Update 5: Assembly Has Begun | February 01 – February 18

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Niek Nijsen

I’ve spent the last week at my secondary modelling station and managed to get quite a few things done on the F-16.

Most of the work went into getting the new Dutch parachute tail to fit properly. The first resin part I received was completely wrapped, probably taken out the mould too early. I was send a second one which was a lot better, but unfortunately the front part had broken off during transport. I managed to glue it back on with some CA. This part was also slightly warped, but after a lot of sanding and bending I managed to get it pretty much straight again. Once that was done I had to align it with the fuselage and glued it in place with CA. I then filled the enormous gap around it with green putty before sanding it smooth using the FM sanding sticks.

Towards the end of the week I merged the upper and lower fuselage together. Because of the new cockpit, the front was difficult to fit properly and required a lot of bending, sanding, and force to go in place. I filled certain features that aren’t on the Dutch bird (such as extra flare dispensers) with green putty. Other large gaps were filled with putty as well, while smaller gaps were filled using Tamiya extra thin.

The wings were added and glued in place. Once dry I sanded it all smooth and fitted the ailerons to the back. When I tried to fit the front flaps, it turned out there was a gap of almost 1 mm between the flap and the fuselage. To fill this gap I added a 0.5 mm styrene sheet to the end of both parts and sanded it to the correct shape. Looks a lot better now and the gap is reduced to the correct size.

With the cockpit now in place, I’ve taped the spare canopy in place with Tamiya masking tape to prevent damage and dust getting in. This will later be replaced with the smoked canopy with which the Dutch F-16’s are fitted. I might leave it on for painting, not sure yet. Any tips are welcome.

I’ve done a few other small bits and pieces, which will show themselves in future updates. This includes cutting the tail and preparing a few other resin parts. Below is a photo of J-366 under construction next to the Orange Lion, which is waiting to be fitted to a wall mounted stand.

That’s it for now. I won’t be working on the model until early next month, so until then I’ll be posting updates on the King Tiger build (see link below). Thanks for watching and your comments!

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