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Hi, Please find my latest build the Kinetic Starfighter converted to a CF-104 used by AETE and in early 1970's markings. Probably the most challenging build I have ever done. I made some unnecessary errors along the way, which are described in detail in a WIP thread that I did over the past few weeks. So for anyone interested in my blunders....🤣 Thankfully I received a lot of information from our Canadian Britmodelers, some who had worked in the RCAF/CAF and some who worked on the actual CF-104's. Thanks again, for your help. I did make a few compromises here and there, all described in the WIP, but now that it is finished...... Am reasonably happy with it. Aftermarket I used: Belcher weapons set Master-model pitot (Changed it last minute) Master casters CF-104 wheel set Belcher decals Mini magnets for bombs and pylons attachment Paints: AK xtreme metal Some Alclad for individual panels (applied last) Mr Color super Italian red (Tail) Tamiya XF-12 J.N. grey (for the underside of the wings) Flory dark brown wash The kit does actually allow you to build a CF-104, also the later versions with the sensors under the nose and tail. It's all there ready on the sprues, just not mentioned in the manual. Anyway, hope you like it: The model was based on below photograph. I also thought it nice to accompany it with the shown weapon load out. I always thought of the Starfighter as a fast interceptor, but some countries used it for the tactical/nuclear role as I found out. The wing tanks are converted to house camera's and also visible is a detachable orange camera pod behind the nose gear. I tried to incorporate these details as well. Courtesy of my wife's mirrored cake stand; By the way, not sure if I have the centre pylon the right way around........but then again........ it's attached with 2 magnets, so can flip it around👍 That's all, thanks for watching...... Regards, Rob

CF-104 104632 (N104NL), Northern Lights, Mojave Airport CA, October 1989 and March 1992. 1989 1992 Thanks for looking, Sven

We join this work in progress... in progress (I started before joining BM). Last year I did a Hasagawa F-104 from about 1986 (ugh, terrible kit) and used a decal set from Belcher Bits to make it a gray/green camo, low viz CF-104. In the course of doing that, I decided I really liked the early NMF CF-104s and the decal set included decals from that era. So I bought this kit. For the most part I've had good experiences with Hasagawa kits. This one.... isn't quite one of them so far. The build has stalled out; I'd hoped it would be an easy build, maybe a couple of weeks, but it's been over a month because I'm procrastinating fixing the seam between the front half and back half , and because I still can't quite figure out how I want to apply the Alclad (This build also is part of my on-going quest of getting a realistic natural metal finish. More on that later though). Now, here is where I've gotten so far: "she doesn't look like much, but she's got it where it counts!" Well, maybe. The detail is top notch, and by and large the fit is really nice, with a couple major exceptions. First, the panel containing the cannon was a separate piece and didn't fit well, so I had to use super glue to fill in the gaps and sand it flush. Second, there is a front half and a back half, and when I glued them together, there was overlap. it didn't matter how I positioned them, there was overlap somewhere: It may not look like much, but I'm going to have to bust out the files to get that flush! Another gripe is that the plastic looks like it sunk a bit, so at the seams on the bottom, it is a little concave. Luckily it's only on the bottom because I filled and smoothed it out to the best of my ability, but I'm not crazy about how it turned out. The cockpit had the option to paint the instrument panel or apply a decal. I decided to paint it: The panel was painted Dark Gull Gray with black, olive green and red in appropriate places. I just used a magnifying glass and a tiny brush. The side panels are black with Testors Steel dry-brushed on. My reference photos showed a dark grime around the outer parts of the head rest and seat cushions, so I tried to replicate that by using tamiya weathering pastels around the edges. I've already painted the wings (Mr. Color, white on top, Light Blue on the bottom) and black-based them, using Mr. Surfacer 1500 black as a primer and then marbling on the white (or blue) and then misting on the color to blend it all together. It's a little too subtle in the picture, but looks about right in real life. I also did the fuel tanks and horizontal stabilizer, which were all red. I had a hard time matching the red: I thought it should be Chevy engine red, but that was too orange. So I put a light coat of Ford engine red and that seemed to match the decals OK. I also black based these: I had to paint and assemble the main gears. These I primered with Tamiya gloss black spray, and put a coat of Alclad Polished aluminum on, followed by a very light coat of Alclad aluminum to cut the shine down a bit. I coated that with Alclad Aqua Gloss, then used a wash of black oil paint in paint thinner to bring out the details. When this had dried, I sealed it with Testors Metallizer sealer. I've found that Alclad will pull up with tape once in a while, so I try to do all the other colors first and mask them before doing the alclad. That's why the nose, intakes, and red rectangles before the intakes are masked in these pictures. Finally, I did the metal in the back part of the fuselage, because it looks different from the rest of the body: Same routine here as with the main gear bay: Black gloss, followed by Alclad stainless steel. On the left in this picture is the stainless steel. The darker part to the right, I put a very light over coat of Alclad steel and the lighter looking part has a light coat of Alclad dark aluminum. I think the light part is too light, so I may have to look at that again. Next steps: Mask the metal in back, mask the gear bays, and fix that seam in the middle (ugh). Then it will be time to Alclad this bad boy!

Happy new year, everyone! My Wingnut Wings FE.2b (early) has been stalled for some time, so I took the opportunity to build the Hasegawa F-104G/S Starfighter in 1/32 with my son. It has very little rigging and was a great way to get back into action. We used Leading Edge decal to represent the out-of-box F-104G as a CF-104. I know this isn't really accurate at all: We should have deleted the gun on the port side, and the wings are the wrong color. This was a holiday build, though, and we didn't want to deduct from our swimming and biking time by worrying too much about that. On with the show: (Is Cold Lake not the most Canadian place name, ever?) So there you go. No fancy heat discoloration in the aft part of the fuselage, nothing like that. But we're happy with it and hope you like it too. Cheers.

Italeri has released some test shot photos and decal images of their new 1:32 scale CF-104 / F-104G boxing. It looks like an improved version of the Hasegawa kit. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.544555952283696.1073741837.454765391262753&type=1 There are multiple issues with the RCAF markings and the stencils appear to be genericized (so not accurate to the RCAF). Looks like it has both types of seats (covering both the CF-104 and F-104G) but the forward IP looks to be only the F-104G type. Canuck Models offers correct markings for this era and I have other Starfighter sets in the works. So if you're planning to build an RCAF version, you'll be covered. thanks David