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(2022 F-16 Group Build) Double Hasegawa F-16 - 1/72


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I have these two fine, classic Hasegawa Vipers.

 

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I've built bunch of them over the years, but these two were bought specifically to build as these two.

I got myself a set of PrintScale decals. The A is going to be The NY ANG block 10b small stabbed 79-0399, a bird I've really been hoping to build for a long time. The C is going to be the 85-1420 Code One Candy. A block 25 build. So pretty much, whats in the box will suffice for these builds. The only problem are the small stabs for the A.

 

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After 15 minutes with sprue cutters, a bunch of Viper parts.

 

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Super basic cockpits. Gotta say, if it wasn't for the weirdly moulded ejection seat (part of side being moulded into the cockpit tub) it would be pretty ok. I only added seatbelts and o2 bottle to the side of the seat, along with the red box (A flight data recorder?).

 

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Small stabs I did the easy way. Just have to fill the panel lines.

 

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Some minor work in the nozzle department. A 5 minute job, but it makes a painted nozzle look so much better. Or at least not so plain.

 

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The major subassemblies laid out.

 

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And a few moments later, almost ready to paint Vipers.

 

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I'll have to tint the clear parts on the C. The A apparently had clear canopy. Once I'll be able to airbrush I'll probably paint the nozzles too and glue them. They're pretty good fit, so I left them a few times till the end. I've run out of good metalizers I could paint by hand though.

 

Kind of wish I had the F-16N right now... Its buried so deep in the stash I would have to dig for an hour to get it out.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/31/2022 at 11:35 PM, crackerjazz said:

Cool project Thadeus!   Following along..

 

Thanks!

 

On 2/4/2022 at 2:42 PM, Kurt H. said:

Very cool. Nice quick progress on these, and nice work in the cockpits. I love this era of Hasegawa kits.. there is something cool about Hasegawa 1/72 kits of that era. 

 

Thank you for joining in with two builds!

 

Thanks! The Hasegawa F-16 are super simple builds. A bit basic, yes, but still kind of ok-ish. Once separated from sprues they fit in a small zip bag.

 

I do love a nice Group Build 😉

 

So, I broke out the airbrush, tinted the canopy. Took pictures, saw how much of a mess I made, deleted the pics, forgot about my little Vipers for a while. Ok, just kidding. I tinted it three times before that, wiping my work every time. The second attempt was actually the best. I have no idea how some people tint the canopies and make them smooth. I tried a different smoke/thinner ratio and ended up with uneven, bubbly surface each time. Sometimes with added dust from a paper towel.

 

But once I got over that, I did some quick detail work, painted the wheel wells and intake white and prepped the model for a camouflage work. I want the A to be more beat up than the C.

 

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The Hasegawa F-16 could be nice canvas for some additional detail work, could use some panel line corrections between the versions too. For a quick build they are nice too.

 

One not fun part were some problems with finish. Once I had the leftover paint I thought just for fun I could paint radomes black. I might find that usefull when painting them later, the final colour. On one of the models I had some trouble with smoothness of finish. Never occured while painting with Tamiya paints (or Gunze), despite the fact I'm not using them for long time. Anybody has an idea, what that might have been? I painter the lower one first, then the upper one. But they got the same paint, at the same time otherwise. I'm kind of worried this might happen again. I'll try and smooth it out with paper towel or fine sandpaper.

 

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I had so much fun building the two, I started two more Hasegawa Vipers. I'll post some progress later.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

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Yeeey! Paint is done! The thing is... I'm not entirely happy with the colours. I keep getting that feeling latelly. I used Gunze 36118. Which is more like a 26118, but whatever. Apparently, a lot of F-16 in ODS had very dark radomes, so I took some extra dark sea gray with a few drops of light gray.

 

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The thing is, I'm so used to Model Master 36118, which is darker, more blueish, I feel the gunze is simply much too light. With flash it's much worse.

 

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But without it's not really the same either.

 

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I'm most happy with the way the 1/48 F-16 came out. It's most similar to how I see the camo (with neutral gray being a bit off). I'm a bit sceptical regarding the nosecones. Perhaps they should be a little lighter. I don't know. I tend to be unhappy with colours nowadays. It's beggining to nag me. Doing a repaint is never fun and I keep finding myself doing that more and more nowadays.

 

I also keep watching Youtube for modeling videos. Apart from quite a few videos of people brushpainting models to some very nice results, I saw quite a few videos where people would forgo the gloss under decals. My brush skills are lousy, but I guess I could risk doing decaling before a gloss coat. Colours I used are more of a semi gloss than matt anyway. Perhaps on one of them?

 

Plus I'll have to remember to get the GPU-5/A pod from spare stores box.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

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10 hours ago, kurnass77 said:

Woww,

I still have to start anything and you almost finished two builds...

Nice work and good tip about the Gunze 36118

 

 

Gianni

 

Thanks buddy! Had I tried to do the stuff You do, I'd probably still be scratching my head right now how to build a cockpit. It could realy use some work.

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On 3/8/2022 at 7:52 PM, Wolfgun33 said:

Both Vipers look great!

 

Thanks a lot.

 

Well the paint scheme didn't stop bothering me. Finally, I decided just to spray the entire model with Gunze 36118 with a few drops of extra dark sea gray.

Once I brought out the airbrush I thought, why not try to do some postshading, some misting on the paintjob. This way I could do both of the airframes with a different wear.

 

The A was treated with paint, mostly. The C was still with the original paintjob.

 

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And with the paint more or less done, and with the glosscoat on.

 

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I also lightened the radomes a bit.

 

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Next stop - decals!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Decals. The word that currently makes me tremble. My mind actually ads "trouble" to that.

 

Add to that... Hasegawa, and You know already what I mean. Hasegawa Decal Trouble - now in colour. Sounds like a sitcom commercial from way back. From the times, where beige colours were often just another shade of gray. This time, it's the other way around... I kind of forgot how out of colour Hasegawa F-16 decals can be. The ones in CJ boxings were pretty gray. That was probably why I usually bought these instead of other boxings. Guess now is a good time to check the stash for some aftermarket stencils, right?

 

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That gray is actually very much beige. Light gull gray could be a match too. I couldn't take it at a worse angle.

 

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So, this colour thing is a problem, but ultimatelly, I guess I can live with it (I'll reasses that in a couple of days).

 

The thing that makes me ponder... Are there any pink/orange (piorange?) stencils on this jet?

 

See, I' building the 79-0399 from 138th TFS. And for the love of me I can't seem to find a picture that shows the armament, exhaust port, and turbine disintegration stencils. Yes, on other jets they seem to be either piorange or gray. That is just so helpfull. But the 399 carries an unusual white stencils around the cockpit. Along with a piorange ejection seat triangle. There are a few pics at dstorm:

https://dstorm.eu/pages/en/usa/f-16.html

This one seems to be the best pic available:

https://www.f-16.net/g3/f-16-photos/album38/album68/79-0399

bigger resolution at Jetphotos. https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/5779754

 

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Don't get me started on the other jet. This was supposed to be an easy build. Apparently I really have to complicate things for myself. Perhaps anybody has some answers?

 

Thanks for stopping by!

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Hate these kind of issues, if you want mate, can check if I've some spare decals to replace yours.

Anyway. look nice overall.

Me too will add a ANG bird for my Desert Storm collection, but cannot find the right decals

 

 

Gianni

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Thank You for Your kind offer my Friend. I actually managed to raid my spares and find some SuperScale decals i probably won't be using 😉

 

The Print Scale sheet has only the NYANG decals unfortunatly. Don't know of any other sheet with DStorm ANG decals, although the Swamp Foxes scheme did not change much from what's in the F-16 box You got. At least on first impression.

 

So. The raid on the spares was a full success. I managed to secure two partial decal sheets I cut up in order to get some gray stencils.

And I really needed them both. I mean....

 

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Before I decalled the Shaw bird I was only partially convinced I should remove Hasegawa decals. The gray decals are from said spare SuperScale sheet. They were amazing to work with, even though they seem a bit too light.

 

So off with Hasegawa decals - shouldn't be that hard, right? A bit of masking tape... wait? No? ok. I can use the decal fluids. What?! No?! Ah well. In for a penny, right?

MotherFather SisterBrother....

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I took this as an additional opportunity to do some tonal variation. In for a pound.

 

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Print Scale decals have a full set of stencils. I was just reluctant to use them. They seem to be like 80-90% of the proper size. So I decided against cutting up another sheet, and went for the Print Scale stencils on the NYANG jet.

 

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The additional reason was, the NYANG jet has some light gray markings - the eagle and a cobra head. So this way I can achieve conformity on the grayness of the markings. So, nothing really happens without a reason. Should've never bothered with Hasegawa beige decals in the first place.

 

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So this way, both jets look slightly different. At least as much as two Hill Gray F-16's can, right?

The only gripe with this sheet is, the carrier film seems very matt. Print Scale decals are usually a bit on the matt side, but this sheet is really the non-glossiest I ever used.

 

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Next stop -> weapons! Them GPU-5's are not going to assemble themselves, right?

 

Thanks for stopping by!

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 4/6/2022 at 12:16 AM, Geoff M said:

Good call and good recovery on the hasegawa decals.  Looks much better now..  Keep up the good work.

 

Geoff M

 

Thanks! Actually, stupid lazy me for even attemptin to work with decals, that even on the sheet were much too beige to begin with. So I got what I deserved 😉

 

On 4/6/2022 at 12:45 AM, crackerjazz said:

Very nice progress, Thadeus!

 

Thanks!

 

 

So I would not be myself if I hadn't screwed up something. Yaaay.

This time, final coat. Yaaaaay.

 

A lot of people praise the Tamiya X-22 as a perfect gloss coat. Honestly I've had much better experience with Gunze H-30. It's probably me. And so I thought I'd use the gunze flat coat, right? Well, save for some fingerprints, I tried for 1.5 hours yesterday to get a decent flat coat. For two little, ekhem, models. And the best flatness I got was that. It's like 1 or 3 sheens away from what I wanted... I tried misting, multiple layers, wet coat (which turned the paint gloss!!!!!). I tried thinning it more, thinning it less... For lovelly 90 minutes. When I was using Model Master acryl flat the result was quick and mostly painless.

 

 

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In the end I switched to Tamiya flat, and after a single coat I managed to get the desired result.

 

This was not the last curved ball at the end of the line. The gunpod. The GPU-5/A. In my case, The Hasegawa GPU-5/A from weapons set III. There aren't a lot of pictures of this pod fitted to F-16's. Or I just haven't found a lot. What I did find show very little clearance from the ground. In my case, once I installed the pod, it touched the ground. I used the small pylon supplied by Hasegawa, going as far as fearing it would be too shallow. But in the end it turned out it was too much still. I opted to sand the top of the pod a bit, then file a ridge on the centerline, making a small dent for the centerline pylon. I don't know if the jet would be able to lift of with that much clearing.

 

Personally, I blame a few factors. One: As You can see, the Hasegawa Viper has a significant buttdown stance. Two: I sanded the main landing gear wheels much more than the nose wheel. Three: The pod seems too large - it's almost to the NLG bay door to the front, and it should end parallel to the underside fins. This makes sense, as the jet would be able to take off then. I feel it;s a bit too long and too thick. I suppose no one thought I'd be putting it under the fuselage of an F-16, right?

 

 

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Well, whatever the case, I'm calling these two done.

 

The A took me 17 hours and 41 minutes to finish, which, considering the repaint and the pita mattcoat is pretty decent timing. I'm quite happy with the finish.

 

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The C took 15 hours and 37 minutes, which is even better time. And, apart from slight trouble removing the masking tape glue from the canopy, the end was quite uneventfull.

 

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Funny thing, I probably should've gone with an ECM pod on the centerline! So I guess I can add that to the "troubles" list. How about that. An F-16 with no external fuel tanks.

 

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Here is one shot with both of my newly finished Vipers

 

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And just as I took this shot, the skies opened and a voice sung... "now You can start building Hornets".

 

Thanks for stopping by! Have fun building!

 

 

 

 

 

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On 5/8/2022 at 10:14 AM, kurnass77 said:

Look great both my friend!

Don't know of the gunpod issue, maybe there're a AM one?

 

Gianni

 

Thank You my friend!

Don't know if there is an aftermarket GPU-5/A. Its not really super complicated shape to put together though.

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37 minutes ago, Mr.Happy said:

Thadeus,

 

Gorgeous work of those 16’s. 
 

Mr. Happy

 

 

Thanks Mr. Happy! It's really nice to have them on my shelf!

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On 5/13/2022 at 4:22 PM, Thadeus said:

 

Thank You my friend!

Don't know if there is an aftermarket GPU-5/A. Its not really super complicated shape to put together though.

Only other sources I'm aware of for the GPU-5 in 1:72 are not aftermarket, but kits: the vintage Monogram Strike Eagle (which represented 71-291, the DRF demonstrator) and Italeri's F-15E.  I've never compared size/shape to the Hasegawa version so not sure if either would be an improvement for accuracy or fit to the Hasegawa F-16.

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2 hours ago, Quixote74 said:

Only other sources I'm aware of for the GPU-5 in 1:72 are not aftermarket, but kits: the vintage Monogram Strike Eagle (which represented 71-291, the DRF demonstrator) and Italeri's F-15E.  I've never compared size/shape to the Hasegawa version so not sure if either would be an improvement for accuracy or fit to the Hasegawa F-16.

 

I forgot all about the Italeri Strike Eagle. I might actually have a gunpod from that kit somewhere... I'll check if its still around.

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