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AFV Club and Monogram F-5 Adversaries


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I'm going to build Monogram's classic F-5F (in RoG's box) and AFV Club's F-5N. I will use a little bit of adtermarket, but not much. So far, just Steel Beach intake covers for the Monogram kit since there are no intake trunks.

 

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Oh, and Furball decals... I'll do Red Baron and Bio's bird.

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The F-5N will be done up like the box art.

 

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Here are the cockpit parts. I bought the F-5N at a contest vendor table and the cockpit had been started. I'll repaint it.

 

The Monogram parts look decent and in their day, I'm sure that level of detail was amazing. But the AFV parts are absolutely stunning here.

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The instrument panel on the left is AFV Club

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Good choice. I have built both of these recently. The AFV club cockpit is remarkable, There is little if anything to improve upon.It just needs a new seat. The monogram cockpit is still better than many kits, even today. The AFV club kit was fun to build, I am almost jealous to watch you build it. 

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17 hours ago, Kurt H. said:

Good choice. I have built both of these recently. The AFV club cockpit is remarkable, There is little if anything to improve upon.It just needs a new seat. The monogram cockpit is still better than many kits, even today. The AFV club kit was fun to build, I am almost jealous to watch you build it. 

Kurt, did you use the AFV Club decals? If so, how were they? 

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I dorked around a little bit on the Monogram F-5F tonight...the kit supplies the original conical radome and shorter LEX; the aircraft I'm building has the shark nose and larger LEX. I got hooked up with an extra set of AFV Club large LEX and shark nose radome so a little bit of surgery is in order.

 

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9 hours ago, picknpluck said:

Kurt, did you use the AFV Club decals? If so, how were they? 

I used the same furball decal sheet you are using.  I did have to use a few AFV club decals  for some small detail, and they were fine and responded well to microsol/set

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I got both sets of cockpits primed and base coated with FS36231 but didn't feel like detail painting last night so I started assembling the rear section of the AFV Club kit. @Kurt H. you were right! This kit is FUN to build! Everything. Just. Fits. 

 

Intake trunks slot in with no sanding or filling required.

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The opened louvers is a nice feature.

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I was all set to build this with a seated pilot and open canopy as if the aircraft were powered up. But then I realized the only real disappoinment with this kit so far: no intakes trunking! Phase Hangar offers a set, but they're sold out. Change of plans, I'll plug the intakes. Luckily the glue hadn't fully set on the louvers so I could swap them out for the included closed set as I believe they wouldn't be open if the engines are shut down. Added bonus of not having to fill the massive ejector pin holes inside the intakes now.

 

The rest of the rear half went together like a dream.

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6 minutes ago, Kurt H. said:

It just goes together, It is a great fitting kit.  Once you start, you just can not stop.

 

I noticed you started a day early, so your deadline is 9/30/2020.  😉

Ha! I'll be done WAY ahead of the deadline! I'm planning to contribute multiple threads to this GB. This was a great idea!

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Here are the respective cockpits. Again, AFV Club for the single seater and Monogram for the two-seater.

 

Monogram, of course, has the habit of molding their ejection seats into the cockpit tub and some of the details are pretty soft, like the general outline of the seat backs and the belts. On the other hand, they molded in belts and texture on the seat cushions. The AFV Club seat is a separate assembly and, while crisply molded, is devoid of any detail so I ordered a resin seat from Quickboost. The Monogram seats somehow work pretty decently when the cockpit is all painted up and buttoned into the fuselage.

 

As for the instrument details, Monogram's effort is still pretty decent by today's standards--not bad for a 40 year old kit. However, AFV Club really hit it out of the park here. The instrument panel is crisply molded with a ton of detail.

 

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After the cockpits were done, I buttoned everything up. I've now got a pair of F-5s!

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I spent the evening filling, sanding, and scribing on the Monogram kit. The spare AFV Club radome needed some blending with the Monogram fuselage as did the LEX extensions. I also added covered intakes from Steel Beach.

 

The AFV Club F-5N just needed a touch of Perfect Plastic Putty in the join between the nose section and rear fuselage and the lengthwise seam along the nose.

 

D1xPZNl.jpg

 

 

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The Tamiya F-14 is a wonderful kit. The AFV F-5 has similar good fit and a much nicer cockpit. Add the seemingly limitless number of cool paint schemes for F-5s and the relatively decent price of the kit and you've got a great recipe.

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Wow! I'm really impressed with what you've done with the AFV F-5, but I'm doubly impressed how good the 35+ year old Monogram cockpit looks next to the AFV cockpit. The Monogram kit needs a lot of TLC, for sure, but it has fantastic detail for a kit its age. 

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1 hour ago, RKic said:

Wow! I'm really impressed with what you've done with the AFV F-5, but I'm doubly impressed how good the 35+ year old Monogram cockpit looks next to the AFV cockpit. The Monogram kit needs a lot of TLC, for sure, but it has fantastic detail for a kit its age. 

Thanks! Yeah, my biggest gripe with the Monogram kit, honestly, is the seam between the upper and lower fuselage half that runs through the exhaust area where there are a bunch of rivets.

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Kind of a risky move that may complicate painting later on, but I opted to install the landing gear first. With silver gear and wells, I thought gluing after paint would leave too much potential for a mess. The Monogram kit, in particular, had me concerned because there are no mounting tabs or slots for the gear legs or the retraction struts.

 

Here's a few shots to show the difference in surface detail between the two kits.

 

Monogram:

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AFV Club:

 

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And here's where things stand as if now...

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Edited by picknpluck
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Very nice airbrush work. I’m painting up a NSAWC F-16A right now, putting my 20/20 (and 770) to the test. 

 

What are you thinning with? 

 

Cheers

Collin

Collin, MRP comes pre-thinned. It's straight out of the bottle.

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