Author Topic: Scottish Air Force F-16B  (Read 14872 times)

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Scottish Air Force F-16B
« on: September 12, 2013, 06:07:35 AM »
I shall be using a Revell 1/72nd F-16B from the stash to represent the second-hand equipment of the Scottish Air Force's first fighter squadron. In what I hope isn't an omen for the future, I got my camera out to do the obligatory box/sprues shots and the battery was dead, so for the moment, content yourselves with this:



Colour scheme something like this ("drizzle grey over fog grey"):



But with the tail flash more like this:

"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline kitnut617

  • Measures the actual aircraft before modelling it...we have the photographic evidence.
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Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2013, 07:18:51 AM »
Harold, do you think the wing 'Thistles' would actually have the tops pointing towards or away from the fuselage ?  Like how our friends in the southern hemisphere have their roundels ---

Offline Tophe

  • He sees things in double...
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    • my models
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2013, 12:11:03 PM »
Great project! When did Scotland buy Falcons B (in your mind)? brand new or second-hand?

Offline ChernayaAkula

  • Was left standing in front when everyone else took one step back...
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Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2013, 01:13:11 PM »
<...> ("drizzle grey over fog grey")<...>

 ;D Brilliant!
Cheers,
Moritz

"The appropriate response to reality is to go insane!"

Offline Gingie

  • The LAV sausage-maker…goes nice with a home made beer I understand
  • Has been to Tatooine...
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2013, 10:06:44 PM »
g]

Colour scheme something like this ("drizzle grey over fog grey"):

Ah. A summertime scheme then.

Offline perttime

  • The man has produced a Finnish Napier Heston Fighter...need we say more?
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2013, 11:37:06 PM »
I went to Scotland once ... and did see some sunshine too.

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2013, 10:45:31 AM »
Obligatory sprue shot. No building has occurred yet:



Jeez this is a complicated kit! In between that and the other calls on my time at the moment, I can see calls for an extension looming already....

Also realised that I robbed the Sidewinders off it years ago for something else... ::) Shouldn't be too much of a problem though: got loads more to choose from than I did back then and in any case, I only want dummy ones for this build, so I can cut the front fins off a couple of crappy ones and paint them blue.

« Last Edit: September 14, 2013, 11:03:42 AM by Weaver »
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2013, 12:57:55 AM »
Y'know, I've read several "reviews" of this kit, and not one of them mentions the fact that the front ejection seat doesn't fit in the cockpit tub unless you trim the middle bit of it BEFORE fitting the sides, or that the pilot doesn't fit without a fair bit a re-sculpting, or that the two-seater canopy sprue only has ONE HUD glass on it despite the instructions clearly showing two, with the same part number.. now wondering what else I'm going to find.....

Upside: chopped up a pair of hideous old Sidewinders to make a pair of Smokewinders: ironically, they came off the F-5B kit that I nicked the F-16's AIM-9s for ni the first place.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2013, 10:53:57 PM »
Y'know this is a very paradoxical kit:

It has beautiful decals, but the instructions have LOADS of mistakes in them: they'd have you put the joysticks on backwards (and the front one in totally the wrong place!), the throttles angled outboard instead of inboard and a HUD glass you havn't got on the rear coaming despite the fact that real F-16Bs have a screen there.

Tiny details that are barely bumps are moulded separately (gun muzzle???), yet the arrestor hook is moulded in one piece with the fuselage, and the whole jet nozzle is in one piece, which is a real problem because it has a nasty sink mark right in the middle of the petals where it might not be fixable.

Some parts fit beautifully (four-part fin) yet others are terrible (seats, pilots).

It shows every sign of modern, high-quality moulding and detail, yet it has loads of flash and the lower fuselage is warped (not badly).


It's like two completely different teams shared the work, one who were good and one who didn't give a ****...... ???
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2013, 09:09:42 AM »
Just an update: I'm making slow progress with this, but it's damned slow. In between the fiddly construction and some of the egrarious flaws in the kit, I've gone from a pile of bits to pile of slightly better bits.

Doing the cockpit with decals proved frustrating. None of the decals actually fitted, not even close in some cases, and I had to cut some of them up so small that a couple of them flicked off the tweezers and simply vanished.

I'm not convinced that the radome holds enough weight to keep the nose down, so I've carved a hole in the bulkhead behind it so that I can drop more weight into the space ahead of the cockpit once it's assembled. That will need a bulkhead to keep the balls out of the cockpit and stop them rolling too far back, so more fiddle, etc, etc.....

Due to other committments, I'm going to have to put this aside for a while shortly, and at the present rate of progress, that means I'm unlikely to finish by the deadline.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2013, 09:35:31 AM »
Finally, some worthwhile progress pics!

Fuselage halves:



All the extra plastic is for:

1. Reinforcing the dodgy butt joint between the front and rear halves of the upper fuselage (neccessary because of the 1/2 seater options),

2. Bulkhead ahead of the front cockpit so that I could fill the space with weights, because the little nose cone didn't feel like it held enough. If you think the fit of the cockpit tubs into the fuselage looks a bit tenuous, then read on...

3. Reinforcement for the top of the undercarriage bay, because with the low contact area between it and the fuselage, I cound see it pushing out with the weight of the model on it once it was finished,


Cockpit area:



Predictably enough, the rear cockpit tub fell out as I was setting up the pic. The cockpit tubs' only really solid connection to the fuselage is their back edges: the sides don't really touch and the control panels are such a fragile fit to the floor that gluing them into the comings doesn't help much. After this pic was taken, the rear 'pit was stuck back in with much extra Evergreen to anchor it.


Fuselage finally together:



You can see the ejector seats and the Smokewinders on the clip sticks at the back. The fin is off in the paintshop in the early stages of a fairly elaborate scheme. I thought it'd be easier to paint it first and fit it last. The same can't be said for the jet nozzle though. An F-16 nozzle has three "rings": the actual petals, a metallic-coloured ring that's part of the engine, and a painted ring that's part of the fuselage. The "brilliance" of this kit shines through again in the fact that they've moulded all three together in one, sink-mark-riddled piece, so you either have to stick it on first to get the upper/lower paint demarcation on it, then struggle to paint the nozzle in between the integrally-moulded airbrakes, or you can paint the metal bits first, mask them, glue it on, then pray that the fuselage colour doesn't leak under the masking. Just to make masking more fun, the demarcation between the metal ring and the painted ring is wavy.....

And now the bad news: I'm going to have to put this aside now in order to do Other Things, so there will be scant progress for quite a while now...
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #11 on: October 12, 2013, 08:44:44 PM »
<...> ("drizzle grey over fog grey")<...>


 ;D Brilliant!


Sorry, just rediscovered this and couldn't resist putting it up..... ;D


(From the graphic novel Michael Moorcocks' Multiverse)


"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Claymore

  • It's all done with smoke and mirrors!
  • Alt Hist AFV guy with a thing for Bradley turrets
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #12 on: October 13, 2013, 01:33:41 AM »
Clearly you are no stranger to God's own country!  ;D
Pass the razor saw, there is work to be done!

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #13 on: November 14, 2013, 10:54:01 AM »
Well "other things" got put on hold having been orignally at the top of the priority list, so some modelling is finally going on with this one. No pics though - no time.

More paint on the fin
Fuselage and all it's infernal little bits nearly ready for paint

To Do (not neccessarily in order):

Paint pilots (undercoated tonight). Complicated for reasons that will become clear in due course....
Paint tires
Assemble undercarriage (gulp)
make some thistle masks (or self-print decals if that fails)
finish paint on nozzle, mask it and fit it
Paint fuselage (3 passes, I think)
Paint canopy bows
Pose canopy and pilots
Apply decals

"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #14 on: November 19, 2013, 10:41:14 AM »
Sorry folks, but there is now no way this will get finished for the deadline. I've had various paint problems in the last couple of days, and while they're not show stoppers, the need for touch-ups means that there are now no longer enough paint/decal drying cycles available between now and the deadline.

I'm not going to ask for another extension, rather this will just become the first item in the Clear Your Workbench GB....
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline deathjester

  • 'Remember - Tiredness Kills Hedgehogs...!'
  • His Mother-in-law has Tardis pockets...
    • stormfront models
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #15 on: November 19, 2013, 09:49:32 PM »
That will need a bulkhead to keep the balls out of the cockpit and stop them rolling too far back, so more fiddle, etc, etc.....

So, all female pilots then?

Offline ChrisF

  • Doesn't mind rough when he knows its gonna be rough...
  • Ham-fisted? Maybe. Master modeller? Definitely!
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2013, 09:13:29 AM »
I still look forward to the finished product.. Gimmie a shout when its done ! :)

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #17 on: November 25, 2013, 08:59:26 AM »
Well it didn't make the deadline - my apologies.

Mods - any chance of moving this thread into the Clear Your Workbench GB please?
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #18 on: November 25, 2013, 08:17:18 PM »
Thanks for the move.  :)
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline taiidantomcat

  • Plastic Origamist...and not too shabby with the painting either!
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Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #19 on: November 27, 2013, 12:05:44 AM »
welcome aboard  :)
"They know you can do anything, So the question is, what don't you do?"

-David Fincher

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #20 on: January 12, 2014, 06:17:40 PM »
Sorry for no updates, but basically, nothing much has happened. In between other committments, being too tired due to work, being in the wrong frame of mind, and making more screw-ups as a result of trying to force it when in the wrong frame of mind, this model is just as far away from being finished as it was at the end of the Scottish GB. I note that the deadline has been extended to 31st Jan, but frankly, the chane of meeting that is slim due to work going mental with no warning and other committments popping up again.

All but one of the static wicks have broken off due to handling and masking and it's proved infernally tricky to mask, fill and paint due to it's peculiar shape: basically, it's reminded me of why I hate F-16 models! I tried to do a painted flag and title on the tail fin, but chronic creep mean that the touch-ups have touch-ups on their touch-ups and it looks rubbish. What it needs is completely stripping and doing again with decals, but I just havn't the time/energy to spare.
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline Volkodav

  • Counts rivits with his abacus...
  • Much older now...but procrastinating about it
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #21 on: January 12, 2014, 06:49:19 PM »
I know the feeling, got two emails from work today reiterating two completely different top priority tasks to be completed by COB Tuesday from the same bloke and ontop of three other urgent tasks from other individuals higher up the food chain than the first bloke.  Then there the three rug rats, eldest of which is six so not time to do a thing :icon_sueno:

My KGV BBG aint going nowhere.

Offline PR19_Kit

  • Likes to brag about how long his...wings are.
  • Made it at last!
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #22 on: January 12, 2014, 11:38:24 PM »
I know the feeling, got two emails from work today reiterating two completely different top priority tasks to be completed by COB Tuesday from the same bloke and ontop of three other urgent tasks from other individuals higher up the food chain than the first bloke.  Then there the three rug rats, eldest of which is six so not time to do a thing :icon_sueno:

In the days when computer printers used fan-fold paper I used to have a MASSIVE poster, printed sideways on such a fan, stretched all along one wall of my office that said 'Time isn't elastic, what DON'T you want done?'

My Boss hated it being there as every time he came in with another ridiculous demand I just pointed at the poster and carried on with what I was doing.  :)
Regards
Kit

--------------------------
Any aircraft can be improved by fitting longer wings

Offline Weaver

  • Skyhawk stealer and violator of Panthers, with designs on a Cougar and a Tiger too
  • Chaos Engineer & Evangelistic Agnostic
Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #23 on: January 13, 2014, 03:23:16 AM »
Just typed something bitter,  much longer and more explicit, then thought better of it and deleted it again. Suffice it to say, yep: that's exactly where I am at the moment.... :icon_crap:
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others" - Thucydides

"I've jazzed mine up a bit" - Spike Milligan

"I'm a general specialist," - Harry Purvis in Tales from the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke

Twitter: @hws5mp
Minds.com: @HaroldWeaverSmith

Offline GTX_Admin

  • Evil Administrator bent on taking over the Universe!
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Re: Scottish Air Force F-16B
« Reply #24 on: January 14, 2014, 01:58:30 AM »
Don't you love it when you are forced to say meting along the lines of "Which of these other priority  ones wold you like me to delay in order to accommodate this new one?"

If life and all that is getting to you, don't force the modelling.  We certainly don't want to be adding to the pressure.
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it.