Tamiya 1/48 F16C Aggressor

[Mr Bowcat]

Cheers guys.

[HAWKERHUNTER]

Just caught up with this one Bob. Looking great. Really felt your pain with the paint problems but so glad that you battled on with the clean up. This is going to look awesome.

[Mr Bowcat]

Cheers Steve.

[Mr Bowcat]

Good afternoon gents.

I spent most of yesterday applying the decals. The airframe decals were from Two Bobs (printed by Microscale) and mostly went down beautifully. They were incredibly thin with little carrier film, although a couple of them folded over and were impossible to get straight again. Luckily the sheet came with markings for 4 aircraft so I was able to swap out some other decals, albeit not always the right colour.

I used the kit decals for the ACMI & AN/ALQ-188 pods and the AIM-9. However, as the kit instructions don't include the AIM-120's (even though they are on the sprue) they also didn't have any decals on the kit sheet. Luckily I had some Meng (Cartograf) decals left over from my F-35B build so used those. In retrospect I could have used the Meng AIM-120's from my spares box, but at this stage I didn't want to get back to gluing/sanding/painting and the Meng versions were only a little better than Tamiya's.

I also used the UMP decal softeners for the first time and I'm very please with them. I used the normal and strong solutions, and the decals pulled down into every panel line and rivet. I think the ultra strong might even be able to tame thick Tamiya decals.

[Mr Bowcat]

Afternoon chaps.

Well, the weathering's done and nothing else fell off or broke. :tears-of-joy:

I've kept it very light and simple, I would imagine these Aggressor birds are used less and cleaned more than Warbirds. The aircraft and pylons have been given a Flory clay wash, and the pods & missiles a light enamel pin wash. I'm going to leave it at that on this one, less is more.

[scottie3158]

Bob,
Very nice indeed, a stunning paint job.

[Guest]

Weathering looks spot on to me Bob. Used but not trashed.

[topgazza]

To me less is always more with weathering. And that looks perfect Bob. Nice looking plane in real life let alone your model which is just lovely

[langy71]

excellent finish bob, top quality as per usual..:thumb2::thumb2:

[Mr Bowcat]

Cheers gents.

[adt70hk]

Bob

Sorry for behind on this. Well done for preserving after the paint problems, it was worth it.

Not up on modern jets and so have never come across this paint job before but I like the way it looks, so well done!

ATB

Andrew

[Mr Bowcat]

Cheers Andrew.

[Mr Bowcat]

Good morning guys. :

I put the finishing touches to this one last night. The rails & missiles/pods were installed along with the exhaust nozzle, pitot tube and AOA probes. Last job was the static dischargers, which were tiny and a right bugger to get glued on.

Finished pics here https://www.scale-models.co.uk/threa...gressor.35269/