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West German F-104G x 2


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Lovely work as ever.

Watch out with those wings - the do like to fit on the wrong sides, upside down... how do I know..? :doh:

 

10 minutes ago, mirageiv said:

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.

 

Very Yes to this. It goes for kits too.

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Forgot - Just how do you go about masking canopies on the inside where theres no frame to follow? Is it simply a case of much tedious attempts until it looks right through the "glass" from the outside?

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10 minutes ago, RMP2 said:

Lovely work as ever.

Watch out with those wings - the do like to fit on the wrong sides, upside down... how do I know..? :doh:

 

 

Very Yes to this. It goes for kits too.

 

Cheers Rob, yep I know what you mean! The DACO instructions help indicate which ones should go where fortunately, otherwise I can see how its easy to get them wrong, luckily is shouldn't be too noticeable if so!

 

8 minutes ago, RMP2 said:

Forgot - Just how do you go about masking canopies on the inside where theres no frame to follow? Is it simply a case of much tedious attempts until it looks right through the "glass" from the outside?

 

Yep, simply just old fashioned masking them up with thin strips to the frame, every single aftermarket mask set I've ever tried never fit so I always go at it the long way. If there is quite a lot of distortion in the canopy which makes masking interior frames tricky, I'll do a 'safer option' and mask off the interior frames maybe thinner than they should be to prevent any mis match with the top colour. I only bother though when interior details are added to the canopies, otherswise I just mask on top and spray the interior colours first like usual. 

 

David

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1 minute ago, mirageiv said:

 

Cheers Rob, yep I know what you mean! The DACO instructions help indicate which ones should go were fortunately, otherwise I can see how its easy to get them wrong, luckily is shouldn't be too noticeable if so!

 

 

Yep, simply just old fashioned masking them up with thin strips to the frame, every single aftermarket mask set I've ever tried never fit so I always go at it the long way. If there is quite a lot of distortion in the canopy which makes masking interior frames tricky, I'll do a 'safer option' and mask off the interior frames maybe thinner than they should be to prevent any mis match with the top colour. I only bother though when interior details are added to the canopies, otherswise I just mask on top and spray the interior colours first like usual. 

 

David

 

Cheers. I ask as my Frogfoot ground to a halt mainly due to such "fun" with a load of PE detail inside the main canopy to paint up.

 

 

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On 3/19/2017 at 1:46 PM, Hewy said:

I was intending to build my eduard se 104 kit straight from the box in the 104 gb later this year,but it looks like I'll need a bit more, exellent work david

Glynn

 

Cheers Glynn! Not 100% sure, but if you are talking about the undersized Eduard Brassin exhaust, it isn't included (at least in mine!) in the Eduard Bundesfighter/Nato boxings so still a great kit from the box, the original Hasegawa exhausts provided are nice too! 

 

David

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Hi guys, here is the latest. A lot of sub assemblies and things came together over the weekend.

 

First up the wings were glued with the help of the Daco alignment tool, very helpful. It locates within the undercarriage mount holes to help ensure proper alignment. This does mean however you must make sure the central gear bay is aligned centre, if not both wings as a result of the tool could be out by the same amount. Since there is no way of checking this unless you test fit all the undercarriage I'm relying on some good Hasegawa engineering that everything should be ok in the end. 

 

L1100539_zpswzegn1l4.jpg

 

The flaps and leading edge slats were angled at 15 degrees down, this is the position set for takeoff and also which many parked German jets seem to be at rest. I used a little jig made from plasticard cut at the correct angle to make sure all were equal and true. The ailerons can also be found very slightly dropped on some photos I assume due to pressure loss so I did them too, only slightly however and slightly asymmetrical.  On the below photo you can also see on the Marineflieger model I decided to use the Daco clear/coloured lights. They fit a bit better than the ones provided in the Hasegawa kit but both required blending in and rescribing the circular surrounding panels. 

 

L1100501_zpsge2zu6zh.jpg

 

A few of the rivets (such as on the flap below) I thought I had filled have popped back up again but I'll leave them as it helps increase a little bit of realism in that random rivets can be seen on many jets, also I don't want to fill them anymore :winkgrin: The fine ones on the flaps I did as they always seem quite noticeable. 

 

L1100502_zpssodlvlkp.jpg

 

 

The rudders are both now glued and angled with a slight deflection. I again filled the rivets on them and also some lines on the vertical tail that I couldn't see any any close ups. Hasegawa made the access panels on the tail raised, which from what I can see is correct though maybe a little exaggerated. I reduced some, also I lost a few in the sanding of rivets and had to rescribe these. There are also some small circular ones towards the front of the vertical stab which I did not rescibe as the Daco stencils have these actually drawn onto the large data stencil that goes there, I wasn't sure they would align so I'll rely on the stencil alone to depict the little panels. 

 

L1100509_zpsmovxffs7.jpg

 

 

At this stage most of the main construction was complete so I turned back to work on cockpit parts that must be finished before I can glue the canopies. The first being the small 'V' shaped rear canopy support. I was planning on using the kit piece (black) but it didn't seem to align with the frame of the rear canopy and looked sort of odd when viewing it. So I made a new one, pretty damn tiny for me but it looks the part. Also I really regret adding the way overscale rivets to the rear decking, it looks like someone has machine gunned it :blink: in the photo (not as bad in real life!), the very tiny ones on the Marine model are much more like it.

 

L1100521_zpsjhwitnux.jpg

 

 

After doing both they were painted up and now I'm glad I did them. The below photo also shows the kinda awkward clear light added by sanding a semi circle hole, then gluing some clear spruce perpendicular to the surface and sanded to shape. Hasegase and Daco provided pieces for this but neither fit well/looked right. Mine isn't perfect either and the actual light (smaller than the clear part installed) will be isolated via a small mask, but at least it is flush with the surface unlike the others. 

 

L1100535_zpslwopotpb.jpg

 

 

The little front canopy frames were painted and added. The ones for the Aires cockpit are slightly smaller so I could fit the canopy over the larger Aires IP cover. Sorry I forgot what they are for and don't have my book at hand atm. 

 

L1100511_zpsutr4lkgn.jpg

 

A shot these bits for the canopy open model (nuke), close enough! There are still a lot of details cockpit and canopy wise to do yet but all these will be done after painting to make masking and assembly easier. Also a little point incase anyone thinks it's odd, the protruding seal on the front canopy is asymmetrical due to the canopy hinge mechanism on the port side, so it traces from the inside edge of the front canopy on the left then ends on the outside right hand side, an absolutely minor detail but worth pointing out incase it looks like I glued it dodgy! A picture would say a thousand words here but I have non of my own to show this. 

 

 

L1100520_zpsmq6rmmyp.jpg

 

 

For the Marineflieger jet I added a small folder (attaches to the small black support seen in previous posts) to the rear hatch and a blue book to the front IP area, I've seen both on quite a few Marineflieger aircraft. As the canopy will be closed on this model I thought it would add a little more interest to what can be seen. (also shows the other rear canopy support unpainted)

 

L1100492_zpsvxvdxgcr.jpg

 

 

A lot of the above has been worked on in little stints for quite a while now and all came together quite nicely at the weekend, most of last weeks modelling time was actually spent on these. Along with the Daco underwing tanks, I made 3 sets of tip tanks, one for the Marine model and two for the nuke model. I guess it is common sense to assume a jet on nuclear alert would not have bright orange-dayglo tanks but I do like the colour they bring to these German schemes so one set will have dayglo and the other plain camo, luckily the tanks fit well over the wing tips so I can change them when I want.

 

L1100523_zpsanrfc3xt.jpg

 

 

I nearly went crazy assembling them! Hasegawa's design is a respectable one but it requires many inserts for the fins and various fuel filling caps. I found on my examples none fit well and each piece needed super glue filler (I think 9 parts per tip tank) and rescribing and filling the fin rivets too. I drilled out some miss-moulded holes and made the 6 'plugs?' from stretched spruce, slightly depressed from the surface and probably a bit too large for the scale :hmmm:. The top and bottom of the tanks seem to have slightly different panels as shown below.The clear lights have been drilled and installed but I need to polish off the primer which I forgot to do for this photo!

 

L1100526_zpsahyfshi9.jpg

 

Thankfully the Daco underwing tanks were a much nicer fit, I just rescribed some panels lost in sanding and added a few rivets here and there. After looking at plenty of photos of all these tanks, there should be it seems some very fine raised lines where some of the scribed lines are on my ones, but whatever I've had enough of them now and they'll be fine for me as they are.

 

L1100528_zpsh3gaioyq.jpg

 

 

Some Mr.Surfacer 1200 thinned with levelling thinner and a quick buff up once dry gave a very nice primer surface to check the joins, one or two little bits but tankful this kit really doesn't need so much work.

 

L1100531_zpsfs4szwbr.jpg

 

 

The pair looking like Starfighters now!

 

L1100529_zpseh3f9u6u.jpg

 

I placed the gun cover on the nuke jet too, forgot to get a photo, will do next time. There is still so much to do it seems, all the weaponry, gear, exhausts etc......however I'm a bit bored of building now so I'm going to try and get the canopies and a few other bits ready by the end of the week and hopefully I can start painting the main airframes this weekend. I messed about trying to mix some RAL colours up tonight, thankfully light nights from now on so actually see if I'm anywhere near, I'll see how they look tommorrow. I want to use Gunze on these if I can, if I fail with my own attempts I have trusty old Xtracolor RAL enamels to fall back on. 

 

Hope you are enjoying the builds so far,

 

David

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Top work David.

 

I think I'm going to be adopting your attitude with the rivets. All my modelling time this week has been spent this week on either the wing tip tanks or filling in rivets on one part or another :swear:

 

Looking forward to more progress and painting.

 

James

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On 3/29/2017 at 9:19 PM, Hewy said:

Absolutely stunning dave,that cockpit is straight off the top shelf,really good, you've put them together very well too ,they'll take some paint beautifully, 

Glynn

 

Thank you Glynn!

 

23 hours ago, modelling minion said:

Absolutely stunning work David, as usual.

They really are coming along a treat and look like paint will be applied soon.

I really like all your scratch built details, they really are superb and make your models stand out from the rest of us mere mortals.

 

Cheers Craig! They look ok to the naked eye but some of these close ups you start to see all the flaws, I really must learn to brush paint a bit finer I think, ah well as long as it looks something sorta like I can see in the Daco book I'm all good :)

 

6 hours ago, Mountain goat said:

Simply superb! The cockpit and especially the windscreen interior is astounding.

 

Jay

 

Thanks Jay! 

 

51 minutes ago, franky boy said:

Top work David.

 

I think I'm going to be adopting your attitude with the rivets. All my modelling time this week has been spent this week on either the wing tip tanks or filling in rivets on one part or another :swear:

 

Looking forward to more progress and painting.

 

James

 

Cheers James, I know what you mean, it took me all last week to do the bloody tanks! I just remembered you are doing a NMF so that must be even harder to surface prep, I do not envy you there :winkgrin:.

 

On a small 'progress' note I've tried mixing up the RAL colours, for the life of me I cannot mix RAL 7012 Basaltgrau (topside grey), it seems to change hue etc..so much in all the images I have, from neutral grey to almost intermediate blue-grey, oddly the RAL aerosol of the colour looks way to dark, no blue and nothing like it does on any Starfigher I have seen. I'm just going to use Xtracolor RALs to make life easier :thumbsup:

 

cheers

 

David.

 

 

 

 

 

 

David

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Really great work David, that's coming together very nicely. Can't get enough German 104's anyway.

One little detail you may or may not chose to care about are the top and bottom shoulders/edges of the intakes. Due to the two-part nature of the assembly Hasegawa left off some scribing there.

Have a look at these pictures:

f-104d_093_of_107.jpg

f-104g_fx-47_16_of_39.jpg

 

http://www.sbap.be/aircraft/f104g/f104g.htm

 

Anyway, good look with those two beauties, I'm looking forward to seeing the finished articles!

Cheers

Jeffrey

 

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On 3/31/2017 at 8:41 AM, JeffreyK said:

Really great work David, that's coming together very nicely. Can't get enough German 104's anyway.

One little detail you may or may not chose to care about are the top and bottom shoulders/edges of the intakes. Due to the two-part nature of the assembly Hasegawa left off some scribing there.

Have a look at these pictures:

f-104d_093_of_107.jpg

f-104g_fx-47_16_of_39.jpg

 

http://www.sbap.be/aircraft/f104g/f104g.htm

 

Anyway, good look with those two beauties, I'm looking forward to seeing the finished articles!

Cheers

Jeffrey

 

 

Thank you Jeffery, I love modelling them too, I think I have made 4 pretty much consecuatively in the last years!

 

I like your attention to detail there, if I'm honest I did notice this (I've been using the Daco book which covers every square inch seemingly), along with the circumferential panel lines Hasegawa gives that I cannot see on the photos. The main reason I haven't tried filling/rescribing this area is as you say the kit intakes come in two pieces. The edge where they join IIRC was quite squared off oob, so I sanded and tried to round the upper and lower edges like your photos. The problem is it made the plastic very thin at the join areas doing this, so much so I was worried that if I filled/sanded more I would sand though them and the lip or front corner would be ruined. In fact just looking at them now I have nearly sanded through the join at the sharp thin front area of the intake already, I don't want to try it and end up with a difficult thing to remedy as I'm almost certain I would sand through the join at the lip. So I think this time I will leave it but this is good to know for future builds, next time I'll fill and rescribe the panels before I round off the edges and that way I'll have more control. I hope that makes sense?! Thank you for the suggestion though, any more please let me know before it is too late! :)

 

btw I just realised it is YOUR amazing F-104J build I have been viewing for a while now, it helped immensely in how to fit the Aires cockpit, thanks for posting it!

 

cheers

 

David.

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On 4/1/2017 at 10:46 AM, RMP2 said:

Erm, yea, rather nice work there!

 

3 hours ago, zebra said:

Tremendous work. I dream of being able to do this kind of detailed work!

 

Cheers Rob and Zebra! I saw this F-104 build the other day, it really puts things into perspective but thank you all the same! : http://modellboard.net/index.php?topic=38804.705

 

I wanted to start painting this weekend and naturally I didn't make it however I should be ready to start mid week sometime. 

 

First up was some masking on the canopies for the black and cream/grey seals and tapes. I had already spread the interior colours on these so they will not be black!

 

L1100543_zpshpg6rwy6.jpg

 

L1100544_zpsz4ld7jzn.jpg

 

 

Some little details that I either sanded off or I noticed in the Daco book were added to the underside, I'm not sure what the offset little panels are, even the Daco book doesn't mention what they do IIRC. I've only drilled the light shape, I'll put a little plastic disc there towards the end I think.

 

L1100550_zpsdprbrtcd.jpg

 

 

The gun cover installed on the nuke jet. 

 

L1100557_zpst87zaldg.jpg

 

 

The canopies were masked for the final time for the main camo colours. Also the infrared seeker had a little cover placed on it, apparently standard fit for any ground attack F-104G.

 

L1100554_zpsmmeticie.jpg

 

I got a pair of Master pilot tubes for these. Not really because they are so much nicer than the kit or Daco parts, it is just that on every single Starfighter I have made before I've broken the plastic ones countless times during handling, hopefully these will survive better!

 

L1100566_zpsikidhtp7.jpg

 

Re primed the canopy areas and one or two other places, also scribed a new rain removal nozzle cover only found on the port side of the front canopy.

 

L1100572_zpskya8eopj.jpg

 

 

The forward main bulged gear doors in the Hasegawa kit are slightly too bulged. Below from left to right is the Daco corrected one, then my Hasegawa improved one and a standard oob kit part. The little circle lump was made like so after seeing the idea on here, nice little method to make things like that. 

 

L1100564_zpsk794u19u.jpg

 

 

I glued up the Daco exhaust too, I'm going to add a little bit of detail like linkage arms to the inside petals but the main point of the photo is to highlight it fits perfectly unlike the Eduard Brassin piece. 

 

L1100575_zpsrsseeetm.jpg

 

 

So I now have both of them ready for paint which I'll start sometime this week. 

 

L1100570_zpseui0znhw.jpg

 

Thanks for looking!

 

David.

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Cheers guys, glad the fussy bits are over and now the fun bit starts! :) 

 

Oddly some of the first kits I ever built needed rescribing (old 1/72 Heller Mirages) when I started proper a few years ago so I have fortunately (or unfortunately!) had a good amount of practice. There seems to be a million scribing tools, all needed for different jobs apparently, but I find a sharp pin in vice, the standard Tamiya scriber (used gently), basic templates and some blue 3M tape does 99% of what I'd ever need. Nothing I have found makes a line as crisp as a sharp pin, then I sand it, wash out the residue and brush a tiny amount of lacquer thinner inside to fuze it all together. The problem I find sometimes is that I want the lines too true to scale which results in after painting and clear layers they can struggle to hold a wash properly, so I'm trying to learn to just get them right. Plus using superglue as a filler allows nice crisp lines, I never could do it over standard fillers without it flaking. I think I only used superglue as a filler on these kits, really is the best imho!

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Great work David and what a nice cockpit!

Time for me to start my F-104 aswell but all the scratch building is a little bit to difficult for me!

 

Looking forward to the painting stage.

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Great work as always David. They look a treat!

 

By the way after your glowing report on my thread i invested in the Daco improvement set. I can now see what all the fuss is about!

 

Looking forward to seeing some paint them soon.

 

James

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Cheers James! I look forward to seeing more of your future F-104s :)

 

Some painting is done! First up was spraying the clear lights and the inside of the tail,

 

L1100578_zps43wxdley.jpg

 

 

 

For the camo I had a go at the underside RAL 9006 Weissaluminium (WA) first as I used Mr. Color lacquer paints that would craze Xtracolor if going over the top. It is a colour I've done many times before and I still think about different ways how to paint it, after looking at many photos it can come in quite few shades. It is quite hard to really weather the paint imho until all the decals are on, I usually do post shading and oils etc..that grime/dull it up.

 

This time a did a sort of pre shading to see if helped break up paint,

 

L1100579_zps31oetufa.jpg

 

Then I mixed up Mr. Color 8 silver and some grey to get that silver-grey look. Sprayed very well and the pre shading helped break up the paint (not so obvious on the photo) but I wasn't satisfied with the colour. It looked too grey, dark and not bright enough to my eye. Here is comparison between another 1/72 Starfighter (in the queue to be reworked for in flight display) which I think the colour is very close to what I orginally wanted.

 

L1100581_zpsww6wd0uf.jpg

 

 

I tried altering the Mr. Color mixes but to no avail, no matter what I added it came out either too grey or too dark and silver (I'm crap at mixing and matching colours btw). So after glossing the Mr. Color I just sprayed a very very thin layer of Xtracolor WA over in a rather random way to make is a bit brighter. It now looks a bit too bright and metallic maybe, but from past Starfighters this is a good thing. After proper weathering later on it should all dull down nicely. From my experience having the underside looking too grey/dull now means after weathering it just looks incorrectly plain grey. 

 

L1100584_zpsdz41ne10.jpg

 

Unfortunately some more of the preshading was lost with the extra paint, not so much of a worry though as the plan was to always weather the undersides properly after the decals are on. Still need to spray the gear bays.

 

L1100588_zpse156zpjy.jpg

 

 

The Luftwaffe F-104G will be a JaboG 31 example, one from this video though a few years earlier: 

 

 

Probably 22+59, since the hangers were built in the early seventies these JaboG 31 jets seem quite clean which I like. In contrast though the Marine MFG1 F-104 will be rather weathered and a nice contrast. 

 

So I masked up the Luftwaffe F-104 first and got ready to spray the Xtracolor RAL 7012 Basaltgrau topsides. I didn't have any Xtracolor thinners at hand but read Revell Colormix enamel thinner was a great substitute and I then remembered getting good results with it using Xtracolor, before I switched mainly to acrylics. Mixed some up and began applying a first layer then thought to myself 'hmm..this isn't spraying as nice as I remember!' Opened up the airbrush cup and to my surprise found a pink, gritty liquid inside! It didn't look like that when I mixed it, so I tried again and it mixed fine, then 30 seconds later it just completely separated and went pink. Really strange. Thinking I may have had a naff tin, I tried my second tin and found the same thing. The tins and Revell thinner are only a few months since purchase so not sure what the heck is happening. Especially when I did some colour testing using the same tins/thinner a few weeks back and it was fine...

 

L1100589_zpsd7ivceec.jpg

 

 

L1100590_zpsvxhufmpd.jpg

 

 

I remember Xtracolor Basaltgrau was sold out for a year or so until a new batch came in a few months back, these tins being from that new batch which either means they are both dodgy or the formula slightly changed to make them incompatible with Revell enamel thinner, I tested the Revell thinner on some other Xtracolor and it was fine. I immediately stopped and have ordered some more tins and proper Xtracolor thinners so hopefully I'll be able to get on with the topsides this weekend. If they also turn out to be crappy too I'll have to think of a different way to paint these! I think I might post it in the paint section and see what someone makes of it.

 

Thanks for looking in,

 

David.

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