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

[chaos07]

A little plastic manipulation has occurred and some paint should be shot later today or tomorrow.  The 3D decals will be used for the cockpit, and the oxygen hoses have been sorted, or at least it appears it has.  Once the cockpit is painted and set, I'll work with the pilot figure and that will determine if my current plan will survive first contact.  

 

Initial layout for the instrument coaming.  The kit part lacks any fastener detail, and is missing cooling vents, and some panel lines.  

 

A little bobble on the execution of the vents, but under paint it may not look as bad.  Updated AoA indicators and wiring along with some minor scribing and fastener detail added.  A little glue clean up will occur before paint and a final polish on the plastic will occur as well.

 

 

Some minor work on the seat.  The Pitot tubes have been replaced with short bits of evergreen, and a length of lead wire along the seat underneath.  Very simplified from what it should look like, but I hope it at least provides the impression of the updated seat configuration.  Fabrication of springs and then elevating the pitot tubes away from the seat was a bit beyond my skillset presently.  In the future I'll likely build up the sub-components off of the seat, then put in place after completed which should provide more opportunities to boost up the accuracy.  

 

 

A quick mock-up of the driver to see if the current oxygen hose solution will look good enough.  I think it does.  Guitar string, which with pliers, is easy enough to bend, and will hold its shape nicely afterwards.  A little work will be done after the seat and pit are fully painted, then I'll get the hoses set, then paint the figure.  For now it looks like this method will work well enough.  A little coarse, but the diameter is about right, and this is much easier than winding two different diameter wires around another wire to fab up something from scratch.  Some lead or copper wire will be loosely wrapped around the hose for the intercom wire after the final shapes are bent and trimmed for the hose.  The more I mess with this figure, the more I don't like it detail-wise, but we shall see what the paint brings out.  Depending on what I can pull out of this lump of plastic - an alternative may be ordered.  Fingers crossed this one will make the cut list.

 

 

 

 

It was an interesting discussion at the local music store when I picked this up. 

 

 

The pit is prepped for the 3D decals.  A hole will be made to accommodate the oxygen hose on the right side, which I'll sort out once I get the decals ready to go down.  The angle of the gear handle for a raised position is purely a guess on my part.

 

 

As always, thanks for checking in!

 

[chaos07]

Not nearly as much time at the bench as desired, but some progress is being made. Working on the station 5R pylon and converting the adapter from the Eduard kit.  Not enough done there to show anything just yet.  

 

The Tamiya boxing for the KASL Pratt burner fits perfectly.  It was tough to keep it aligned and balanced while taking the photos, but the fit is near perfect.  The tab at the top will need to be thinned some to allow it to seat properly at the 12 o'clock position.  

 

 

A little work on the pit is underway.  The 3D decals are in place.  More decals and detail painting still in progress.  MRP Light Ghost Gray was a near-perfect match.  A drop of dark ghost gray got it as close as I could and with a clear coat over may blend them together.  After a wash goes down it is doubtful any difference in color will show.  In person the difference isn't noticeable as it is in the pictures below.

 

 

Tiny Decals - but what a difference they make.  These decals work quite well and just settle in nicely with little effort.  

 

 

Some Airscale and Anyz in the mix

 

 

 

 

Lastly, my spray booth is getting a facelift.  I have most of the ducting sorted out, but it may take a few days to get the old setup out and the new one in, but once done my workflow will be better.  The current setup doesn't capture enough of the fumes, and working inside the house with Lacquers - that just doesn't cut it.  I have the new booth in hand, but have it disassembled to get it powder coated or painted - bare metal reflects too much for my taste, and the white powder coating on the old booth was perfect for lighting and cleaned up easily.  

Edited September 17, 2023 by chaos07

[MikeMaben]

Wow, seat looks great Duane,  does the guitar string stay curved like that or did you have to anneal it

to get it to stay that way ?

[chaos07]

21 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

Wow, seat looks great Duane,  does the guitar string stay curved like that or did you have to anneal it

to get it to stay that way ?

 

Mike,

 

This brand took the bend without any annealing, what you see above is just finger pressure.  I think a couple of pliers with fine jaws would allow for some more dynamic and smaller bends, on the surface for now, it does not seem that any treatment of the guitar string would be needed.  Who knows what other brands will do though - this is a first for me.

 

Duane

[Derek B]

Very nice Duane!

 

  

 

Derek

[chaos07]

A decision will be made . . . . 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for checking in!

[chaos07]

Ok, a serious update regarding the figure.  The ReedOak offering is incredible.  I've never worked with figures outside of whatever showed up in the box in the past.  The amount of detail that 3D printing can bring to our benches is something else.  In the photos below, the supports were simply trimmed away with a sprue nipper and still required clean-up before priming.  Initially, an attempt was made to saw away the main supports from the printing base, but even the finest tooth saw would move them enough to break them from the figure.  Some of the supports were full width, to hold the figure securely, while others seemed to separate with very little effort.  

 

 

 

 

 

The fit to the Tamiya cockpit is perfect.  The lap belts meet right at the side of the seat cushion and even with the side of the seat.  The other figure that was in the kit is much shorter than this one, and looks undersized when compared side by side.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

I knew that this resin was very brittle, but wasn't quite prepared for just how brittle. The G-suit hose snapped off before I got to the printing supports.  Not an issue here as it would not be visible in the end, and making the hole in the instrument panel to accommodate it while sliding the seat in would be problematic at best.  Many of the supports shot across the room when cut free from either the base or pilot, so wearing safety glasses of some sort is a must - at least for me.  

 

Certainly, this will take some time to hand paint, and not having any experience with figure painting it will undoubtedly test my skills.   - did you see the watch on this dude?

 

Thanks for checking in.

Edited September 24, 2023 by chaos07

[scvrobeson]

That is a beautiful looking pilot mold, I look forward to seeing it painted up

 

 

 

Matt 

[chaos07]

Progress this morning was pretty decent in my book.  Not done quite yet, but a start.  

 

Base coat of Black Mr. Surfacer 1500, then white shot from above to create some forced shadows.  

 

 

 

A few colors to choose from/mix to get started, and a wet pallet too.

 

 

Starting to block in some color.  

 

 

 

 

I think my technique pretty much obliterated the shadowing from the black and white.  There will be a chance to add them back at the end.  Any feedback is more than welcome.  

 

Thanks for checking in!

[MikeMaben]

Looks real good from here Duane. 

[chaos07]

Just finished painting the figure.  Still debating on what to do about some patches.  A few bobbles here and there, which look far worse in the photos than in real life.  In the end, the more I tried to correct them, the more I made, and the cycle seemed like it would not end.  I'm happy with a first go on a figure.  

 

A wash and maybe some touchups in the coming days.  

 

 

 

 

The matt coat is drying, and the post delivered a little surprise today.  For future endeavors . . . .

 

 

As always, thanks for checking in!

[Pete Fleischmann]

As far as the patches go, you’d be fine to leave them off. We typically sanitized our flight suits before flying. Very common practice, especially in the F-16. 
 

cheers

P

[Derek B]

Lovely figure painting Duane!

 

 

Derek

[chaos07]

5 hours ago, Pete Fleischmann said:

As far as the patches go, you’d be fine to leave them off. We typically sanitized our flight suits before flying. Very common practice, especially in the F-16. 
 

cheers

P

Pete,

 

Thanks for the insight, I suspect our NATO Partners also observe similar practices as we do.  Of the reference photos I have found on the net for the PolAF, I've not found a consistent set of references for the F-16 units with their patches.  It is a good thing that something like that is somewhat difficult to just sort out via the internet .

 

I may mess about a bit to add some more visual interest in the end - but there is still plenty of time to come up with that.  I've seen most commonly the Polish Flag on one or both shoulders, the round F-16 patch with the Falcon head on it on the left shoulder, and the Raven scheme some of the pilots seem to wear a patch that is very similar to the 100th-anniversary emblem that is painted on the jet on the right shoulder.  I think I could pull off the Polish Flag and the diamond 100th Anniversary patch on some Tamiya tape then glue them down.

 

2 hours ago, Derek B said:

Lovely figure painting Duane!

 

 

Derek

 

Thanks Derek.  

 

I'm very happy with how this turned out for the first run at it.  My phone photos do not enhance the painting much at all, the camera sensor seems to hunt pretty hard to focus.  I'll dig out the DSLR soon and see what I can do with that.

 

 

[chaos07]

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!

 

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by chaos07