Giorgio N Posted November 28, 2017 Share Posted November 28, 2017 In the end it still looks great even with the problems you had Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hewy Posted November 28, 2017 Share Posted November 28, 2017 Great stuff, i love large scale stuff and have quite a few 32nd scale aircraft in the stash, unfortunately they're rarely built due to limited space, but love watching quality like this coming together, I'm pondering on joining the me262 gb soon with a trumpy a1 in 32nd scale it keeps drawing my attention from my bench, keep up the good work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Mcellaney Posted December 8, 2017 Author Share Posted December 8, 2017 Time for another update All of the seams have been rubbed down, and checked with black primer The tail section has been fitted, I decided not to fit the engine section until after the painting as it will make this so much easier I know the instruction say to fit it before fitting the tail section but you can still glue it into place afterwards The wings have been fitted, did notice the right wing fitted better the left one which was loose, plastic card shims took care of that The nose has been fitted and lead shot installed to weight the nose, did not go OTT on the nose weight as the front landing gear is not all that great and I wanted the least amount of weight on this part All on the inserts have been fitted and fitted rather well with no gaps or filler needed, so no re-scribing The only ones that gave a bit of a problem were the gun bay doors as these were sitting a bout 1mm below the finished surface of the model and only required plastic shims fitted to level But even with that the bottom edge did still pull in a bit, I think the shim melted and the bay door was sucked in I think a bit of time taken to test fit before fitting and removing a bit here and there and or packing out where needed has solved 99% of the fit issues 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyingdutchman Posted December 15, 2017 Share Posted December 15, 2017 Your F-104 progressing very well! Love all the aftermarket for it. I built an Italian F-104G with this 1/32 kit and had especially difficulties with the tanks and their fuel caps. That needs some dryfitting for sure! Evert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Mcellaney Posted December 21, 2017 Author Share Posted December 21, 2017 OK the last update before I prime and start the painting I have found so far with this build its not the easiest kit to build and a lot of care and test fitting is required to get the parts to fit What I was finding is you needed to think 5 or 6 steps ahead of yourself Example 1, fitting the cockpit I found the left hand side of the fuselage was bowing out, so when it cam to fitting the canopy's and the electronic bay covers the fit was bad, solution fit a plastic card base for the electronic bays behind the cockpit to sit on and glue this to the fuselage inside allowing the side to pull in and sorting the canopy problems Example 2, checking all of the insert panels for the underside, I found the fit again was not great, most of the time it was the location where the panels were to be fitted needed to be squared off to allow them to fit. Example 3, the speed brakes sat about 1mm to low all this required was shims to raise them up. Example 4, the fit of the tail, engine intakes and nose cone, again lots of test fitting and minor sanding these fitted OK The worst panels to fit were the ones for the gun bay, again lots of test fitting, cleaning up the corners and shims sort of solved the problem, out of all the panels these are the worst fitting The only areas actually requiring filling were around the front windshield to blend this in, a small amount at the training edge of one wing, minor filling on the underside seams, and of course the wing tanks and drop tanks The drop and wing tanks I would say took the longest probably around 2 hours work in total spread over several days to get the seam's reasonable, the main problem as Evert said above were the filler caps trying to get these flush with the surface of the tanks Will post photos if I can get Flicker to let me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Mcellaney Posted December 23, 2017 Author Share Posted December 23, 2017 These are the photos I have been trying to post for the update above, Flicker has decided to stop working so switched hosting sites Hopefully these photos show what I was describing above This is not really a bad kit it just takes a lot of forward thinking to get the best out of it 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Mcellaney Posted January 13, 2018 Author Share Posted January 13, 2018 I have been working to get this one completed As you can see all of the painting is now complete and the decals have been started With a bit of luck and if I work into the small hours I should have it completed tomorrow 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted January 13, 2018 Share Posted January 13, 2018 Great paint and already decal work! No foubt now about the operator! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vangos Posted January 13, 2018 Share Posted January 13, 2018 Nice work Mike. If I can a provide a little help, the part of the random in front of the wind screen is not painted grey but a lighter shade of green and it is not wrap around as you can see in these photos: http://www.airfighters.com/photo/40788/L/Greece-Air-Force/Lockheed-F-104G-Starfighter/32734/ http://www.airfighters.com/photo/90865/L/Greece-Air-Force/Lockheed-F-104G-Starfighter/32734/ Keep up the good work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franky boy Posted January 14, 2018 Share Posted January 14, 2018 Great work Mike She looks great with the paint on. can I just ask which brand of paints you're using? Thanks James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Mcellaney Posted January 14, 2018 Author Share Posted January 14, 2018 1 hour ago, franky boy said: Great work Mike She looks great with the paint on. can I just ask which brand of paints you're using? Thanks James Hi James, I used Gunze Aqueous thinned with Mr Color Leveller 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Mcellaney Posted January 14, 2018 Author Share Posted January 14, 2018 14 hours ago, vangos said: Nice work Mike. If I can a provide a little help, the part of the random in front of the wind screen is not painted grey but a lighter shade of green and it is not wrap around as you can see in these photos: http://www.airfighters.com/photo/40788/L/Greece-Air-Force/Lockheed-F-104G-Starfighter/32734/ http://www.airfighters.com/photo/90865/L/Greece-Air-Force/Lockheed-F-104G-Starfighter/32734/ Keep up the good work! Hi thanks for your input I was aware of this but thought I would show an aircraft with a replacement panel taken from one of the German F-104 the HAF had and has not been painted yet to match the reset of the aircraft. I have also painted one of the wing tip fuel tanks in the German grey camouflage with the orange panel for a bit of added interest Looking forward to seeing some of your work on here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Mcellaney Posted January 14, 2018 Author Share Posted January 14, 2018 Calling this one done Overall I did enjoy the build The kit is not without its issues but there again what kit is perfect With some thinking ahead most of the problems can be either fixed or avoided 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkSH Posted January 14, 2018 Share Posted January 14, 2018 Very nice variation in the paint work, really like the effect. Excellent build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spaddad Posted January 14, 2018 Share Posted January 14, 2018 (edited) 7 hours ago, Mike Mcellaney said: Looking forward to seeing some of your work on here Best put down on here for a while, nice one. Tasty model btw. Edited January 14, 2018 by spaddad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted January 14, 2018 Share Posted January 14, 2018 Very nice result indeed. I like the different coloured tip tanks and the weathering, excellent! Craig. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vangos Posted January 14, 2018 Share Posted January 14, 2018 Well done, excellent build! Vangos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jbbusybee Posted January 14, 2018 Share Posted January 14, 2018 Looks great, thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted January 15, 2018 Share Posted January 15, 2018 Great model Mike, really nice. Love all the small details you added, down to the protections on the wing leading and trailing edges (I remember being told that the leading edge in particular was so sharp that unwary ground crews could be easily injured if hitting this.. but the same source believed that the protections were to protect the wing, nobody cared about the ground crews...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirageiv Posted January 15, 2018 Share Posted January 15, 2018 Wow excellent job, the scheme really has a presence. I agree with your take on it, a bit of a bitter-sweet kit, regardless that is a superb model! David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 Congratulations Mike, that's stunning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Moff Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 lovely build - great paint job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llking Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 Great Job Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-32 Posted May 16, 2018 Share Posted May 16, 2018 What a wonderful piece of work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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