rav_pl Posted July 19, 2008 Share Posted July 19, 2008 The Hobbycraft F-16 is a poor copy of Italeri Fighting Falcon. It has way softer details and the jet nozzle has no details at all (simply a smooth conical pipe). The kit has been repacked by Smer (in Czech Republic), AeroPlast, Intech and MasterCraft (in Poland) in some variants. All these kits are bad, ugly and not recommended at all. I bought my MasterCraft kit despite of its issues, because it was offered in Polish Block 52+ variant. Of course, it has no parts specific for PolAF version, but it has decals which I planned to use with Revell kit (finally I will not use them as I have got better ones later). I should to get rid of all the rest of the kit, but a voice of The Evil in my head told me to cut some parts from sprues, try to make them fit, and so on... A well known issue of the Italeri kits is wrong placement of horizontal stabilizers (in enlarged version). They are about 3 mm too far forward. The Hobbycraft engineers noticed that stabilizers aro too close to the wings, so they... moved the wings 3 mm forward! I had to move all the surfaces back. Then I filled holes caused by placing wings in correct position. I used spare parts from other kits to replace as many ugly MasterCraft parts as possible: the engine inlet and exhaust are Italeri, vertical fin is Revell. Lots of putty and sandpaper was used. Then I started to paint. I've decided for BAF 1991 Tiger Meet scheme, using SP-Decal set. The scheme shown in the decal set instructions was full of errors, so I used Internet photos to draw tiger stripes. It took two days to sketch them and another three days to paint them using 00 brush. Some of markings are omitted in the SP-Decal sheet. I had to make a tiger head, Belgian flag and "FA-94" by myself. The "31" was too transparent and tiger stripes could be seen through, so I masked the number and sprayed it yellow. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rav_pl Posted July 19, 2008 Author Share Posted July 19, 2008 And here is the result: A couple of weeks later I finished another F-16 (Italeri) and spared a drop tank, so I painted it yellow/black and put to my Tiger: And here is a happy end: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
martin_sam_2000 Posted July 19, 2008 Share Posted July 19, 2008 NICE!!! I klnow how bad hobbycraft is...so a repop must be horrible!!! that is one nice looking scheme. its amazing what a bit of effort can do to a pile of plastic. Sean Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ChernayaAkula Posted July 19, 2008 Share Posted July 19, 2008 Great build! Wonderful job on that paint scheme! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Sebastijan Posted July 19, 2008 Share Posted July 19, 2008 you did y great job out of that crappy kit! Excellent! ;) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BlackWidow421st Posted July 19, 2008 Share Posted July 19, 2008 Super sharp loking Viper. Excellent job on the markings and paint scheme. Love the XL in the shot of the 3 together. Happy modeling, Steve Quote Link to post Share on other sites
biscuit Posted July 19, 2008 Share Posted July 19, 2008 Great work on a pig of a kit, Max points for persistance mick :D Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jack-Swiss Posted July 19, 2008 Share Posted July 19, 2008 Great job!!! Lovely tiger scheme!!! Cheers Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marcin_S Posted July 20, 2008 Share Posted July 20, 2008 C@@L !!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pollie Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 Wow, that looks good! I have the Mastercraft Polish Block 52 boxing too, bought it for the decals two years ago. 'Crappy' is still too much honour for such a horrible, horrible kit. You turned that into a decent looking Viper Quote Link to post Share on other sites
musangpulut Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 whoaa!!! What a lovely IAF F-16C!!! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aggressor Supporter Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 Such a beautiful Tiger Meet Viper! Love the tiger stripes and this one ranks up there right next to my all time favorite Viper, the Colorado 2001 Tiger Meet scheme. Big Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rav_pl Posted July 22, 2008 Author Share Posted July 22, 2008 Such a beautiful Tiger Meet Viper! Love the tiger stripes... Another Tiger coming soon... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
martin_sam_2000 Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 Another Tiger coming soon... OHH...Can't wait!!!! Looks like an interesting plane Sean Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Aggressor Supporter Posted July 29, 2008 Share Posted July 29, 2008 Another Tiger coming soon... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.