Hi folks! I am still plodding along on this build. Unfortunately I lost a week while I was out of town for work I was hoping to have this done by the end of June in an effort to finish the group build over on ARC, but also because I need to get started on my He177 for Bomber Command 2 and I am trying to give myself 6 months for that build and the Tanker Tangle build. Anyway, end of June is looking less and less likely, especially as I want to take my time and now is the point where I have a habit of rushing the finish. Must fight the temptation!
Enough rambling, onto the progress! The last little bits needed to be worked before I moved onto paint. The Greek F-16s have a unique antenna located on the sides of the intakes where the navigation lights are located, as shown in the photo below. I borrowed this from a Google search, its not my photo. The antenna is highlighted in the cut out.
Fortunately the Wolfpack para-brake tail included these unique antennas, as well as a couple others that are used on other FMS customer F-16s. I painted the back of the kit position lights chrome silver, and the fronts in a transparent green and red using MIGs crystal colors. Once dry, I attached them to the resin antennas while they were still on the pour stub. This made working with the sub assembly much easier.
Once everything was cured I cleanup the assemblies and masked the lights with Bare Metal Foil, cut the antennas off and mounted them to the airframe.
Here I found that I made a bit of a mistake. The method I used for painting the position lights works fine for most versions of the F-16. But I happened to check my reference material trying to make sure I placed the antennas correctly and I discovered that on the Block52+ and the Block52M variants, these lights are not a bulb behind a colored cover, they are colored LEDs behind a clear cover. Most people won’t know, but I do and all I can say is Oops! Remember, especially when doing any modifications to a basic kit – always check your reference material!
Moving on! I cleaned up the seam between the radome and the fuselage. I used miliput for the seam, sanded smooth and re-scribed the panel line. I also cleaned up the blending of the pitot tube on the nose.
And here is our Viper, ready for paint.
First step was to put down a good primer coat, using Alclad Gray Primer. I cleaned up any gaps or other issues I found, then re-primed those areas. Once the primer had dried, I ran some 1500 grit sand paper over it to lightly remove any imperfections. In all of the pictures I have seen of Greek F-16s, they are absolutely filthy, with the exception of the Block52M which are immaculately clean, although those photos could been from very early in their service life, I don’t know. To replicate the dirtiness I started with a pre-shade, using flat black on all the seams and the panel lines.
Next up the camouflage. I used Model Master Paints for the main colors, thinned with the model master thinner in a nearly 1:1 ratio. The compressor was set to about 12psi and sprayed the pattern freehand, using the following as a guide. I matched the FS color codes for the paints, I’m not sure they exactly match a brand new Greek F-16, but they do convey an older faded machine IMHO.
First color on was FS36307, Light Sea Gray. The radome was also painted, but I used Lifecolor FS36173, Neutral Gray.
Next color was FS36251, Navy Aggressor Gray
And lastly was FS35237 Medium Gray.
Its not perfect, but I think it came out pretty well, and I am pleased with what was my first successful attempt at a freehanded camo pattern.
Next steps are to touch up some areas, paint all the antennas and some other details then on to the gloss coat.
I've also worked a little bit on Diana, but not enough to show any progress just yet. Thought it was way better to do that then try to watch the paint dry! :tomato
Thanks for watching!
Mike
