The Economy version of the Thunderbirds yes.
These were the birds they were flying when they had the major crash in 1982. After that crash they transitioned to the F16s.
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Skinny Mike's T-38A Talon
- Thread starter Skinny_Mike
- Start date
The Economy version of the Thunderbirds yes.
These were the birds they were flying when they had the major crash in 1982. After that crash they transitioned to the F16s.
Hawkwrench
Active member
I like the T-38's better than the F-16's if you ask me. They just look cool! 
Tim
Tim
Duke Maddog
Well-known member
I remember seeing the Thunderbirds when they flew F-4 Phantoms; then the T-38, and now the F-16. Thanks for the memories on this bird; I love watching this come together.
Skinny_Mike
Well-known member
Thank you all for the continued interest!
Next step was to paint the trim. The leading edges of the wings, vertical tail, and the nose cone are all gloss black. In addition I needed to paint the exhaust NMF. I masked all those areas off, and then covered the rest of the model to protect from any overspray, and then sprayed them all in Model Master Gloss Black. Once that was dry, I painted the exhaust area in Alclad Stainless Steel, using the Black as the base. The flat black areas, the anti-glare panel and the antennas will all get painted after I'm done with the gloss work.
One gripe with the kit. I tried to mask the nose cone by following the panel lines engraved in the model. Turns out, they are poorly engraved and do not match up or are even straight! So in the end, I masked them to a straight line not following the panel lines and it all turned out much better. Took me a couple of attempts to figure out what was going on there!
Next up – the stickers!
The kit provides decals for 4 different aircraft. 2 from Edwards AFB in overall gloss white, 1 from Whiteman AFB in gray and 1 from Beale AFB in black with red markings. I chose one of the Edwards aircraft because of my own history working there. I also purposely choose the aircraft not pictured on the box.
The decals are printed by Cartograf and went down with no issues at all using MicroSet and MicroSol. I didn’t bother putting down a gloss coat since I used Tamiya Gloss White, and the end result looks great. Its nearly impossible to see the carrier film. There are a fairly limited number of decals for these planes. I think I counted 15 per side 5 on the top and 3 on the bottom, so decaling went quick.
I did see another build on another site and that gentleman had a problem where the wing walkway marking showed through the white of the national markings. I was worried about this, until I realized that there is an optional decal for that particular black line that is shorter and does not protrude under the white part of the other decals. Just something to watch for if you are building this kit. Another weird thing I found is they give you a decal for 3 panels on the top aft of the fuselage on either side of the vertical tail. These are not engraved panels in the kit. No idea what that was about, just a weird way to depict panels.
The bottom contains 3 decals. There are two options for the USAF marking. One full decal, or a two-piece decal that fits around the wheel well with the corresponding separate piece for the MLG door. I went the two piece route. This was the hardest decal on the kit to fit. It fits fine, just took some care to line it up correctly. Another weird thing here is the national insignia. It is also painted on the gear door as well as the wing, but they only provide a single piece decal. I ended up “dry-fitting” the decal to find out where it needed to be cut and did it myself. It wasn’t hard to do, just weird that they thought it out for the one wing but not the other.
Overall the decals were great, it was really weird to do a modern jet that didn’t have 1000 little stencils, but I’m not going to complain about that! :woohoo:
I let the decals sit overnight then wiped the model down with soap and water and after that dried sprayed a coat of Tamiya Clear. I’ll let that cure overnight and the panel line wash will follow tomorrow. Not far to go now.
Thanks again for following along
Mike
Next step was to paint the trim. The leading edges of the wings, vertical tail, and the nose cone are all gloss black. In addition I needed to paint the exhaust NMF. I masked all those areas off, and then covered the rest of the model to protect from any overspray, and then sprayed them all in Model Master Gloss Black. Once that was dry, I painted the exhaust area in Alclad Stainless Steel, using the Black as the base. The flat black areas, the anti-glare panel and the antennas will all get painted after I'm done with the gloss work.
One gripe with the kit. I tried to mask the nose cone by following the panel lines engraved in the model. Turns out, they are poorly engraved and do not match up or are even straight! So in the end, I masked them to a straight line not following the panel lines and it all turned out much better. Took me a couple of attempts to figure out what was going on there!
Next up – the stickers!
The kit provides decals for 4 different aircraft. 2 from Edwards AFB in overall gloss white, 1 from Whiteman AFB in gray and 1 from Beale AFB in black with red markings. I chose one of the Edwards aircraft because of my own history working there. I also purposely choose the aircraft not pictured on the box.
The decals are printed by Cartograf and went down with no issues at all using MicroSet and MicroSol. I didn’t bother putting down a gloss coat since I used Tamiya Gloss White, and the end result looks great. Its nearly impossible to see the carrier film. There are a fairly limited number of decals for these planes. I think I counted 15 per side 5 on the top and 3 on the bottom, so decaling went quick.
I did see another build on another site and that gentleman had a problem where the wing walkway marking showed through the white of the national markings. I was worried about this, until I realized that there is an optional decal for that particular black line that is shorter and does not protrude under the white part of the other decals. Just something to watch for if you are building this kit. Another weird thing I found is they give you a decal for 3 panels on the top aft of the fuselage on either side of the vertical tail. These are not engraved panels in the kit. No idea what that was about, just a weird way to depict panels.
The bottom contains 3 decals. There are two options for the USAF marking. One full decal, or a two-piece decal that fits around the wheel well with the corresponding separate piece for the MLG door. I went the two piece route. This was the hardest decal on the kit to fit. It fits fine, just took some care to line it up correctly. Another weird thing here is the national insignia. It is also painted on the gear door as well as the wing, but they only provide a single piece decal. I ended up “dry-fitting” the decal to find out where it needed to be cut and did it myself. It wasn’t hard to do, just weird that they thought it out for the one wing but not the other.
Overall the decals were great, it was really weird to do a modern jet that didn’t have 1000 little stencils, but I’m not going to complain about that! :woohoo:
I let the decals sit overnight then wiped the model down with soap and water and after that dried sprayed a coat of Tamiya Clear. I’ll let that cure overnight and the panel line wash will follow tomorrow. Not far to go now.
Thanks again for following along
Mike
Swordsman
Active member
Saw them at a airshow flying F-4's ... Exce!llent
'sNice work on this bird Mike ...
Skinny_Mike
Well-known member
Hi Folks! Thanks to everyone for following along. Its time for an update on this build.
After letting the decals sit overnight, I sprayed a layer of Tamiya clear and then followed this up with a panel line wash using Ammo’s Medium Gray PLW, thinner with Ammo’s odorless thinner. I’m still having issues working with these washes and I am not thrilled with the outcome. Some of the panels look great and others not so much. Unfortunately the better ones all seem to be on the bottom and the worst ones are on the spine. I’ll just need to keep working with them. :idonno Once these were dry, I gave the model a topcoat using Ammo’s Gloss Varnish and set this aside to cure overnight. The next step was to spray the Flat Black anti-glare panel on the nose. So after masking the panel I sprayed on a layer of Lifecolor Flat Black. Immediately after I pulled off the Tamiya tape and was left with a pretty ragged line on one side of the flat black. On closer inspection, the gloss coat on that side pulled off with the masking tape in jagged sheets. I am not sure what happened there. Not wanting to damage the top coat any further I touched up the damage by brush, which didn’t really blend in as well as usual. Bummer.
Well, the paint peeling, and the disappointment in the wash really sapped my desire to finish this build. But I persevered. Next step was to get the landing gear on. The gear themselves went on with little fuss. I used the Wolfpack resin wheels for the mains and the kit wheel for the nose. These all went together fine and pretty simply. The included masks for the wheels were again very helpful. The real trouble was the doors. First off the nose gear door is typically closed when sitting on the ground, but there is no way to support it in the closed position so I just left it open. The Main Gear doors have 2 linkages that hold the door to the MLG leg. This is where the short run nature of this kit became troublesome. The instructions are vague as to where to attach these two tiny pieces of plastic and there are no locating marks on the gear or the parts. In an attempt to make things easy, I just left them off. The doors are a little flimsy but I will leave this sitting in the cabinet, so it should be fine. (In the end I did knock them off 3 times during the remaining work!)
Moving on, all the fiddly bits were installed and the lights painted and then I worked on finishing the cockpit. First up I painted the seats. These are the Wolfpack resin seats. The represent an early seat used in the T-38 and the F-5. They were painted in a variety or acrylics. I looked for references on what color the belts should be and there are a few different colors so I went with a dark green and a khaki just for a little variety.
And installed.
Next up is the canopies. I wanted to show the canopies open on this build because that’s just my typical approach. This turned into a nightmare. A 2 day nightmare! The canopies sit on some rather complex assemblies that were each represented by two plastic parts. Again, the instructions were not clear and the mounting points for the pieces on the clear parts are non-existent. The forward mount points didn’t fit in the fuselage either. I eventually got it all to work, but it was a headache, and I know the front canopy is at the wrong angle, but its on and I am not touching it! Next time I will just leave the canopy closed.
BTW – the clear parts were a little thick and not super clear. The did clean up after a dip in some future and look fine although the camera angle above does not make it seem that way. And a rarity on a modern aircraft, there was no seam to polish out! Exciting!
Last step was the pitot tube. I read online that the pitot tube has a fit issue that I found to be true. I had to drill out the mounting point on the nose a bit and after installing touched up the paint. This is supposed to have a red spiral strip on it which is supplied as a decal, but I could not get it to work and at that point I was pretty much at the end of my rope with this one. I installed the plastic pitot tube, touched up the paint and painted the tip in chrome silver. That pitot tube needs to be replaced with some brass. Its just asking to get broken. In the future, I would probably make one out of some brass tube and get the fit right before the paint, but live and learn.
With that, I am calling this one done. Overall not a bad kit, it looks like a T-38. It does have some challenges but overall nothing that can’t be overcome.
Thanks everyone for watching, and I think this may be the first time I have finished a campaign early! Now lets see if I can get that YF-23 knocked out in time too!
Mike
After letting the decals sit overnight, I sprayed a layer of Tamiya clear and then followed this up with a panel line wash using Ammo’s Medium Gray PLW, thinner with Ammo’s odorless thinner. I’m still having issues working with these washes and I am not thrilled with the outcome. Some of the panels look great and others not so much. Unfortunately the better ones all seem to be on the bottom and the worst ones are on the spine. I’ll just need to keep working with them. :idonno Once these were dry, I gave the model a topcoat using Ammo’s Gloss Varnish and set this aside to cure overnight. The next step was to spray the Flat Black anti-glare panel on the nose. So after masking the panel I sprayed on a layer of Lifecolor Flat Black. Immediately after I pulled off the Tamiya tape and was left with a pretty ragged line on one side of the flat black. On closer inspection, the gloss coat on that side pulled off with the masking tape in jagged sheets. I am not sure what happened there. Not wanting to damage the top coat any further I touched up the damage by brush, which didn’t really blend in as well as usual. Bummer.
Well, the paint peeling, and the disappointment in the wash really sapped my desire to finish this build. But I persevered. Next step was to get the landing gear on. The gear themselves went on with little fuss. I used the Wolfpack resin wheels for the mains and the kit wheel for the nose. These all went together fine and pretty simply. The included masks for the wheels were again very helpful. The real trouble was the doors. First off the nose gear door is typically closed when sitting on the ground, but there is no way to support it in the closed position so I just left it open. The Main Gear doors have 2 linkages that hold the door to the MLG leg. This is where the short run nature of this kit became troublesome. The instructions are vague as to where to attach these two tiny pieces of plastic and there are no locating marks on the gear or the parts. In an attempt to make things easy, I just left them off. The doors are a little flimsy but I will leave this sitting in the cabinet, so it should be fine. (In the end I did knock them off 3 times during the remaining work!)
Moving on, all the fiddly bits were installed and the lights painted and then I worked on finishing the cockpit. First up I painted the seats. These are the Wolfpack resin seats. The represent an early seat used in the T-38 and the F-5. They were painted in a variety or acrylics. I looked for references on what color the belts should be and there are a few different colors so I went with a dark green and a khaki just for a little variety.
And installed.
Next up is the canopies. I wanted to show the canopies open on this build because that’s just my typical approach. This turned into a nightmare. A 2 day nightmare! The canopies sit on some rather complex assemblies that were each represented by two plastic parts. Again, the instructions were not clear and the mounting points for the pieces on the clear parts are non-existent. The forward mount points didn’t fit in the fuselage either. I eventually got it all to work, but it was a headache, and I know the front canopy is at the wrong angle, but its on and I am not touching it! Next time I will just leave the canopy closed.
BTW – the clear parts were a little thick and not super clear. The did clean up after a dip in some future and look fine although the camera angle above does not make it seem that way. And a rarity on a modern aircraft, there was no seam to polish out! Exciting!
Last step was the pitot tube. I read online that the pitot tube has a fit issue that I found to be true. I had to drill out the mounting point on the nose a bit and after installing touched up the paint. This is supposed to have a red spiral strip on it which is supplied as a decal, but I could not get it to work and at that point I was pretty much at the end of my rope with this one. I installed the plastic pitot tube, touched up the paint and painted the tip in chrome silver. That pitot tube needs to be replaced with some brass. Its just asking to get broken. In the future, I would probably make one out of some brass tube and get the fit right before the paint, but live and learn.
With that, I am calling this one done. Overall not a bad kit, it looks like a T-38. It does have some challenges but overall nothing that can’t be overcome.
Thanks everyone for watching, and I think this may be the first time I have finished a campaign early! Now lets see if I can get that YF-23 knocked out in time too!
Mike
Killer! Think the panels turned out great. Nice job Mike.
phantom II
Master at Arms
Looking good
Cheers, Christian B)
Cheers, Christian B)
Duke Maddog
Well-known member
I think that is some impressive work Mike! Way to go! This brings back memories of my time in childhood when we went to airshows at Eglin AFB and saw all these sitting on the taxiway.
Nice work!
Nice work!
centaur567
Well-known member
Great job Mike!! Gary S.
