F-11F Tiger – Lindberg 1/48

Greetings fellow modelers!
This time I brought to you a rare jet from Lindberg: the F-11F Tiger.
It's a comission, but I found it to be really interesting. I've never built anything from Lindberg, and the only thing I knew from this brand was that it was like a toy. Anyway, I accepted the order and started it.

I was surprised to see that it included a more or less detailed jet engine, and a hatch you can open in the right side so you can see it. Unfortunately, after all the paint job on the engine, very little of it can be seen through the hatch. Next step was the cockpiut. Really simple, not too much to say about it, except for the pilot. It was horrendous, and in the moment I saw it, it shouted at me: "please end my suffering". It was almost faceless, with not much deatil of the flying suit. Did my best with it.

Once the cockpit was finished, it was time to put together the fuselage and the wings. The horizontal plane was movable, the same as the wing flaps and the rudder (Now you can see why is this like a toy).
One thing about the model is that it has positive panelling and positive riveting, so unless you are really careful, you can end by erasing some of them when sanding.

It was decided to paint it as the usual US Navy color scheme, but I decided not to follow the instructions, and relied in one I saw in google in a museum. The colors were from Vallejo, and they were sky grey and white. Not really difficult to paint as you can see.
Once varnished with future, it was decal time. I was really surprised to see the decals in a good condition, and they were really thin and adapted nicely to the riveted surfaces (of course, with some microset help).
Applied varnish again to seal it, and here comes what I call "the positive panelling magic".
First, with black oil not very diluted with thinner, painted every line of the panels. Let it dry for a day, and retired it with a soft tissue to enlight the lines. Then again, with black oil but this time more diluted, painted all the rivet lines. Let it dry again for a day, and retired it with a tissue paper, really careful not to erase the panel job. If you do it right, you can achieve a really nice effect.

In conclussion, it was a very simple model which needed not a lot of work at the building stage, but it's with the paint an weathering stages when it needs a lot of work. I guess it depends on you: if you want a curious model it's a nice one and worth the time and effort. If you a new to this hobby, it's a good one to start since it does not demand a lot work on it.

Hope you like it!

C.Corral

8 additional images. Click to enlarge.