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The kit is the 1/32 F-104 Starfighter from Revell in a special decal edition box. This kit caught my eye in the poor, pathetic, castoff section of one of my local hobby shops. It is from a purchase of a kit collection and I bought it solely because of the decal option. I normally focus on WWII aircraft and prefer propellers on my kits. However, of late, I have gotten on a Tiger Meet theme. Now, strictly speaking this is not from a Tiger Meet. But, it is of a similar vein. I have no real information as to the actual aircraft other than a few pictures I found on the web. I also do not know how accurate this kit is, but it looks like/resembles a Starfighter to me. On opening the box, the first thing I noticed was the decals. They are old. How old? The instructions and wonderful trademark on the port wing indicate the kit was made in 1980. I made a few modifications to the kit to more closely resemble an F-104 G at the suggestion of a fellow Britmodeller who knows far more than I about F-104s and this particular plane. The WIP thread is here http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234959637-f-104-hunting-cat/. Another reason I chose this model is I am learning how to use an airbrush. Since this scheme is so colorful and combines a flat camo scheme on one side with a glossy bright color scheme on the other side, I thought it would be ideal. I thought this kit would kill me as to painting it. Most of the errors were from my own inexperience. What I did learn was to more appreciate you people that have seemed to have so effortlessly mastered the black, evil and sadistic art that goes by the name airbrushing. For your perusal: Not a whole lot left visible inside of the cockpit, but here goes: As always, all comments welcome.

This caught my eye in the poor pathetic section of one of my local hobby shops. It is from a purchase of a kit collection and I bought it solely because of the decal option. I normally focus on WWII aircraft and prefer propellers on my kits. However, of late, I have gotten on a Tiger Meet theme. Now, strictly speaking this is not from a Tiger Meet. But, it is of a similar vein. I have no real information as to the actual aircraft other than a few pictures I found on the web. I also do not know how accurate this kit is, but it looks like/resembles a Starfighter to me. On opening the box, the first thing I noticed was the decals. They are old. How old? The instructions and wonderful trademark on the port wing indicate the kit was made in 1980. So, I am hoping this will not be a waste and the decals fall apart when I begin to apply them. I am going to be optimistic and put the kit together and paint it; then hope for the best. It has an interesting paint scheme as the port side is white and orange with the cat chasing mice scheme running its length. Starboard is a regular camo scheme and the undersides in aluminum or silver. I don’t know the date this kit was originally manufactured, but it must have been prior to 1980 as there is a lot of flash on the parts. Now it is easy to remove, but there is a lot. The parts count is relatively low, but I did not buy the kit for a massive amount of detail, I bought it for the paint/decal scheme. So, there will be no detailing or “correcting for errors” as I have no idea what to correct for. I’m just hoping the fit of parts is good. First off, the cockpit. Not a lot of detail and not a lot of parts. I am hoping the color callouts in the kit are correct, so my apologies to Starfighter experts if I finish the cockpit incorrectly. I started with a very basic instrument panel, base painted in Nato Black and then weathered and highlighted with a dry brush of silver and some red knobs. Then the front cowling received the same treatment with some clear blue applied to a clear window that sits in front of the gun reflector sight. (Which I glued in place, but has now vanished into the great beyond. I’m thinking the chances of finding a very small clear part are slim to none. I will have to improvise later.) I then painted the seat, the control stick and the cockpit tub. I weathered them and had fun with the side dials. The cockpit tube and cowling were glued to one half of the fuselage and then the two halves were glued together with the following results. After the fuselage was together, I found this little lapse in construction that will have to be rectified with some plastic sheet before the canopy is put on. This is going to be a long kit Some more parts were put in place on the fuselage, these on the bottom . . . The cannon cover. The kit gives the option of having the cannon and its bay exposed, but for this kit, given its scheme, I think the cover should be closed. I am just glad it fits so well. When I glued the cannon cover I noticed this. . . Just seems that a kit of this size would have the gun port “opening” opened. So, with a drill and some filing, I opened up the gun port to this . . . Looks a little better. I then added the intakes port and starboard Now on my last two nose wheel aircraft, I forgot to add weight to make them sit correctly. I was not about to make that same mistake again. Luckily, the kit provides a very large and long nose cone which I filled with fishing weights and superglue. (More on that at the end of the post; clumsy is my name.) So as the nose cone dries, I move to the other end of the fuselage to add the tail section. The kit comes with two different styles of tails, but the instructions only call out one for use in this model. I am not sure what the other tail is for. All I am hoping is that the tail insert will fit the body and go together seamlessly. Now it would have been nice if the designers of the kit thought of how this kit would be constructed and painted. If they would have considered it, they would not have designed the exhaust nozzle to be inserted into the tail section prior to its attachment to the fuselage body. They would have been kind and designed the nozzle to be inserted after the tail section was attached so it could be left off to ease painting the fuselage. Yeah, no such luck. So I put together the exhaust nozzle . . . Gave it a base coat of gunmetal (Humbrol 53) . . . Then doused it with some Tamiya Smoke . . . Put on a coat of Tamiya Clear Blue and then removed most of it with paint thinner for this result. Next I dry fit the exhaust nozzle section with the tail section so I can check its fit to the rest of the fuselage. I had some suspicions that this assembly was not going to mesh well with the rest of the fuselage. Here are the pictures that show how “seamlessly” it will fit. The diameter where the exhaust nozzle fits is too small and there is a nice little step that will have to be contended with. Then there is a rather large gap where the tailplane is going to fit. Somehow, I don’t think the tailplane is going to be that thick so some sort of spacer will be needed. And finally, when the exhaust section of the tail is fit flush, there is a large gap where the rest of the tail section is to meet with the fuselage tail section. Not real sure if I can manhandle that, or more spacer material will be needed. To fix the diameter issue, I messed around with some sprue to create a spacer which increased the diameter of the tail section exhaust opening to match the diameter of the fuselage exhaust opening area. I think the next step will be to attach the bottom part of the tail section to the fuselage, let that dry to a nice hard bond, and then manhandle the top part of the tail section to fit flush to the rest of the fuselage. At that point, I can then dry fit the tailplane to see how I can fix that huge gap. At least that is my plane for now. For right now, I am waiting for the glue to dry on the spacer, so it can be cut down to allow the exhaust nozzle to fit. Now originally, when I was devising my plan of attack to do the paint scheme and decals, I thought it might be best to construct the fuselage section first, paint it and then decal it. After that, I would build, decal, paint and attach the wings. As I began to look at the paint scheme of this kit and how involved it was, I decided that I should just bite the bullet and assemble the entire kit; then paint and decal. Granted it might be easier to put fuselage decals on without the wings, but it would be a nightmare to try to match up the paint schemes of the wings and fuselage if painted separately. So it’s on to the port wing which consists of the stubby little wing and the end gas tank. And this is then glued to the fuselage. The fit being quite good and just minor seam cleanup on the gas tank. I also glued the nose cone to the fuselage This aircraft is as long as my keyboard. And this is where I am going to stop. But, not before this picture Now, I know what your first impressions are and this is not what you think it is. This is actually the result of a learning process of many years regarding my limitations. I am a clumsy oaf. I now admit it. I tried to ignore it and pretended I wasn’t, but I am. Most people are careful with their tins of paint, glue, filler, etc. I am not. If it can be spilled, I will find a way to do it. What you see above is the cleanup from my dumping most of the superglue I used to fill up the nose cone to hold the weights in place. Now I should know better, superglue only bonds instantly to your fingers and when you do not have the part placed properly. When you want it to bond instantly, it can take hours to set. Like a dunce, I filled the nose cone with weights, and then poured in a fairly substantial quantity of superglue to hold everything in place. Now why I then placed the nose cone down on my work desk is beyond me. Ten minutes later I notice a very large patch of superglue all over the top of my desk, slowly attempting to permanently attach everything in its path including some finished kit parts. So, what you see above is my realizing my limitations and I now only build on a desk with a glass top!! Paint spills, glue drips, filler blobs, all can be scraped off with a razor blade. If you are a klutz like me, I heartily recommend a glass desktop. All comments always encouraged and welcomed.