Lockheed Martin F-16CJ Block 50 Fighting Falcon 22nd FS OIF

[Gustavo Rocha]

Hi Fellas!

Just decided to start an in-progress thread for my new project: the Tamiya 1/48 scale Lockheed Martin F-16CJ Block 50 Fighting Falcon which I intend to build as an aircraft belonging to the 22nd FS during OIF I.

I wasn't planning to start this new model so soon, but after the F-15E that I was so carefully building for the last full year broke in half during a moment of carelessness on my part last weekend, I simply had to do something instead of crying over the spilled milk, as they say here.

The F-15E fell to the floor while I left it in an improvised jig after putting on the aft right fuselage formation light decal. I left it to dry there and went to the computer to look at a reference pic, and I suddenly heard that unmistakable sound of something falling to the floor and that something could only be my Strike Eagle! Apparently a wind gust threw it off the bench to the floor, as I had left the window open because of the heat. If I only new... And as my girlfriend said, I never left the damn model in a position that something could happen to it and I never left the window open when I wasn't in the room, but that day I did all this. Needless to say she grabbed this most intimate moment that only a modeler can understand and slashed at me because she had to hear me talking about how good the F-15E was turning out all of last year and now I had proved to be a complete fool!! Women are so unsympathetic sometimes, hehehehehe.

Enough of the F-15E! I've already packed it and sometime in the future I'll rebuild it somehow!

Now the F-16C. I think that enough has already been said about this beauty and I'm only compliments to the kit. It really is everything I've heard about. Last year I had decided that I would use Afterburner Decals sheet 48-023 "The Big 22" for my first F-16C build, as I love the look of the Stingers' 2001 CO jet.

This is what I'll be using:

Even though I have a resin cockpit for it, I decided to use the kit supplied one, which is also great.

The F-15E was a great classroom for me, as I had never built an 1/48 scale plane before and now I'm really in love for them. I intend to apply everything I've learned so far and also to learn much more, as is so often the case in our hobby. Previously I had been building 1/35 scale figures and military vehicles.

I started working first on the air intake:

After filling the gaps with Mr White Putty and completely sanding it down with various grades of sanding paper, I decided to do something that I watched Phil Flory from Pro Modellers doing:

I hope that this Future base coat will give the intake an extra smoothness. When I finish doing the wheel wells and the other part of the intake is ready to paint, we'll see if it worked.

Next I'll be tackling the exhaust nozzle and afterburner can.

Edited December 10, 2012 by Gustavo Rocha

[Gustavo Rocha]

The Eduard photo-etched parts are simply marvelous and a great improvement for the kit part. Take a look:

Completed nozzle before painting:

Next came the base coat for the metallic lacquers that I intend to use. Since my ALCLAD 2 Black Primer wasn't working properly, I had to improvise:

Now on to the exhaust nozzle:

I liked the look of it, even though it doesn't look so good through the photos. I'll let it dry 'till tomorrow before applying Future and masking of the black shadows present on the nozzle feathers.

Hope you have enjoyed it and I'll have some new pictures tomorrow!

Gustavo.

[Netz]

Ooow. I'd be careful using future or any type of acrylic under a lacquer, it will crack, just check out Markii F-100.

You might get away with it using the Model Master paints like you did, but definitely not under Alclad.

Curt

[Gustavo Rocha]

Ooow. I'd be careful using future or any type of acrylic under a lacquer, it will crack, just check out Markii F-100.

You might get away with it using the Model Master paints like you did, but definitely not under Alclad.

Curt

Strange. The Alclad 2 website (Alclad 2 Homepage) states that you can use Future as a primer for their lacquers. I personally did it on my defunct F-15E, both serving as a primer and applied over Alclad 2 and MM Metalizers before putting on the decals and it worked like a charm. No kind of cracks appeared.

But I'll keep it in mind anyway, since I know that cracks can appear if you don't let the paint cure properly.

Thanks Curt!

P.S. Forgot to mention that before applying Future, I let the black enamel dry thoroughly so as to minimize the risk of cracks appearing in the finish. Thanks again!

Edited February 25, 2009 by Gustavo Rocha

[limyc]

the F-15 looks repairable, some superglue, putty and sanding might just revive the whole thing!

[Gustavo Rocha]

the F-15 looks repairable, some superglue, putty and sanding might just revive the whole thing!

That's exactly what I have in mind doing! But right now I'm not very inclined in doing the job as I'm still feeling a bit upset by the whole deal. Not that it's the Strike Eagle's fault, but I'll leave it on the shelf until I gather the motivation for gluing, filling, sanding, painting, shading and decaling the broken parts again.

But the kit is certainly repairable.

Thanks buddy!

Gustavo.

[geedubelyer]

Hello Gustavo,

Owch, that picture of your broken Eagle is painful to look at! I can only imagine your frustration. Perhaps after a nice, quick ans easy Viper build you will feel more inclined on repairing the damage. It looks like it will be worth the effort.

Nice progress so far on the F-16. Will you try to replicate the dirty HAVE GLASS finish of this jet or leave her clean?

Also, as an alternative, you could use a dark grey metallic colour for the heat stained portion of the jet nozzle petals. Just a thought.....

Keep us posted on your progress. This looks like it will be mighty entertaining.

:)

[Netz]

Here is a photo of Marks F-100, he used a acrylic base under Alclad, I personally would'nt risk it.

It might not be as critical with the smaller areas your doing, but on larger pieces,be careful.

Using the Future over the laquer is no problem, just under it,it is.

Curt

[AnthonyWan]

You could problably fix the F-15E...it's only broken in half right? Glue some sheet styrene to the inside of the broken area to increase gluing area, then, flood it with CA and slap that front end back on. Sure you will have a monster seam to fill...and you'll probably have to repaint, but no one said it was gonna be easy :)

Good luck on that ;)

Any small antennas that you lost I'm sure can be easily scratchbuilt with sheet styrene.

Meanwhile...good progress on the F-16C...getting the intake out of the way early :D

Take care,

Awan

[Gustavo Rocha]

I understand what you mean, Netz. Thank God this didn't happen to my Strike Eagle as well!!

And geedubelyer, thanks for the advice! Seeing my Eagle on the floor was really frustrating, but I'll certainly repair it!! As for the Viper, I'm planning doing the HAVE GLASS finish, as I'm not to fond of neat looking aircraft (maybe because of my 1/35 days, hehehehe). But one thing is certain, I have to do more research over this. So far I know that this finish is a bit more rough so to say compared to "normal" paints and because of this it attracted more dirt, but I'm not sure of the proportion that this happened and how it looks.

I have several pictures of the F-16, but I really need to sit down and study them more thoroughly before painting the model.

As for the nozzle, I did consider using MM Dark Anadonic Gray Buffing Metalizer Lacquer, but decided for Titanium instead. Certainly gray would be a good color too, considering references.

Thanks for the encouragement and I'll keep you guys posted!!

Gustavo Rocha.

[Jack-Swiss]

That's a really nice start!!!!

congrats on the presentation and i'm sorry for the eagle...**** happens as they say!!!I hope you'll find "revenge" with this awesome viper!!!

Great work so far with the exhausts and those etch thingies are superb!

Keep us posted

Cheers

;)

[Aggressor Supporter]

Poor F-15E! Well, at least you got another great kit in the Tamiya F-16CJ there. Nice work so far.

[Gustavo Rocha]

You could problably fix the F-15E...it's only broken in half right? Glue some sheet styrene to the inside of the broken area to increase gluing area, then, flood it with CA and slap that front end back on. Sure you will have a monster seam to fill...and you'll probably have to repaint, but no one said it was gonna be easy :)

Good luck on that

Any small antennas that you lost I'm sure can be easily scratchbuilt with sheet styrene.

Meanwhile...good progress on the F-16C...getting the intake out of the way early :D

Take care,

Awan

Yeah, don't like filling the seams and all that. Prefer to finish them in the first place, leaving more pleasing parts for later, hehehehe!

As for the F-15E, it still hadn't any extra antennas on it besides the UHF blades and none of them broke off. I think that worst than gluing and sanding the two halves together will be to strip the nose of paint and repair the radar dome. It broke a little and cracked.

As for the fuselage, I'll do what you said. If you only new the trouble that I had joining them in the first place because of my Aires cockpit being inside and making the front fuselage a little wider than the back... I had to use lots and lots of filler 'till they were flush together, after being glued of course. But in the end the result was excellent and the kit was looking beautiful!! A pity that this happened.

Gustavo.

[Gustavo Rocha]

Double Post.

Edited February 25, 2009 by Gustavo Rocha

[geedubelyer]

....................

As for the nozzle, I did consider using MM Dark Anadonic Gray Buffing Metalizer Lacquer, but decided for Titanium instead. Certainly gray would be a good color too, considering references.

Thanks for the encouragement and I'll keep you guys posted!!

Gustavo Rocha.

Hi Gustavo,

I agree that the Titanium is perfect for the petals of your jet nozzle. You have achieved a superb result so far. I don't think I explained myself very well earlier though. I was suggesting that you could replace the black portion of the petal with a dark grey as an alternative. From looking at references the heated area (depicted by the shaped line in the middle of each petal on your photos) can vary from very nearly the same colour as each petal to a very dark almost black colour.

I'm sure that the end result will look great whichever colour you choose. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing the HAVE GLASS finish all dirtied up. You will need your courage to weather the finished model but it should be worth it.

Keep well,

[Gustavo Rocha]

Hi again! Some new pics.

Today I only painted the black outline on the exhaust nozzle petals. Masking the whole thing was an exercise in patience, but that's one of the good sides of plastic modeling!

Placing and cutting the masks:

Finished product. Masking is always troublesome, but worth the effort:

Observing reference pictures you can see that the black edges aren't straight, but rather feathered:

Forgot to mention that before masking and painting I gave the nozzle a coat of Future so as to protect it from the work ahead. Started with a coat of ALCLAD II Transparent Blue Lacquer, so as to give it a "heated metal" effect near the feathered edges:

Then came the black properly:

After the black dried I saw that it was too "black", so to say, and coincidentally I read geedubelyer's last post (by the way, many thanks!) about using grey for these parts instead of black and following his advice I mixed Humbrol's Dark Grey and Black enamels to achieve the final result below:

Contrary to the ongoing discussions on the Tools and Tips Board about the recent reliability of Humbrol paints, so far I have nothing to complain. Maybe because the majority of my tins are from the 2002-2003 period, but the ones that I bought last year are also fine. Hope that it doesn't change!

Well, I was quite happy with the outcome of the black parts, especially because of the nice feathered edges that I managed to get. Tomorrow I hope to find time to start painting the inside of the nozzle and start working on the burner can!

Hope you enjoyed it!

Gustavo.

[Jack-Swiss]

Uhhhh very nice...you are givin lot of attention to the exhaust, I love it!!!!

Keep it up!

Cheers

[Scull]

Hi Gustavo, I like your work man!

I'm also currently busy with a Tamiya Viper, just the block 32 one, I added the Eduard bits to the exhaust but it didnt look nearly as spectacular as yours, how did you apply yours?

I'm currently trying to get sink holes out the main gear wheel weel... :(

Happy Building

[mario krijan]

Hey Gustavo! thanks for such a nice looking nozzles! I like the wa :) :) y you do it!!

[Wayne S]

Very nice work ;).

Sry to see the Eagle like that, has happened to me before.

[Gustavo Rocha]

Hi Gustavo, I like your work man!

I'm also currently busy with a Tamiya Viper, just the block 32 one, I added the Eduard bits to the exhaust but it didnt look nearly as spectacular as yours, how did you apply yours?

I'm currently trying to get sink holes out the main gear wheel weel...

Happy Building :lol:

Hi Scull!

Thanks for the comments! Well, I started mine putting PE parts 71 first as you can see below:

Then, I glued PE parts 68 using the rim of the nozzle as a guide, gluing them from the inside with a pair of curved tweezers. This process wasn't so easy at the beginning because the PE pieces were gluing in the wrong place and I had to pull them off and start again. Another problem was that I was using a fast drying CA glue, and there really wasn't a big margin for error. I bent one of them fairly badly and had to use the spare one to replace it.

Here's the outcome:

At the end I used my Dremel tool with a grinding stone to remove any imperfections to the PE that was showing beyond the rim, but it turned out that there was very little corrections to be made because the PE parts went on fairly well.

Yesterday I was doing the same thing that you're doing now with the wheel well sink holes. I solved mine with my trusty Dremel and same grinding stone. I just sanded them down. Of course it wasn't perfect, but enough for my needs.

Hope to have helped you!!

Gustavo.

[Gustavo Rocha]

Now to some new progress.

Thanks for all the comments! I was a little out of time to come here and post some new pics of how the work is going. I already finished the turbine and I'll start today the weathering of the ceramic plates in the exhaust nozzle. Let's see how it will go.

Here is the afterburner ring:

The other part:

Inside the burner can:

Next I applied some clear blue lacquer to the burner ring, but wasn't very happy with it. I didn't give it another try since it won't be very visible anyway.

Next I'll post some more detailing that I did to the can.

[Gustavo Rocha]

Even though I've had them for years, this was the first time I used pastel chalks and I really liked their look!

Hope you've liked it so far! I'm gonna eat something now because I've just got home from work and I'm hungry as a dog!! Later I'll put some new photos here that I haven't had the time to upload 'till now.

See you later!!

Gustavo.

[Gustavo Rocha]

Forgot to mention that the "artwork" was my little joke of "you cant' see it, but I know it's there" stuff. I used white colored pencil to do it and I confess that it didn't turn out much the way I expected either, but it's there!!

Gustavo.

[Gustavo Rocha]

Well Guys, some new progress on the afterburner can and exhaust nozzle.

Finished afterburner ring...

... and it in place inside the burner can:

Then I painted and dry brushed the fan blades:

Next came the exhaust nozzle. Started by masking the inside:

After completely masking the outside, I painted it with an ivory enamel. I didn't use white because it would be too "white", and I wanted a more subdued effect:

I forgot to give it a coat of Future, so I've did it now before going on to weathering the ceramic plates. Meanwhile I've been building the main wheel well, and I'll upload the pictures soon. I've been doing some research using Jake Melampy's book on the F-16 and also Daco's Uncovering the Lockheed Martin F-16. If you have any pictures of the wheel wells to share it will also be highly appreciated!!

Thanks to all,

Gustavo.