Italeri F-104A/C 1/72

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good afternoon

 F104 C Monogram are you talking about this one ?

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/135626-monogram-85-5240-f-104c-star-fighter

 

Patrice

[iainpeden]

19 hours ago, Wez said:

 

It really depends on which sheets/subject's you're talking about.

 

Many of the kit decal sheets were printed by Cartograf, printing was often brilliant, adhesion and resistance to silvering a bit hit-and-miss.

 

They also produced their own stand-alone sheets for generic subjects, printing was always great, scaling and adhesion less so.

 

Kit sheets were always better than the stand-alone sheets.

 

How useable some of these are now I can't say!

 

Caveat emptor!

 

Wez

All the Esci sheets I have used over the last ten years have had to be coated in a decal film first and even then can be suspect tending to explode on contact with water. Personally I would not buy Esci sheets off anybody now but they were very good in their day.

[Shalako]

Wez and Jure, thanks for your replies lads.

 

I was referring to the stand-alone sheets for generic subjects. I have seen quite a lot on Ebay, and was wondering if it's worth buying some (for example, this one; P-38 LIGHTNING & P-39 AIRCOBRA Nr.32).

 

Cheers

Shalako

[Rob de Bie]

29 minutes ago, Shalako said:

I was referring to the stand-alone sheets for generic subjects. I have seen quite a lot on Ebay, and was wondering if it's worth buying some (for example, this one; P-38 LIGHTNING & P-39 AIRCOBRA Nr.32).

 

Since no-one mentioned it so far, I will: the ones I've seen all had a badly yellowed decal film. They looked quite unusable to me..

 

Rob

[Panoz]

On 16/3/2017 at 7:14 PM, Shalako said:

Hi Jure,

 

You've mentioned something about ESCI's kits decals. Lately, I see quite a few decals' sheets (not from kits) by ESCI on Ebay that must be between 25 to 30 years old. Do you know if they are still usable and/or how accurate they are (shape/colours/details)?

 

Cheers

Shalako

 

The ESCI decal sheets were originally released in the early 70s (long before they did any 1/72 aircraft kits)

They are NOTORIOUSLY poorly researched, based on Profile and Aircam artworks and throwing a couple of imaginary schemes for added effect (PLAAF MiG-15 with bogus Chinese slogans, ROCAF F-101B,  etc) 

They were reissued in the early 80s without any corrections.

 

36 minutes ago, Rob de Bie said:

 

Since no-one mentioned it so far, I will: the ones I've seen all had a badly yellowed decal film. They looked quite unusable to me..

 

Rob

 

Even the ones I saw back in the late 80s had yellowed film...

 

Finally on the subject of ESCI kit decals; yes they looked great on the sheet (super thin film, tons of fully legible stencils, highly original choices) but putting them on the model was a different matter altogether since they had poor adhesive qualities and silvered badly

Edited March 17, 2017 by Panoz

[Giorgio N]

On 17/3/2017 at 9:34 AM, Hook said:

 

Personally, I'd go for the Revell F-104C kit.

 

HTH,

 

Andre

 

Sure agree with that, I'm thinking more of a backup plan for modellers who can't find the Revell/Monogram kit

 

20 hours ago, TEMPESTMK5 said:

Good afternoon

 F104 C Monogram are you talking about this one ?

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/135626-monogram-85-5240-f-104c-star-fighter

 

Patrice

 

Yes, that's the one

 

Regarding Esci decals, the standalone sheets were a great thing in the '70s but today they are hopeless, inaccurate and with poor print quality.

The decals included in the kit changed with the years, some were not great but some were actually pretty good. The problem is that very few of their decals seem to have been able to survive.. both the ones on yellow and on white backing paper are today likely to dissolve as soon as they touch water. The few printed on light blue backing paper seem to have been the best and I've used a couple of bits from my decals box a couple months ago with no problem. In any case, with any Esci kit, I'd test the decals before using them.

[Rob de Bie]

On 3/16/2017 at 7:28 PM, Rob de Bie said:

Recently I bumped into Arne Goethe's Hasegawa/Esci F-104C, and that might be the best receipe for an F-104C: use the Hasegawa fuselage up to the tail break, and add the Esci tail. I really like the idea of replacing the Hasegawa tail, getting rid of the annoying rivets. And I agree with Arne that the Esci wings look the best of all kits, so use those too.

 

I just checked with calipers how well this kitbash would fit (theoretically), and it looks good:

 

Fuselage height at rear fuselage break (FS 614): Esci 18.8 mm - Hasegawa 18.6 mm
Fuselage width at rear fuselage break (FS 614): Esci 19.7 mm - Hasegawa 20.0 mm

 

I managed to find a fresh Hasegawa F-104G and an Italeri F-104A on Saturday at the IPMS Antwerp show. I just cut off the Hasegawa tail, and glued the Italeri tail in its place, and I'm happy to report that it is indeed a good fit! So Arne Goethe's kitbashing idea really works. Of course you can also just build the Monogram/Revell kit, but I think this is the better route in the end.

 

Rob

[tempestfan]

On Friday, March 17, 2017 at 11:12 AM, Jure Miljevic said:

Decals in question were matt, so they were probably not printed by Cartograf.  ...On a negative note, decals were quite often off register, ...

Jure

Cartograf supplied the decals for most of Italeri's and Esci's kits in the 70s and 80s, and usually were matt. Just had a look in an ancient Revell boxing of the 1/48 Jaguar GR.1, and those included are matt, annotated as being by Cartograf and in very good  (though not perfect ) register. Printing is extremely fine for decals approaching 40 years. My experience with the kit decals is that they tend to be much, much better in register than Esci's aftermarket sheets. I bought a large batch of them some 25 years ago at something like a Deutschmark each,  and the registration varied from good to non existant. They are very thick, and I can confirm some heavy yellowing, though not on all. I'd advise to inspect before buying re register and yellowing. The segregational tendencies and lack of sticking power can probably be overcome. BTW, the Esci aftermarket sheets were marketed under a bazillion of brands including IIRC Lines, Revell and Yeoman, so possibly ***may*** be found easier under those brands in the respective markets.

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello, Tempestfan

I checked ESCI kits at hand and decals for both F-104 G/S and for F-100 D had been printed by G. Decals. There is no mentioning of a print shop on F-104 A/C decals, apart from ESCI trademark. This decals have white background and are turning slightly yellow. G. Decals are printed on yellow background and as far as I could judge, there is no trace of yellowing. Both F-100 D and F-104 A/C decals are off register, but only just, and hardly need to be replaced. The same could be said for one of the F-104 G/S decals, while the second set needs replacement of all national markings and some trimming of unit badges. While this would make it presentable, I will probably replaced it with AM or home-made set. Cheers

Jure

[tempestfan]

Hi Jure,

the printer may be a question of year of manufacture. I had a look at a pile of Italeri kit an hour ago. All the older boxes had Cartograf decals, up to ca. 1990. A reissue Ju 52 Mausi, box (C)  1998, and a lot of other kits of 90s manufacture had ones by Zancchetti. None in the pile were by G Decal, but I 'm sure Italeri used them, too, especially if yellow paper was their "trademark" - B-58 comes to mind. Would have to find my Esci-Revell F-104C to confirm what's in there. Sorry if this all is slightly o/t...

Cheers tempestfan 

[Rob de Bie]

On 3/20/2017 at 6:02 PM, Rob de Bie said:

I managed to find a fresh Hasegawa F-104G and an Italeri F-104A on Saturday at the IPMS Antwerp show. I just cut off the Hasegawa tail, and glued the Italeri tail in its place, and I'm happy to report that it is indeed a good fit! So Arne Goethe's kitbashing idea really works. Of course you can also just build the Monogram/Revell kit, but I think this is the better route in the end.

 

Now with photographic proof:

 

 

 

First I built the Hasegawa right fuselage side, ensuring that the fuselage was built straight. I removed all locating pins so the parts could lay flat. The glue area is only on the top side, making for a weak connection. I reinforced it with a plastic card bulkhead and some gussets. Next I cut off the Hasegawa tail about 1 mm behind the FS614 rear fuselage break, in order to save that panel line (I hate panel lines coinciding with glue joints). Similarly I removed about 1 mm of the Italeri right tail section, then positioned it carefully and glued it to the fuselage with CA. Next was the left tail section, followed by the left mid-fuselage section. Of course the joint was not perfect, so it required a bit of sanding and a bit of rescribing. But nothing too bad. And then it looked like this.

 

Rob

 

[RidgeRunner]

I reckon you've done a damn good job there, Rob. I have a second Hasegawa G/S and and Italieri C so I might try it. 

 

Martin

[John R]

A couple of additional comments.

I have just acquired the Hasegawa and Italeri kits so might get around to producing a YF104 sometime...

Something I mentioned in my XF104 comments deserves to be noted here and that is the intakes on the Revell/Monogram kit looked more XF-104 size than F104C. They are certainly smaller than those in the Italeri and Hasegawa kits.

John