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West German F-104G x 2


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Cheers banfuxia and Jay! :)

 

Not the most interesting update but some prep things done.

 

I wanted to add some details to the canopy interior frames so first I masked off the insides to protect them from glue etc, 

 

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Then I added some bits of etch (from the small but very useful Eduard set) and some thin plastic strips for the sealing frame and lock mounts etc..Now the raised canopy seal I did on the cockpit sills either side continues up and around the edges of the canopies. 

 

L1100259_zpsr1tdddto.jpg

 

The main canopy still needs locks etc..but they will be going on after as I'll certainly damage them. Also the internal defogging tubes are yet to do, something I really am not looking forward to making. The DACO set provides some very nice ones, but only 1 set, so I think I'll use them as a 'master' and build my own from stretched spruce checking with the DACO parts. It will make more sense later! (If i manage to do it) :)

 

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These bits go on the central frames of the front canopy, either side of the HUD. Hopefully they will look a bit better under some paint!

 

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Before I could close up the fuselage I needed to sand quite a bit of material to get the Aires exhaust in. It fits well now and maybe is a little oversized but the detail is very nice.

 

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First stage of painting for this is primer in Mr. Surfacer mixed with Mr. Color black. I'm going to paint it like I did on my 1/32 example and use hairspray for chipping etc..quite a few paint steps and will show them if anyone is interested. 

 

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After checking the exhaust will slide in nicely, so I can add it at the end, I could close up the fuselage. Some issues with the MLG bay being too wide but other than that a nice fit. Any little gaps have been filled and sanded with superglue. 

 

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Thanks for looking and hopefully next time I'll have something more interesting!

 

David.

 

 

edit I'm thinking of making this a double build with another Hasegawa kit, this time a MFG1 example with maybe Kormorans or BL.755s on twin store ejectors. This will much more oob with a closed canopy so hopefully quite a simple construction to catch up with the other F-104

 

L1100308_zps78jrrzg6.jpg

Edited by mirageiv
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More great work David.

Your attention to detail is outstanding, and how you are able to make such small pieces for the cockpit etc is beyond me. I'm sure your de-misting frame will look just as good as Daco's.

And building another one at the same time is just showing off!

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Thank you Glynn and Craig. I blame the DACO walk around book! It shows all things I've missed on previous builds and I got a bit carried away trying to replicate some of them :)

 

On the second kit, I began messing around with it yesterday and thought, actually I'll finish the first one instead lol, then if time is ok I'll attempt a second. Double builds really drain the motivation and time for me so I'll just see how it goes for the second one. To think I'd have to apply two full sets of DACO F-104 stencils at the same time :blink:, hundreds and hundreds of stencils, would I'm sure kill this thread off! 

 

cheers,

 

David

Edited by mirageiv
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1 hour ago, mirageiv said:

Thank you Glynn and Craig. I blame the DACO walk around book! It shows all things I've missed on previous builds and I got a bit carried away trying to replicate some of them :)

 

On the second kit, I began messing around with it yesterday and thought, actually I'll finish the first one instead lol, then if time is ok I'll attempt a second. Double builds really drain the motivation and time for me so I'll just see how it goes for the second one. To think I'd have to apply two full sets of DACO F-104 stencils at the same time :blink:, hundreds and hundreds of stencils, would I'm sure kill this thread off! 

 

cheers,

 

David

 

Good choice David

 

In last years 80s version of this GB I tried building 2 Eduard Mig 21s, one started a little while after the other and they're both still sitting in my desk draw awaiting paint.

 

Looking forward to seeing more progress.

 

James

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^ I remember James, they were two cracking Mig builds, I would love to see them finished sometime. I have about 4 1/72 F-16s knocking around that still have to be finished someday.

 

Well, despite all the above posts, I now have this :winkgrin: (probably no surprise to Craig!).

 

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I figured we have until June sometime I think, it should be ok, I'll miss a few other concurrent GBs though unfortunately, this GB year was very optimistic for me, loads came at once! 

 

The second one will be a Marineflieger example, MFG1 with maybe Kormorans on it, not too sure on the load yet but it will be carrying something interesting. Like this picture found from this great Starfighter site: http://www.916-starfighter.de/916starfighter/pics/large/f10422+14.jpg. Interesting the one in the background has BL.755s on twin store carriers. I really like this option too, it is very rare on a Marine (or even any German F-104) jet but I cannot find any Wingman distributers here in the UK for their set which includes 'EXercise' markings unlike the Flightpath ones with no decals at all. I found some abroad but at circa £30 for 4 little 1/48 bombs its looking more like Kormorans tbh!

 

Sorry about some of these photos looking a tad luminous blue, I had to brighten them a lot as most were taken when not much light is about.

 

For the Marine one I went for the base Hasegawa cockpit improved with some 'NATOfighter' etch and a little plasticard in the interior. These and the use of decals on the side panels really made it a much quicker affair to get the cockpit done compared to the other one. The cockpit will be closed on this but thanks to the Klear I've been using you can really see a lot of the IP and details through the canopy which made it worthwhile to use the etch here.

 

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After reading James' build and the warning about the raised square lump on the base of the Hasegawa cockpit I went and removed it as I'll be using a resin seat of some origin here too.  It wasn't so easy to do it cleanly, but it doesn't matter as the seat covers all of it

 

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Now it starts to get pretty similar to the previous posts, some detail added to areas that will be visible enough,

 

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More front canopy frame pieces

 

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The Eduard etch wasn't the correct colour so thinned paint was applied to bring it closer to reality. I actually lightened the base cockpit colour even more on this one otherwise it seems to just look too dark in there after the fuselages are closed.

 

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The IP. The pre painted stuff seems to have a slight texture to it after looking at this photo, invisible to my naked eye though! All the little errors so much more visible like this, at least these such as the over enthusiastic red blobs on the dials should be pretty indiscernible through the canopy, thats my excuse anyways :) 

 

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Sure fits a lot nicer than the Aires one. The decals on the side consoles were pretty tricky to get over the appropriate instruments, not perfect but close on my attempt. I did a little dry brushing over the top to tone them down as they looked too new and flash.

 

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I went for much more discrete rivets on the rear hatch this time, wish i had gone this way on the other one, live and learn I guess. I'll be adding some more handle, explosive charges etc.., books and maps that seem to littered in various places under the canopies of parked Marine jets but later on before I glue them.

 

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A comparison between the two. From what will be seen there isn't a million miles between them which I am pleased about. Notice I already knocked off the yellow canopy handle on the Aires cockpit, will be replacing those too later. 

 

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Back to the nuke jet I painted the intake interiors like so. Not much past 1cm is seen in there, for the Marine model I will be making some intake covers. The DACO set provides some but I think it will be worthwhile to make my own instead, having made quite a few before they should do the job. 

 

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Last step for this update was to fill the ejection chute hole, this was not there on German F-104Gs during this period.

 

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cheers guys for looking in,

 

David 

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Well you've gone and done it again David!

Bad enough you show us up with 1 build, but 2!!

Really great work mate, these are going to look fantastic next to each other. I remember your home made intake covers from last year and if anything they will be better than the DACO ones.

I'm already looking forward to the next installment.

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Great work again David.

 

That NATO Fighter boxing is really tempting me now.

 

By the way, those two Mig 21's are next up for after this GB. They're far to nice a kits to be on the shelf of doom.

 

James

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2 hours ago, modelling minion said:

Well you've gone and done it again David!

Bad enough you show us up with 1 build, but 2!!

Really great work mate, these are going to look fantastic next to each other. I remember your home made intake covers from last year and if anything they will be better than the DACO ones.

I'm already looking forward to the next installment.

 

Thank you Craig! I'm happy you are not bored by seeing yet more Starfighters by me! The DACO ones are fine, but I think I can make them more '3D' so will have a bash, love the extra colour they bring to the final smart, but grey Marine scheme. 

 

1 hour ago, Hewy said:

Good gracious david you've got your work cut out now,another  aced cockpit ,top show , a right royal pair they're  going be  , i take my hat off,

Glynn

 

Thank you Glynn, I do indeed ^_^ glad you are liking the work so far.

 

1 hour ago, franky boy said:

Great work again David.

 

That NATO Fighter boxing is really tempting me now.

 

By the way, those two Mig 21's are next up for after this GB. They're far to nice a kits to be on the shelf of doom.

 

James

 

Thank you James. The etch is from the Eduard boxing 'Bundesfighter And NATOfighter' which is the joint boxing of the two previous releases. You only get one kit but you get both sets of decals for the NATO and German versions, all the resin of the two boxings and also two etch sheets instead of one as in the single boxings. I went bargain hunting off eBay and got them at much reduced prices a while back so they can be great value for money and I recommend trying to get that boxing of the Eduard series if you can because of the duplication. One thing I have found though is that the tooling isn't quite as crisp as original 'old' Hasegawa issued kits, they have some more flash and the fit of the parts is not quite as good in places, only minor but it is noticeable in some areas, still overall very good. 

 

I look forward to seeing your Migs, I've always been tempted by the Eduard Mig-21s and have been planning on doing an Egyptian recon Mig-21 in Nile camo for a while now, usual story though, too many model plans, too little time! 

 

cheers

 

David

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22 hours ago, mirageiv said:

 

Thank you Craig! I'm happy you are not bored by seeing yet more Starfighters by me! The DACO ones are fine, but I think I can make them more '3D' so will have a bash, love the extra colour they bring to the final smart, but grey Marine scheme. 

 

 

Thank you Glynn, I do indeed ^_^ glad you are liking the work so far.

 

 

Thank you James. The etch is from the Eduard boxing 'Bundesfighter And NATOfighter' which is the joint boxing of the two previous releases. You only get one kit but you get both sets of decals for the NATO and German versions, all the resin of the two boxings and also two etch sheets instead of one as in the single boxings. I went bargain hunting off eBay and got them at much reduced prices a while back so they can be great value for money and I recommend trying to get that boxing of the Eduard series if you can because of the duplication. One thing I have found though is that the tooling isn't quite as crisp as original 'old' Hasegawa issued kits, they have some more flash and the fit of the parts is not quite as good in places, only minor but it is noticeable in some areas, still overall very good. 

 

I look forward to seeing your Migs, I've always been tempted by the Eduard Mig-21s and have been planning on doing an Egyptian recon Mig-21 in Nile camo for a while now, usual story though, too many model plans, too little time! 

 

cheers

 

David

 

Sold! 

 

Now i I need to go and raid my piggy bank! 

 

The cheapest i could could find was £50 om e bay.

 

James

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great progress and good luck with your double build!

 

 

was not looking for a week or so, and suddenly there are 2 of them...... :thumbsup:

 

regarding realistic and rare or else weapons loadouts,

 

I always like to watch this documentary, (unfortuantely in German ) but with great images of live load outs and weapons drops during an exersise in 1975... quite fits this timeframe here ;)

quite some BL755 and napalm going boom!

 

 

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On 3/12/2017 at 9:14 AM, Col. said:

This is rapidly becoming a master-class in Starfighter modelling :thumbsup: 

 

On 3/12/2017 at 6:35 PM, Cookenbacher said:

You continue to amaze David, it all looks so real - the cockpit coaming is especially impressive.

 

Thank you Col and cookie, glad you are liking the work so far! 

 

23 hours ago, franky boy said:

 

Sold! 

 

Now i I need to go and raid my piggy bank! 

 

The cheapest i could could find was £50 om e bay.

 

James

 

Yup retail prices are pretty steep for a small 1/48 kit, I think they were initially listed at circa £65 (which imo is too much) so at least they have dropped a bit. I paid circa £35 for mine but they were private sales off eBay and I think that is a good price. If you are prepared to wait they do come up every month or so it seems (though when I got mine eBay did seem saturated with them, maybe they have become more rare again) and go for something like I paid. I maybe wrong but there was one in the 'for sale' section on here a while back, cannot recollect the member but worth a shout to see what is there too. Hope you find one at a decent price James :)

 

8 hours ago, exdraken said:

great progress and good luck with your double build!

 

 

was not looking for a week or so, and suddenly there are 2 of them...... :thumbsup:

 

regarding realistic and rare or else weapons loadouts,

 

I always like to watch this documentary, (unfortuantely in German ) but with great images of live load outs and weapons drops during an exersise in 1975... quite fits this timeframe here ;)

quite some BL755 and napalm going boom!

 

 

 

 

Thank you Werner. Yes it is a great video, I have watched it many times and thank you for reminding me about it :) . The only time I have seen live Bl.755s used is in this video, let alone on a Starfighter. Also, after the separation of the unstable napalm containers from the F-4Fs, crazy that a few collide with each other and explode not too far from the underneath Phantoms! 

 

 

David

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2 minutes ago, mirageiv said:

 

Thank you Werner. Yes it is a great video, I have watched it many times and thank you for reminding me about it :) . The only time I have seen live Bl.755s used is in this video, let alone on a Starfighter. Also, after the separation of the unstable napalm containers from the F-4Fs, crazy that a few collide with each other and explode not too far from the underneath Phantoms! 

 

 

David

not sure if you could fly the BL755 on the twin store carrier...the Matras are  250 kgs, and the BL755 just slightly more.. so maybe!

do you have any references? (apart form the airshow pic before of course!  -  during the cold war sometimes good and dangerously looking fake load outs were not so uncommon....)

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Just now, exdraken said:

not sure if you could fly the BL755 on the twin store carrier...the Matras are  250 kgs, and the BL755 just slightly more.. so maybe!

do you have any references? (apart form the airshow pic before of course!  -  during the cold war sometimes good and dangerously looking fake load outs were not so uncommon....)

 

There is this picture: http://www.916-starfighter.de/Large/2249.htm  They are live which is quite interesting. There are quite a few photos knocking  around, one or two in the DACO book with some more training rounds on twin store carriers but as you say airshow loads are not always true. 

 

Also this is a very good site for German F-104G information, scroll through the page and you can see a weapons diagram. I have seen that in a few books too (notably the Klaus Kropt book) so I'm assuming it is accurate. Everything else listed in it seems to to be correct.  http://www.rolfferch.de/F104G/html/strikebeladeschema.html 

 

I have read also (IIRC the Klaus Kropt book) twin store carriers were really only to be flown on operational missions because they significantly increased wing fatigue. I think that is the main reason I've never seen a flying F-104 with them on.

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thanks for the links above! have been there, but you know..... 

so many future builds in my head..... I already have the twin store carriers and the Matras...... and a kit for sure as well...

 

http://wingmanmodels.com/wm/Pulsar/en_US.Store.display.91./wmf48005

looking at those again... correct ones or not.... could the mouning point to the pylon be changed? center/ left/ right?

Edited by exdraken
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Thanks for that link, first time I have seen the Matras available, nice!

 

I'll have to check tomorrow but they look like the ones in the DACO set which I'd assume are very accurate. The DACO ones have the pylon mount holes inboard on the carriers, so the twin store carriers are positoned more towards the tip tanks if that makes sense. Let me check in more detail though before I can tell you for sure, the sway braces might need to be modified.

 

Saying all this I think I'm going to load some Kormorans on the Marineflieger model anyways, I just got the Brassin ones and they are too nice not to be used!

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Wings done, where most of the time went!

 

L1100363_zpsgnkyugh8.jpg

 

Rivets filled with superglue like the rear fuselage. I left some that I could see in photos and crazily added some more on some bits according to photos. I wanted to use the DACO wings on one of the kits to save time, but they are larger than the kit ones. No problem if building a clean F-104 but if you want tip tanks like me they will not fit correctly. You have to either make the attachment slot large on the tip tanks or alter the DACO wings. I began the later but quickly packed it in as I realised there is more to it than I thought, so I'll save them for one of my clean special scheme 104s. That meant filling two sets of wings though :blink:!

 

A comparison with the DACO one (right), hopefully will be worthwhile in the end. 

 

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Next up some little mods. I added a small plastic shim to the elevator fairing to allow a 'relaxed' positioning of the tail. I might do the opposite for the other model and have it pitched up like seen in some photos for change up. I don't know if it was me but both rudders on the kit were much too thin for the the vertical stab, there was a noticeable 'step' in thickness between the two so I fixed that by gluing the rudders to a 1mm or so plastic sheet, cut out and then sanded and shaped, adding the heat expansion slot, to get something that looks better to my eye, this too will be slightly displaced to one side. 

 

L1100359_zps7d9yjmju.jpg

 

I also got the Eduard Brassin 'late' F-104 exhaust for the Marine jet, the MTU J79-J1K version, problem is it is way undersized! The gap is massive where it should be a tight fit to get it in, this photo isn't really showing how small it is when viewing it in real life. Pretty disappointed in it tbh after reading 'great' reviews, however DACO to the rescue (again)! The set includes a very nice MTU exhaust that I've been able to adapt to the Eduard Brassin reheat pipe successfully and will show it in a future update when complete. 

 

 

And finally the first step in making the intake covers, while I was at it I started making 4 incase I want to add them on both models, much more to do to them yet.

 

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I've finally decided on the weapons fit for both of them too and will start sorting them out today.

 

Luftwaffe model--4 tanks and a 'silver bullet' B61 nuke, apparently the B61 is more accurate for the timeframe it will be. 

 

Marine model- Tip tanks, drill Kormorans and Aim-9Bs, always impressive to me how it ever got off the ground carrying all that with such tiny wings (I know lifting body etc..but still!).

 

Thanks guys for looking in :)

 

DAvid

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Great work David, very nice indeed.

It's a shame the exhaust is undersized (as it clearly is), it's also amazing how some stuff gets rave reviews when it falls short of what it should provide. It's almost as if some manufacturers can do no wrong whilst others can never get anything right, personally I prefer the truth.

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Lovely work David. The intake blanks in particular are looking promising but that Eduard exhaust is a major disappointment, particularly so for the money they charge, alas their reputation for quality seems to be slipping lately :hmmm:

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13 minutes ago, modelling minion said:

Great work David, very nice indeed.

It's a shame the exhaust is undersized (as it clearly is), it's also amazing how some stuff gets rave reviews when it falls short of what it should provide. It's almost as if some manufacturers can do no wrong whilst others can never get anything right, personally I prefer the truth.

 

13 minutes ago, Col. said:

Lovely work David. The intake blanks in particular are looking promising but that Eduard exhaust is a major disappointment, particularly so for the money they charge, alas their reputation for quality seems to be slipping lately :hmmm:

 

Thank you guys, happy you like it so far! I have noticed some quality issues recently for the Brassin range too, noticeably some wheel sets I have are very poor, 'smushed' and non concentric which renders them pretty useless as wheels I guess. I recommend the Aires nozzle way more than the Brassin one (the DACO version is the most accurate though out of them all and I'll show why later) as it does fill up the nozzle hole well as shown in one of the above posts. As you say Col, for the price, you'd expect better for sure. Craig, I know what you mean, so many things apparently are just brilliant but when you actually use them they fall short hence I take a lot of reviews on new products with a large pinch of salt (paint in particular), in future I think I'll post inquiries on the forums about aftermarket bits to check other people opinions on them instead of only listening to freely provided sample reviews. I do like the Brassin range though, they have filled a lot of holes in many of subjects I find the most interesting  and I still rate most the Brassin stuff I used very highly, just unlucky this time I guess. I always like to show anyone checking in on my threads my take on the aftermarket (if used), I know I like reading the same on other builds if some sets are best avoided. 

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