Monogram F-16XL Redux

Oh wow... this should be a good one to see...

I love the F-16 XL, great looking bird, too bad they didn't make the cut. Looking forward to following your progress.

well I did some work last night , the Mr. Surfacer I put in the bottom intake lip to even its contours out and even with a full day to dry, the Mr. Surfacer 500 I used as the base for the contouring. Well I'm sanding away happy as a lark then I look down and see the Mr. Surfacer has folded over on itself slightly in a corner of the intake. So that ended the sanding for the night. I let the intake half set up over night and will do some work on it tonight as well take pictures once I get to work this afternoon.

On another note, here are some other things I plan on doing with the kit to make it slightly more even with all these new Viper kits out today.

My friends RoG kit also provided me with a new upper forward fuselage I'm going to graft into the Monogram upper fuselage, I robbed the entire MLG assembly, an exhaust, all the clear parts,  the cockpit, and a few other little pieces.

The only real aftermarket part I'm going to use is a resin ACES-II seat, everything else will be plastic.

So stay tuned, I'll be posting pictures tonight.

Looking forward to this. This is one of the few kit from my early days that I still have, though its looking a bit worse for wear. I don't think I have ever seen another built, so will be watching closely.

thanks fellas, after a little bit of trouble with posting a reply here last night, I have pictures to share

First, this is how much of the rear end I had to remove to get the new exhaust to fit, and it fits perfectly at the last panel line on the rear end. I spent two nights with a pin vise and files to get the upper and lower fuselage correct

next up is the fuselage/wing, heres the basket case part

The intake, first with the upper half

The dark spot in the middle of the Mr Surfacer is the top of the kits nose wheel well, the filler to get the inner intake contours is that thick

Now in its two pieces

And finally the RoG donor parts.

I bought a set of Aires ACES-II seats for this kit on-line this morning, so the only real aftermarket part is on its way, lol.

More updates to follow

Oh I forgot how much that I liked the wing design on the XL

yes sir she was definetly unique beyond a doubt and since I'm doing so many mods to get the accuracy level higher, I'm going to be painting and modding it to late ( as in current) Viper standards, but this weekend is going to be measuring and getting ready to graft fuselages

If only the Arkansas air guard got those instead of those other -16's....

To my knowledge NASA wound up with both or the whole production run lol

good so far, but try a different color as a back ground.   the real ones were a great air frame.  I was sad to see that it was a no go for this bird. I also worked on the yf 23 design stage

I'll take some better pictures this weekend, I was stuck with a stripped mattress the night I took those  

did some cutting over the weekend, and am getting the fuselage ready for the RoG graft.

I tried a new way of precision cutting as well, a straight pin with its head cut off, chicked in a pinvise, talk about nice, you can cut on a panel line and really not worry about the tip skipping or going where its not supposed to.

My Aires resin ACES-II came in as well, and I thought I'd seen tiny before, these things have all kinds of PE to go with them.

Aside from the cutting, I did some grinding and sanding to the cockpit tub and lower fuselage to get a little  clearance for the RoG parts.

I'll take pictures tomorrow and post them to update the progress.

okay, here goes,

Over the weekend I was able to make first major cuts on the fuselage, namely the panel line immediately forward of the IFR receptical and the radome panel line. In the end I has a slight length variation, but it'll be invisible once I get everything filled.

I used my new cutting technique to remove the RoG fuselages M-61 cannon fairing because if I left it as is it wouldve been lost once the filling and sanding begins.

Heres an overall shot

Now for the join where the old meets the new. I tried to match up the fuselage spine contours as best I could, but there will lots of filling, sanding and scribing in my future.

the right side of the join

and the left

and finally the itty-bitty resin bang seats

more to follow, I didnt have time to undo the tape so I could snap a pic of the fuselage joint from the inside

A Frankenfalcon!

yesir once I get to the point I really do some work on it, it'll be a patchwork

Have made a little more headway, I started rescribing the upper fuselage last night, well atleast the area aft of the RoG forward fuselage. I gave it a free hand try using a straight pin in a pin vise and tracing just lightly enough to make a shallow channel next to the original raised line. Not a perfect system, but I got decent results, at least to my eye. And I was too lazy to take pictures, so I'll do that tonight after I get home from school.

I think this weekend  I'll start on the resin ejection seat and landing gear and probably tinker with the intake some more since its about ready to be cemented together.

I need a lead on an exterior detail set for the F-16 and probably another kit to rob for little things the old Monogram kit lacks, like formation lights, beacons, and assorted other exterior bits and pieces.

Anywho, pictures tomorrow........