect set up!

[chaos07]

More forward momentum during the work week.  

 

Some Albion Alloys brass tubing was placed in a few spots under the fuselage.  In a couple of areas, it was used to clean up some poor scribing on my part, and in others to add some detail.  The opening on the forward side of the arrestor hook is found to be either open or with a large fastener in its place.  I believe this is where the rear of the centerline fuel tank connects to the aircraft, and when not installed a plug is in its place.  A smaller tube was filled with CA then slightly domed with fine sandpaper and placed inside to create this detail.  Once some primer is applied, the final effect and whether or not it worked will be revealed though it does look decent in the rough form in person.  

 

 

There is an exhaust adjacent to the tail hook aft end, which is open.   The tail hook will get a bit more detail toward the attachment end and is shown here with sink marks filled in and dry fit.

 

 

Work on the tail has begun with the kit tail being trimmed and the parabrake housing is close to getting epoxied into place.  I intend to glue the tail on permanently, but the poly caps will still be accessible with the resin parabrake housing installed and should assist in alignment.  The tail will likely be added after painting to make the masking much easier - time will tell though.   After punching all the rivet detail, and re-scribing the panel lines on both the resin and kit plastic, some styrene is in place to allow fine-tuning of the parabrake alignment and replace what the saw removed.  The top of the fin was poorly aligned when I glued it, making scribing the panel lines that run parallel to the top impossible - so a thin sheet of styrene was placed on top, and will be sanded back.   The cut-off of the kit tail was used as an angle guide for the rudder at the bottom.  With any luck, all this will still be in alignment after final gluing, but if it is not, I'll trim off the bottom stud.  Since this bird will be posed in flight I'm debating whether or not to have some very minor deflection of the rudder.  There is still some time to sort that out though.

 

 

The resin part from Grand Models has some great details on the parachute.  Some work with a scriber, needle, and rotary tool with a diamond bit and I opened up the housing around the parachute.  There is some detail yet to be added, and the opening needs some slight refinement as well, but I think it looks a bit better than with a very shallow relief around the parachute.  In most pictures I've found, the parachute sits flush at the bottom, but in a few, it does not.  I suspect that after a flight, or several, the parachute will settle in with gravity and any G's imposed on it in flight.  The base was also opened up like the real deal - though that will be tough to see once assembled.  

 

 

Lastly some more drilling and tubing at the front of the fuselage.  The APU exhaust was made with more tubing and the location for the Total Air Temperature probe was drilled out and a backer was glued in to allow for installation.  The kit TAT probe is a bit rough with a large ejector pin mark on one side, and the base is thick and stands proud of the fuselage.  I have a plan for a replacement and hopefully will be able to show that in the coming weeks. Drilling out this area will allow the replacement to be set flush with the skin, and the backer will provide a solid gluing surface and prevent loss inside the fuselage.  The kit originally had a flat spot on this hole to register the kit part, so drilling it out now was much easier and less risky than after assembly.  

 

 

 

Hopefully some more progress this weekend.  Hand surgery is on the near horizon and that will slow me down a bit for a short while.

Edited February 24 by chaos07

[Pete Fleischmann]

Looks awesome!

 

fun fact- the F-16 doesn’t have an APU…it has a JFS (Jet Fuel Starter) and an EPU (Emergency Power Unit) that runs on hydrazine.

 

P

[chaos07]

1 hour ago, Pete Fleischmann said:

Looks awesome!

 

fun fact- the F-16 doesn’t have an APU…it has a JFS (Jet Fuel Starter) and an EPU (Emergency Power Unit) that runs on hydrazine.

 

P

 

Pete,

 

Thanks for the kind words - and the corrected terminology!  Going back to the Jake Melampy Modern Viper Guide - sure enough - I saw EPU and replaced APU as a familiar term.   

 

Cheers.