This kit was
entirely OOB. I also took some artistic licence with the combination of
decals and block number. I really liked the large wolf head on the tail,
but that option was not for the block I built (a wide-mouth Block 50). If
you don't tell anyone, I won't either... This kit fit really nicely, and
came with lots of great weapons. I painted it with Model Master Acryl
paints (the FS 36118 dark grey top) and some Tamiya light grey primer (FS 36375
light grey underside).
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images below to see larger images
I actually used some
AMRAAMs from an Academy F/A-18C kit, because the ones that came with this
kit were nicer (this kit came with AIM-120Cs, while the F/A-18C kit came
with AIM-120Bs. I will save the AMRAAMs for a future CF-18 build.
I had one big problem with this build. Notice in 06.jpg that the
model leans at a huge angle (left wing low). I was very surprised,
and it took me a while to figure out why. Look at 07.jpg carefully -
you'll see that the main gear well is slightly misplaced (rotated slightly
from where it should be). That is what caused the main gear legs
to be at the wrong angles, and gave the big tilt to the aircraft. It
got that way because I didn't use enough Tamiya ultra-thin cement at
first, and the main gear well came loose after I glued the fuselage top
and bottom together. I then had to squirt some Testors regular glue
into it, and pull it back against the bottom fuselage with tweezers to get
it to reseat itself. During that process, I didn't pay enough
attention to what angle the wheel well was reseated at, and you can see
the result in pic 07. I ended up fixing the problem by shaving a lot
of the bottom off of the right main tire, plus adding a "wheel
chock" to raise the left main tire. The wheel chock is made of
a piece of yellow nylon rope wrapped in masking tape. The version
you see in pic 04 is a fast job - I will redo the chock to make it look
better. The USAF and other air forces often use chunks of rope
wrapped around the wheels as chocks; a little more careful wrapping with
masking tape will make it look like a greyish/beige rope chock.
I enjoyed this
build. It will look good beside its friends the CF-18 that I built last
winter, CF-104, and an F-4 from Tamiya. Up next in 1:32 will be a
CF-5 with the Belcher Bits conversion from the Hasegawa kit, plus some WW II
fighters. Too many kits to build!
Dan McWilliams
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images below to see larger images
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