1/32 Tamiya F-16CJ

 Fighting Falcon On line build  Part 1

by Steve Bridges

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When Tamiya announced that they were releasing a 1/32nd scale F-16CJ, I was very anxious to get my hands on it.

First, a bit about myself.

I’ve been building aircraft models off and on since I was 6 years old (am 41 now), and in the past, have done mainly WW-II allied aircraft, with a few jets, armor, and ships thrown into the mix.

I discovered Twobobs decals when Trumpeter released their 1/32 A-10 a few years ago, and since then, have concentrated mainly on modern US jets.  Some of my previous work can be seen in the model gallery section of the Twobobs web page.

So far, I’ve built almost 300 various aircraft, ships, and armor.  Included in that is 3 1/32 Tamiya F-15Cs, 5 F-15Es, 3 F-4C/D, 3 F-4E, and 2 F-4J.  I seem to have a thing for Tamiya 1/32nd aircraft J

I got married a bit over a year ago, and am blessed with an understanding wife who doesn’t mind having all those airplanes around the house.  She even got me one of the 2 1/32 Tamiya F-16s I’m building as a Christmas present.

I live about 30 minutes from Wright Patterson AFB (home of the National Museum of the Air Force – aka the Air Force Museum), so it’s nice to be able to run out there to actually look at something I’m building, but the only F-16 they have is a F-16A from the Thunderbirds.

A couple of years ago when Academy released their 1/32nd F-18 Hornet with decals from Twobobs, I did an on-line build of that kit that was on the Twobobs web page.  I offered again with the Tamiya F-16, and Bob Sanchez suggested that ARC would be a better place for it.

I’m not going to go into the parts breakdown or other info on the kit that has been covered other places, but this is strictly a build article.  I’ll cover things step by step, with notes on construction, color choices, etc..

This specific kit will end up a s a F-16C Block 40 model S/N 89-0013, assigned to the 8th FW in Korea with the decals that are due out from Twobobs at the end of January 2005.

Steps 1-6 – The engine dolly
Construction of the engine dolly is straight forward, with the exception of some mold seams on the bottom of the axles (Part J3), and on the bottom of the engine supports (Part J7).  These are easy to fill

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It was on to the painting.  The sequence of painting was

1.      Mask off the rails, and spray the green color of all the other components.  The Tamiya color call out is for Dark Green 2, but since I use almost exclusively Testors Model Master paints, Field Green FS34097 looked like a good match.

2.      Once that was done, the Green parts on the dolly were masked off, and I masked for the read eye on the tow bar and the ends of the rails.  I used Part J9 to determine where the tape should be placed

3.      Once that was dry, I masked off the red ends, and sprayed the rails with Model Master Aluminum Metalizer

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With all the parts painted (I used MM Gunmetal where the instructions called for Tamiya X-10, and MM Aluminum where it called for AS-12), I completed the assembly with the engine supports, and the “clamps” on the end of the dolly)

Steve

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Photos and text © by Steve Bridges