reini

@vppelt68 ... is it safe to continue now?

Ffff *drops the hobby knife* Ooops 😳

I kinda wanted to do Croatian MiG-21Bis (as per 'my flag') - but suddenly I felt strong disturbance in the force, I fear that there are too few finished Starfighter kits in the world. So I ended up starting a Canadian Starfighter Being one of the founding countries, I think Canada is a good choice for this GB. And I have not built anything Canadian yet - so that's a bonus (well, technically I have - Avro Canuck - but I did it in Belgian markings). This is the kit. Yes I know it says JASDF on the box but we will fix that. This is not my first Starfighter Nor the last! Kit parts. My favourite 1/72 Starfighter kit. Good basic all around kit with no major problems or issues. Kit instructions and decals. But won't be using these now. We are using these from a kit I made earlier - I converted CF-104 into F-104C build thread here: All lovely schemes! Top one is NMF with red tail. Middle one is nice dark green and on bottom is green/grey camo. I think I will go with option too, the green one I'll be doing this more or less straight from the box - and canopy closed. So the kit details with some decals will suffice. I might add few details to the seat though. Kit comes with clear plastic IP which I don't quite understand how to to make it work. So I will just paint it and use decals instead. If there is a tricky part with the kit - it's the four part fuselage with the intakes added to the mix. There's a lot of seams in one place. This time I try to glue the front and rear fuselage parts together to make sure atleast they fit nicely. Now it's not the easiest thing to do as the connection point is only via top of the fuselage. We will see if it was worth the extra hassle. Adding the intakes makes the package come together but I want to paint he insides first. So left and right side of fuselage are not glued together yet - only the front to rear on both sides. I think this will work out if the mating surface will hold up until I can glue in the intakes. The gun panel is maybe a tad too small on the rear, should have maybe added a thin strip of plasticard for a better fit. We will sort it out later. It seems I got some glue where I didn't want it. Oh well, no biggie as I thought of puttying over the (not so realistic) riveting on the rear fuselage anyways... The thing with Starfighter is to check your references for all the antennas and sensors you need - and don't need. The instructions are actually really good for this, they clearly indicate what to cut and what to keep for each of the schemes. As long as you remember to read them This is the sensor I usually forget to take off - it is RWR sensor for the Japanese F-104 only. Selection of small parts getting ready for primer. Fuel tanks, wings and rest of the bits are taken care of and tidied up - all we are left with is empty sprues So next time we will get into painting!

@81-er Thanks The intakes on top of the engines looked bit off so I did some more research. The instructions themselves are not really helping at all but I came to conclusion that I have not glued in the intakes - but tropical filters for the actual intakes. But no worries, it seems I have glued the filters on pretty much correct place so adding the intakes was not too big of a problem. There are apparently shorter and longer intake - this being the shorter, with the extra filter. I found few images of 'Dusty' with this setup so I'm good to go. Well I did put in some putty - just in case And look, wings are on! I forgot to take a pic but I pinned the wings and made an ad-hoc rig to keep everything in somewhat correct angle. It did turn out to be a tail sitter so I added some weights to the nose. Next up, is the vacuform canopies. After slowly cutting them into shape (scissors being the best tool for this, altough I really need to get SMALL scissors... ) - the clear parts have somewhat decent fit. And masking. I kinda wanted to avoid using my normal method of cutting the tape on the part itself - vacuform being quite thin an bendy. But I ended up doing just that anyways. Not my best masking job - but we will fix any bigger mistakes in the end. Canopies glued onto place! Wow! Happy! Just need to make sure the fit is ok, then we can start painting!

True. But I still think its the best 1/72 Starfighter overall. I haven't tried to putty the rivets over with my builds, but maybe with the next one...

True! They could be darker. 👍

Molotov Liquid Chrome pen.

Thanks! But it's not tiny - I did 1/700 recently and that was tiny! From bottom up - 1/700, 1/144, 1/72 and 1/48

This is the image that I came across: https://beeldbank.nimh.nl/foto-s/detail/edb2f47b-9a02-85e1-56ea-8b23609cc71e/media/00a62de9-dfb8-db2c-7679-10d4fcab765a Most definitely a dummy bomb - but interesting nevertheless.

RAF English Electric Lightning F.2A, No. 19 Sqn. B (Wng. Cdr. R.K. Barcilon), November 1974, Gütersloh, Germany Another Airfix kit I built this year that did not disappoint. Huge chunk of an airplane represented nicely in 1:72 scale. Metal finish was tempting but I went with the green in the end. Built straight from the box apart from the seat ejection handles, seat harness & pitot tube. Painted with Vallejo acrylics and weathered with Ammo products and oil paints.

Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Me 410 A-1/U2, 11./ZG 26 Horst Wessel, 1945, Gardermoen, Norway Airfix's amazing new tool Me410. What a great kit! I had fun putting this together - and had a bit of fun painting & weathering it too. Painted with Vallejo acrylics, weathered with Ammo products and oil paints.

Luftosvaret De Havilland DH100 Vampire FB Mk.52, Skvadron 337 Vaernes Air Station, 1953. Tiny little Vampire was nice little kit that I just planned to do 'in-between' - but proved to be more fun than I expected. I might re-visit 1:144 scale again in the future! Painted with Vallejo acrylics and weathered with Ammo products. And no, I still haven't managed to build a Vampire that is not a tail-sitter! So this one received a clear peg under its belly to keep it up

Dutch F-104G Starfighter carrying a 'special' load (B43 nuclear bomb). Kit is Hasegawa 1:72 with some additions - like the engine/exhaust, PE for the cockpit, resin seat and resin wheels and master pitot tube. Main decals are from Xtradecal and the stencils by Armycast. Painted with Vallejo acylics and weathered with Ammo products and oil paints.

Japanese I-400 class submarine designed & built in WW2 - largest subs in the world until the dawn of nuclear subs in the 1960's. I-400 class subs had a hangar space for three float planes. Two or three ships of this kind were built before the end of the war. I had some PE details to add to the build - like the rails. Painted with Vallejo acrylics and weathered with oil paints.

Great looking pair!

@Hook Best of luck with the weather!

@Dennis_C Awesome! So it's the metal next? Seems to be you're having a good momentum with this build.

Indeed. Great to see camo F-84. It's definitely on my 'to-do' list too ... maybe for the next F-84 GB But @stevehnz hoping to see yours done for this GB!

@Tbolt That is just beautiful work all around! Great details and your paintwork really brings it all together 🙂👍

I have couple of ideas too, Pakistani F-104A or Japanese two seater. Eventually hoping to do F-104 of each nationality. Still far away from that goal (5/15).

Starfighter has been mentioned, why aren't you here already @RidgeRunner@RidgeRunner - didn't you have a Starfighter project or two? 😉

Parts ready for priming. Engine details are not amazing but certainly better than Emhar. Cockpit tub and the seats are bit on the simple side but they are greatly enhanced by the photoetch parts.

Despite the plastic being bit on the chunky side on the Emhar kit - it's still quite brittle. Interior parts ready for priming. The engine couldn't be any more simple. I'm tempted to atleast lengthen the tube a bit. The lack of details in the cockpit is quite noticeable too with no decals or anything. I think we have to figure out something.

Round two of putty with the engines. Getting there. Fit to the wings is not ... ideal But slowly scraping & sanding we got pretty close. Engines are on and first layer of putty applied. Intakes on top of the engines glued on. Soon we cant start thinking about gluing the wings on I've started to clean up the prop on the right. But these took a while... They cleaned up OK. Just bit soft details...

Uh-oh... I better not count them, then Regarding the glazing - I have a general question about it. The kit don't have any interior - but it still has clear parts. Would you... a) ... paint all the clear parts black from the inside b) ... paint all of the interior black ... or something else?