Hasegawa's 1//72 F-16

[herbies]

So my first public build pretty excited.
There is a bit of flash, but shouldn't be any problem. Picked up eduards PE for this, noticed how small some of the stuff was. Never worked with PE this small before so will be a challenge. Saving up for an airbrush so will be hand painted.
Sorry for this crappy photo quality took it with my phone.







That flash!

Also can anyone help me with this?

I get that it wants me to sand done the sides, but to what extent?

[herbies]

Started yesterday.

A few problems with the photoetch as it was my first time with paper backing part. First I decided to try put glue onto the photoetch and then the attached the paper. Which didn't align properly and wouldn't move without tearing. Then tried it the other way with glue on the paper and attaching the photoetch, same thing. Then decided to align first and then place superglue over the photoetch. Which worked!
You probably can't see it but the paper for the central control pannel is off a little bit. Am annoyed about it, but thought well what the heck not going to see it unless you really focused on it. But learnt from my experience.

After that decided to glue the other photoetch parts to the fuselage. Think I used to much superglue, but lesson learned, use small amounts first.
In the instructions for the photoetch it asked to glue 2 more of those squares a bit forward of the left side, but looking at reference photos and other builds. I could only see the one that I glued in placed. So decided to go of those references.

Then went onto my first time to "saw" off part of the model. When I was going through this, my original idea was to cut around the edges of the part(Don't know what its called) needed to saw off. Then decided to cut it directly inline with flat part of the model. Then lining it up against my ruler I marked the halfway point and sawed it in half. Sanded the saw marks as perfect as I could get it, but ended up with some indentation, which shouldn't pose a problem. Picked up some 1.5mm by 0.4mm styrene strips. Cut a little bit and glued it to one half. Attached the other half let it sit for about 30 minutes. Then glued a little bit more styrene to finish off the gap.
Sanded down the protruding styrene and filled with Tamiya Basic putty. Let that dry for an hour and then sanded smooth as I could possibly make it, as the sawed off parts were not strongly attached to the styrene, so ran a little bit more extra thin underneath.

So moved onto painting the seat with Tamiya XF-1 and XF-19, before attaching the PE for it, which looks painful, but hey learning new things. Painted the cockpit floor with Tamiya XF-19.

And thats where I'm at. Need to touch up and do another coat of paint. Once the PE is attached to seat and also the side control panels. Will moved to attached the cockpit to the top fuselage and then will add the sawed off part afterwards.
Sorry for the photo quality my phone doesn't like taking photos of small things... though should have a digital camera soon.

[Liamcraven666]

[Homerlovesbeer]

Great start!

[herbies]

Even though I've had a week of before starting my new job, couldn't get much done as had other stuff to do. But finally got sometime last night to press on with this F16 build.

Glued the cockpit floor to the bottom half of the fuselage and then proceeded to test fit the top half.

Now I don't know whether that gap is meant to be there or not, but will see once the seat is attached.

All the PE attached, well some of it bits went flying ie what looks like the throttle control, two of the PE that's meant to go across the top of the seat and one of the handles on the left side of the seat. But am I annoyed, no, cause won't be working with PE at 1/72 scale anymore, but was a fun and frustrating time. Especially the seat belts, maybe in 1/48 scale, which is my preferred scale it'll be easier. Hopefully.

The top part of the seat, the PE I think I glued in it wrong as that bend is meant to sit on top of what it is glued to. Not to fussed about it. Though am loving the look of the cockpit now. Instead of the bareness it was going to be.

Then glued both fuselage halves together and used tamiya tap to hold it down plus a clamp in the back to help that area.

Don't know if you can see, but the front section around the nose cone and cockpit, there is a misalignment bulges. Whether it is user error or just molding issue it is fine as it is a simple fix. Though the rest of the fuselage fits perfectly, was worried that I might have to use a fair pit of filler, but probably only a little bit.

Picked up some MIG paints to paint the camo, so hopefully they go down better than tamiya or mr color which I've been used to brushing on.
Thanks homer and liam!