sigtau
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Posts posted by sigtau
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On 9/5/2023 at 12:46 PM, Mr Matt Foley said:
I have an old nozzle from Aires which is for the Hasegawa kit. Once I receive my kit I'll have to check and see if it fits. The MLU Vipers are using the Pratt F100 or 220?
I tried the Aires nozzle for the Hasegawa kit and it was undersized. The Reskit Hasegawa nozzle includes a new afterburner shroud that was probably meant to correct the Hasegawa part.
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7 hours ago, Solo said:
I still don’t see any nose differences.
The top down view looks good. Both forward fuselages appear to have the same shape.
In the front on view, it looks like the GWH kit nose is pointing up. However, it doesn't look like both fuselage sections are sitting flat. I think the stark contrast between the bare plastic color of each kit is making the GWH shape look different..
legend1, take some side shots of the the two forward fuselages. Since it looks like the Tamiya fuselage halves aren't glued yet, try mating up one side from each kit to show the differences aft of the radome.
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On 8/23/2023 at 6:39 AM, USAFsparkchaser said:
Can someone confirm the Res Kit Pratt and Whitney exhaust kinetic set fits the Gold Series?
The Reskit exhaust for the gen 1 Kinetic kit doesn't fit. The closest fit of all of the reskit P&W exhausts is the one designed for the Hasegawa kits. It will require some slight modifications to slide into the kit afterburner shroud.
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On 8/21/2023 at 6:27 AM, ST0RM said:
TLDR: Can a reasonable F-16A Block 10 be built from what's in this boxing?
I've purchased the stencils and decals for a Top Aces jet, with the thoughts of using this kit. I know they upgraded the stabs, so are both included? Given that it's a MLU.Not really. There's nothing shake and bake about trying to make a block 10 from this kit.
The base tooling is for a block 52 airframe. There is an early vertical tail and aft upper fuselage included. The early aft fuselage requires some panel lines to be filled to represent the block 10 airframe. The vertical tail needs some rework as well.
The rest of the main parts need extensive panel line rework to represent a block 10 bird. The Reid Air early F-16A/B book is an excellent resource for this.
Be sure to pick up the Hypersonic back date set. It includes the most challenging bits that otherwise require scratch building.
If you are building a jet with the 119 jamming pod on the centerline pylon, you will need to scratch build the early pylon.
3D Chutes makes a set of mid-wing early pylons and a decent block 10 tail.
Kopecky makes early wing tip sidewinder rails that look great.
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Just pointing out that your auctions are set to require immediate payment, thus not allowing the buyer to "request total" for combined shipping.
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On 8/8/2023 at 3:59 AM, Buckmeister said:
Never used that particular one, but zero dollars of my money will ever go to Aires again. Their stuff, in my experience, never comes close to fitting. I spoke to the Aires guy about it at IPMS in Phoenix (or maybe Omaha?) a few years ago, and he told me (I’m not lying) that he knows it doesn’t fit, but doesn’t care because 99% of what he sells will never be used anyway. I walked away and that was the last time I ever bought his stuff.
Get the Quinta Studios stuff and use the kit parts with their decals
There's two kinds of Aires fit. Their older stuff (cast in yellow resin) would eventually fit, but would take tons of work. Then there's the kind of fit where the damn resin casting shrunk 15% because they are using garbage resin. They will sent you replacement sets if you email them to complain about this issue.
I've used a ton of their older sets for the Hasegawa F-14. I've also used their sets for the Hase A-4, F-16, F-18, and a few others. They can be made to look great because the details are quite good most of the time. But they have a habit of taking a set made for brand A kit and then repackaging it for another brand of the same subject with no changes to the molds. I noticed this with their Tamiya F-16 set. It was nearly identical to their Hasegawa F-16 set. That pretty much turned me off to their products.
Companies like Quinta, Kelik, and Reskit produce some game changing products. They get most of my aftermarket budget these days. I'll often mix an Eduard PE set, Quinta, and throw in a little scratch building to get a cockpit looking better than an Aires set ever could.
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57 minutes ago, Dave Williams said:
I’ve got the 2022 MLU kit with the new Quinta cockpit and scab plate set on the way, Eduard IRIS-T, ALQ-131, seat, and SNIPER pod, ResKit exhaust, and plan to build a Norwegian aircraft, even though the kit decals don’t have the correct fin flash for what I’m doing. But based on this thread, I may was well just bin all it because it’s a horrible piece of poop. Or not.
Even if you don't try to go full cray-cray on accuracy, it's still a somewhat miserable experience.
Just basic quality issues like the very large step along the wing roots will leave you frustrated. The step on mine was around 0.2mm high. It looked horrible after primer, so I took the time to scribe/sand/scribe/blend it to look correct. The final product isn't perfect, but I called it good enough and painted the camo.
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5 hours ago, Brad-M said:
I picked up the MLU kit from a private sale, like so many have mentioned, it looks great in the box. No warping of parts at all. So, my next question is, can I build the RNoAF scheme without adding or subtracting details in the kit? Has anyone even done a complete review of this kit, including the decal options? Can each decal option be built within the box?
TIA
The kit is essentially a block 52 viper with some early block parts thrown in the box to make it resemble an early block viper. I won't rehash the specifics as they are sprinkled throughout this thread already. But the bottom line is it's going to take a ton of work to make it accurate for anything older than a block 25 airframe.
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The turkey feathers (and obviously the tail hook housing) were on this plane in May 1980:
https://www.airfighters.com/photo/32714/M/USA-Air-Force/McDonnell-Douglas-F-15B-Eagle/75-0088/
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I placed an order for an F-16D and E-2C screwtop kits yesterday using the 20% off coupon for their anniversary sale. Total with UPS shipping was ~$95 and I just got the UPS ship notice.
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12 hours ago, ORANGF15Guy said:
I am currently working on two GWH F-15C’s and I am using a set of KA nozzles and a set of Reskit nozzles. Both fit the GWH kit and I have dry fitted each to verify! It appears to me that both sets will fit easily. I will say that the KA set is the way to go if you don’t want to attach all of the actuators to the nozzle, like the Reskit set!
+1 for the Reskit nozzles. KA is good too, but I had an issue with their B-1B nozzles showing up distorted due to poor packaging (too tight).
Avoid Aires nozzles at all costs. They have shrinkage issues these days and I've found several of their detail sets to be massively undersized. They also have a habit of recycling their masters that were meant for another kit. This tends to cause significant fit issues.
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1 hour ago, Solo said:
Nice aftermarket just announced:
This looks like a great set for the kit. The kit cockpit is just a rehash of the original tooling. I actually used the Quinta F-16A set for old Kinetic kit in my build. It fit with just a small amount of trimming on the outside edges of the tub.
However, the kit IP coaming is slightly out of proportion to the real thing (unchanged from the original tooling). This set appears to have fixed that issue, much like the Hypersonic F-16A replacement IP and coaming. -
Question for those who already have the F-16D kit in hand. On the F-16C/MLU kits, the mold insert for the single seater fuselage has a huge step at the wing root. Is this step present on the F-16D molding?
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4 hours ago, jonwinn said:
Mr Hobby makes kits also????? Does Tamiya kits runs circles around Mr Hobby, Mr Paint and AK KITS!!!!! REALLY?????
We're talking about Tamiya paint, not kits.
Try staying on topic.
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2 hours ago, jonwinn said:
YES YES YES YES!!!! They have a HUGE Asian market. The U S is a minority. They cater to their own first and foremost!
Mr. Hobby is also based in the Asian market, yet they offer a huge line of FS/RAL/RLM/etc. colors.
The Tamiya acrylic paint line is still stuck in the 1990's and is highly over-rated. Mr. Hobby, Mr. Paint, and AK paint lines all run circles around Tamiya.
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According to the Fightertown bone supremacy decal instructions, the VF-103 planes were painted in the 3-tone TPS scheme during this time frame.
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On 5/15/2023 at 12:35 PM, MattN said:
Nice pics - but no sign of LANTIRN, bombs or racks? I didn't see any markings for those on the decal sheet either 😨
It would be a shame for them to not include those bits. Everything else in the kit indicates it will depict a late B, including a sparrowhawk HUD.
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16 hours ago, longmc said:
I have yet to receive anything, and just now got a shipping email from lucky models stating the container has shipped?
Wow, you actually got an email that the container was shipped? I've repeatedly asked customer service for actual info for 4 months, all I get is excuses. I even told CS that Raymond Chung himself told me to ask for assistance on getting my tracking number that should have already shipped to me.
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On 4/19/2023 at 11:38 AM, KursadA said:
I have been waiting for a re-release of the kit, but it does not look like it is happening anytime soon. Without a re-release of the kit, I am not sure I can move another 500 sheets. An E-2C/D sheet is more likely.
It looks as though it has been reissued. It's now in stock at all the major online retailers in the USA. Lucky Models shows it in stock as well at all their warehouses.
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11 hours ago, parche said:
Nope, but at least two people are selling my master's thesis as a book on Amazon...
I was an Excel guru back in college and exposed an ROTC cheating ring. Our senior aircraft prelim design class had four teams competing against each other. I discovered one of my complex design spreadsheets being used by at least one other team. We're talking a spreadsheet that took 60+ hours to design. It turns out, all the AF and Army ROTC cadets were pirating spreadsheets and sharing them to avoid doing the work. It was reported to the dean of engineering and at least five ROTC cadets were nearly expelled.
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On 5/1/2023 at 8:53 AM, dai phan said:
Hi all,
Despite the fact that I wash the parts in soap and prime ( I use Mr Surfacer 1500), I found out the paint does not stick well to the resin parts. Any suggestions? Dai
Some resins seem to have terrible adhesion no matter how much cleaning you do. Reskit in particular is very difficult to get Mr. Surfacer 1500 to stick to it. The best solution I've found is to use heavily thinned Mr. Metal PE primer as a base coat. It sticks to everything and can be applied very thin and still be effective. It remains slightly tacky after drying. Immediately coat it with 1500 once or your base paint color to prevent it from collecting dust.
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For anyone who was still waiting on their kits ordered back in December, any updates?
Here's what my status shows. It sounds like it might have made it on a ship, but there's no actual confirmation, only "scheduled".
Side note, I used Paypal and it's saying I have until June 9th to file a claim. I fully intend on exercising that option in the next two weeks.
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7 hours ago, JEN722 said:
The new Kinetic F-16AM really need a new correct fin base. The one in the kit is way too fat - more like a C/D fin base.
Jens
The 3D chute company who makes the early pylons also makes all of the versions of the early vertical tail. I ordered a couple and they are in route.
Even when using all these aftermarket parts, there's still a significant amount of panel line rework needed to back date all the kit parts to the proper early F-16A configurations. The kit was more or less tooled to be a block 25 or later F-16C that has been upgraded to modern standards.
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8 hours ago, Niels said:
I don't want to highjack your thread, but early F-16 pylons are available in all 3 scales from 3-D chute experts;
FacebookI've bought them and they are really nice
Wow, I see they also have replacement early vertical tails. Where does this company ship from?
September 2023 releases
in Caracal Models
Posted
Any Idea when the links will go live?