This is a kit I got from my Swedish Secret Santa at IPMS Gothenburg.
It looks like a nice kit, but it’s from Kinetic and they doesn’t always measure up.
Anyway here’s the boxart!
First I painted some black on the interior as a kind of pre shade.
Next up was the parts for the inner intake/rear wheel well. This isn’t very pretty!
Not very hard to sort, a bit of grinding, filling and sanding takes care of it.
The cockpit was painted grey and then the panels black.
Intake fan painted.
Getting sprue ends on the details, creating more jobb than just some simple sanding to remove is not making me happy. But maybe I’m too picky! 🙂
After some work I could assemble the rear intake/wheel well.
Then it got some white paint both inside and out.
As I needed to paint white on one small detail for the well, I decided to sort a few more things to paint as well. Part of the upper interior was also painted black.
Some more parts was added to the well and the cokpit got some dry brushing to pick out some detail.
Some parts needed some additional white and the cockpit got a gloss clear cote.
The intake/well was installed in the bottom fueslage, and things are getting ready for assembly.
The cockpit got a wash and a little bit of dirt/sand.
The tires got some black paint.
I decided to have open air brakes, something I usually don’t have or have to option to do. So I needed to do some cutting and assembly of the brakes in open position.
This kit as well as any other Kinetic kit have very nice details, and on this one it looks like they looked a lot on how Tamiyas kit was constructed. So far so good, but they don’t reach Tamiyas level of quality and precision. There is always a little more to do and check before assembly, and most often you need to check and testfit long ahead. Still this kit so far have had the best fit, and only small adjustments were needed.
Anyway I could now glue the fuselage halves, and by gluing them bit by bit, it went together fairly well.
Next step was the front part of the intake which also holds the front gear bay. Some minor fit issues that was sorted by a little sanding. The part that created a bit of a problem was the thin strut inside the intake. I accidently broke it when trying to get it in place, and it didn’t look good after gluing it together. So I decided to use some thin plastic to create a replacement.
The original strut can be seen laying beside the intake.
Part of the problem was that I haden’t cleaned up the holes properly. Whit that in place I cut off the ends and continued with the covers around the intake.
Here I will need some putty as even though I tried to make it fit, I still ended up with visible seams.
Next will be sorting the seams and putting it in place, and then continue with the rest of the build. As with all F-16’s the landing gears and the stuff in the well creates a bit of a problem.
I’ll see if I can solve it and hopefully not have to mask the plane with the gears mounted.