Hi everyone this is
my first submission to this great site. I love Tamiya kits, so this was a
must-buy (even though I'm a 20 year old engineering student on a tight budget).
I have 90% completed
this very enjoyable kit, with the weapons and most of the decals remaining.
I prefer to spend more time on detailing things like landing gear, cockpits
and engine bays, so I spent the most time on these areas. I didn't use any
aftermarket stuff. I used a squadron/signal walkaround and a heap of pictures I
found on the net for reference so that I could add details (such as cables in
the landing gear bays) in very accurate positions rather than inventing my own
details in random places that just look good. Check out a couple of real F-16
pics and compare them to my model and see what you think. Anyway here's some
pics:
To achieve a neat
result for the square buttons below the HUD and around the displays, I actually
just removed the black paint with a modelling knife. The real buttons appear to
be made of a plastic of some sort so i guess its fair enough to do this. The
yellow canopy jettison levers on the cockpit side were made by bending thin wire
to shape and gluing it into a 0.5mm drilled hole in the cockpit wall. For alot
of my wiring, including this case, I use individual strands of wire taken from
lengths of the cable used to hang wooden picture frames. Since I
didn't use the pilot figure, I stole the oxygen hose from him and used it for
the section of hose which sticks out of the right cockpit console.
You will
notice that I didn't use the centre pylon, I didn't want it getting in the way
of the landing gear bay that I spent the time on! I also don't like putting too
many weapons on my aircraft models as it takes away from the sleek lines of
an unladen fighter plane. Most of the landing gear
bay wiring was done with the wire mentioned earlier. I also used single strands
taken from some scrap Tamiya mesh. Solder was used at the back of the rear landing
gear bay. For the rings around the rear landing
gear struts I simply scraped off the white paint back to the bare diecast metal
and I think it looks alright.
Some wiring was
added to the engine bay bulkhead. The yellow-green tube on the right of the
engine bay is Tamiya vinyl tubing stiffened with wire. My email address
is rob_k16@hotmail.com if anyone
wants to ask me anything.
Robert
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