This
kit was a classic in its day. To quote Detail and Scale in their review “we
highly recommend this kit as one of the best ever produced”. That was in 1983.
Typical Monogram with nice interior detail, but raised panel lines. I found one
in some back alley 2nd hand shop and bought it on a whim thinking it may be fun
to try build one of the Monogram classics again.
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The
kit interior details are good, especially the main undercarriage bays and
the weapons bay. The kit offers a challenging build by today’s
standards. The fuselage split is horizontal into top and bottom halves and
as a result, a nasty seam must be dealt with on the forward and rear
fuselages. Unfortunately, in filling and sanding these seams, the raised
panel lines are destroyed. So out comes the scribing tool which I must say
is not one of my favorite modeling activities. Anyway, I rescribed as much
fuselage detail as possible as well as the wing upper surfaces. I left all
the wing underside raised panel lines as there are a vast number of these.
After half a pack of milliput and lots of elbow grease, the assembly was
complete.
I
painted the model using overall ADC grey (XtraColour X138). I decided not to use
the kit decals (23 years old) and bought the Fox One set. These decals are
beautifully printed but would not conform to any surface detail at all. I used
MicroSol, but this had no impact and once dry, the decals silvered badly. If
anyone reading this has experienced the same problem and found a solution,
please let me know.
Final
weathering was done using pastels but kept to a minimum as photographic
references show these aircraft being maintained in pristine condition. Comparing
the completed model with an F-16 of the same scale, it is amazing just how big
the F-106 actually was. Beautiful aircraft!
Malcolm
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