Tamiya F-16 Fighting Falcon 1/72. Part 1 - Kit overview and preparation.

I consider myself as a car model builder. I love everything about cars, especially car races and Formula 1. But the events went the way that I decided to start my blog with something very unusual for me - the fighter in 1/72 scale from Tamiya.



I bought this kit as an amazing package that includes not only model itself but also a set of detailed missiles, canopy masks and a set of photo-etched upgrade parts.

Unfortunately this is the 1st version of the Tamiya's F16 kit from 1993. Quality and accuracy of the parts corresponds to 90-ties that is not so good, to put it mildly.

Even though the kit looks very simple I predict a lot of work to make the model look "ok" in the end.



Luckily the decals in the kit are undamaged.

Another downside of the package - is that all the upgrade parts (photo-etch, masks and missiles) are made for Hasegawa kit. But let's what can be done there. 

One more setback I found out - the decals from additional missiles kit became yellow after 30 years.


So I stick them on the window and left for my vacation for a couple of weeks. It helped a lot.



Since I am absolute beginner in aircraft building (this is my first model), I started to watch YouTube and search for different WIPs on the internet in order to learn. And after some time I realized that the work should be started with the full assembly of the cockpit. So let's go. I will describe the cockpit assembly in the next post. Stay tuned!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tamiya Fiat 500F 1/24. Part 1 - Engine

Image
Next on the desk is another old kit from Tamiya - Fiat 500F from classic series. This is very rare kit that is not produced any longer. The parts are not very sharp and this is what you have to deal with. I think it is a typical for old kits. I found the kit on German local eBay as partly started. So first I had to disassemble the engine and suspension. Of course this process left some residues from glue, which I removed as much as I could. I did not make a picture of sprues, but there very few parts comparing to the modern kits and the whole kit looks like the weekend fun, but it will defenitely take several months for me, cause I want to build it properly with some upgrades which I'm going to produce from scratch. I also noticed that metal stickers are missing in the kit, seems like previous owner lost them. Well, let's see what I can do with it. After disassembling the engine, these are the parts that needs to be painted and glued. I did pre-assembly of the engine...
Read more

Tameo Renault R25. Chinese GP 2005. Fernando Alonso

Image
  I’ve been quiet on this blog for a few months, mainly because I wanted to document the entire build process in a single post. But I've realized that it might be better to update with significant milestones as I go along. So, today, I’m excited to share my latest project: the Renault R25—the car that won Fernando Alonso his first championship. For me, choosing to build this model was a no-brainer: 1. I’m a huge Formula 1 fan. 2. Fernando Alonso is my favorite driver. Having the Renault R25 on my shelf just felt right. I purchased this Tameo kit over a year ago, secondhand but still new and unopened. Finally, I got around to building it. I’ve been working on it since May, and by the end of August, it was complete—although there’s still some finishing touches left. I plan to display it in a shadow box on the wall, right above my McLaren MP4/30 that I built earlier. But enough with the intro, let’s dive into the build.
Read more

Ebbro McLaren-Honda MP4-30. Early season 2015. Fernando Alonso.

Image
  This time I'm going to build 1/20 scale Formula 1 car from Ebbro. This is a McLaren-Honda MP4-30 from Malaysian GP 2015 driven by Fernando Alonso. This car is famous due to the mem which appeared on the radio when Alonso was complaining about the engine performance (GP2 Engine, GP2!) . Since I very appreciate the talent of Alonso as a race car driver, I decided to build this car. Another reason is that I wanted to challenge myself in 1/20 scale that I've never built before. This scale doesn't allow any excuses in the building process and moreover the formula models are fully exposed which makes the build even more complicated. Every detail should be worked out properly. So let's get started. This blog post won't be splitted, I will post WIP from the beginning to the end. Unfortunately I don't have photos from all building steps but I will touch the most important. Let's do a quick review of the kit. The kit contains four sprues, body, pre-painted tyres, th...
Read more

Tamiya F-16 Fighting Falcon 1/72. Part 2 - Cocpit.

Image
 The kit proposes you to assemble 2 types of the cockpit: 1-seater and 2-seater. But I have photo-etched parts for 1-seater only. Therefore my way forward is quite obvious. In this photo I positioned the seat backwards. I did it right in the end, no worries. 😅  The seat itself was primed first using AK Gray primer and microfiller. I can recommend this primer due to ease of applying, smooth finish and short drying time. After 10-15 minutes I could apply the main color already. I chose medium gray water based acryllic from AK - FS36270 Then masked and pained the rest with Olive Drab from AK. I need to admit that 1/72 is very challenging when it comes to adding of upgrade-parts, especially for the cockpit. Different belts, bells and whistles were added (I don't know the proper names for all these parts 😋), but it took me few hours to assemble it promptly. The photo-etched parts I used were from Eduard Zoom color series. The rest of the cockpit was primed and painted the same co...
Read more

Tamiya Toyota GAZOO Racing TS050 HYBRID 1/24. Part 1 - Body Preparation

Image
A New Beginning: Toyota GAZOO Racing TS050 HYBRID Build With one model finished, it's time to embark on the next project. Our small-scale modeling community decided to take on a group build of the Toyota GAZOO Racing TS050 HYBRID , the 2019 Le Mans winner. While I can't say this car is a personal favorite—the design is decent, but there are more aesthetically pleasing cars in the LMP1 category—my reasons for joining were simple:
Read more

Tamiya F-16 Fighting Falcon 1/72. Part 3 - Canopy & Assembly

Image
  As the cockpit is done, I can continue with the rest and most challenging parts - canopy and the fuselage. The conopy has been molded in a way that during the cutting it off the sprue it left the damage on the border. So I had to sand it down with the different sanding papers and then polish with the polishing pastes from Tamiya. It didn't turn out perfect, but good enough to continue working on it. Then I masked it off to paint the lower border of the canopy and hide the flaws completely. So this is how it turned out in the end after the second round of masking and painting. I think not bad for the first attempt. Now I can start working on the assembly of the body, but first I need to fix obvious issues and check the rest with the primer. The main issues on the top are fixed. Bottom looked clean enough. Assembly is done and masking of the undercarriage too.  The air intake was a little bit tricky since it has to be painted white from inside but leave the backwall black. The...
Read more