CF-104 (Hasagawa, 1/72)

[opus999]

Not much to report except I only had time to paint about 1/2 of my fuel tanks with the new red this week. I'm going out of town for the weekend, so nothing's going to get done.

 

One question I'd like to bring to the group: Does anyone have advice for weathering this model? 

 

I do OK with weathering non-NMF models, but my NMF model weathering skills have really fallen short so far, IMO. Not that I think there's a lot to be done: the CF-104 pictures I've looked at show them to be relatively clean looking, with just a little general wear, but no obvious weathering patterns. I've also looked at US air force NMF F-104s and observed them to be relatively clean.

 

My observations of the real world are that natural metal and gloss paint don't provide the right surface for dirt and grime to stick.  So, any weathering I will do will need to be subtle.

 

Any advice? Special tricks?

[opus999]

Well... I'm back! I decided I was allowing this hobby to take too much of my free time and it was time to step away. I'd planned it to be just a couple of weeks, but next thing I knew it had been 5 months! I lost some good summertime modelling.  Rats!

 

I've spent the last couple of days putting all the little stencils on the CF-104. I initially thought the decals that came with the kit were too thick and seemed to have milky film to them.

 

 

So I took a chance and ordered German F-104 stencils, hoping they'd be in English and they'd look nice on the bare metal.  When they arrived they appeared to be in English (When readable) and seemed nice and thin and clear.  Unfortunately, they turned milky as they dried! In the end I went with the kit decals, and just cut the individual stencils out of the large "wallpaper" decals.  It turned out nice! (pictures later)

 

Today I fixed a couple blemishes.  One was the "No Step" stencil I touched when it was soft from decal solvent:

 

 

the fix turned out OK and I can use the stencil from the German decal sheet.

 

 

The other blemishes were on the bottoms of the wings. This kit allows the builder to make several different Starfighter types.  This results in a set of instructions that are cluttered and a tad confusing if you don't keep your wits about you.  Consequently, I missed that I was supposed to fill in some peg holes until after I painted (naturally). So I filled them and took off some paint while sanding.

 

 

Luckily lettering decals will go over this spot.  The fix turned out OK.

 

The one fix I'm not bothering to show (because I forgot to take pictures) was the canopy. When I painted the canopy frame, it was sitting upside down on table, and a single drop of lacquer thinner splashed out of my jar and right into the upturned canopy.  It made a mess of it.  Made it foggy and melted some of the plastic. I ended up having to sand the entire thing to make it level again and then used my polisher on my Dremel I got for Father's day.  Worked great!  Can't even tell it had been damaged.  Next time I will be sure to place it out of harm's way!

 

[opus999]

Last weekend I put all the teeny tiny Hasagawa stencils on.  To minimize the amount of transparent decal film on the model, I cut every single one of them out of the "Wallpaper" decals they were on.  It was tedious, but it looks great!  Then I sealed the decals with Alclad Aqua Gloss, which I find doesn't really affect the look of the polished aluminum that much. (I just hope, hope, hope that the decals don't turn black like they did on my B-66 and B-10B!!!).

 

Today I did a pin wash on everything. I kept weathering to a minimum, partly because my photo references don't show them looking all that dirty and partly because I've really struggled with how to weather very reflective metal and I'm just coming up empty!  I tried to make more of a gray pin wash to keep the contrast with the white wings down, but it still looks too dark to me. still, I'm pretty happy with how it looks.

 

 

 

It's a little subtle in the picture, but I put a little staining under the fuel cap (?)

 

 

 

These look more dirty in the picture than in real life:

 

 

And so do these:

 

 

 

 

So, one more coat of Aqua Gloss to seal in the weathering, and repaint the canopy I had to fix. Then I can glue it all together and call it done!

 

 

[Nikolay Polyakov]

Amazing work @opus999, congratulations!

 

The NMF looks fantastic, with all the stencils it’s like a real bird.

 

Cheers!

[Terry1954]

2 hours ago, Nikolay Polyakov said:

Amazing work @opus999, congratulations!

 

The NMF looks fantastic, with all the stencils it’s like a real bird.

 

Cheers!

I have to agree. The finish looks so good, like only those highly polished Canadian CF-104's did.

 

Really nice looking Starfighter.

 

Terry

[opus999]

On 9/21/2018 at 10:50 PM, Nikolay Polyakov said:

Amazing work @opus999, congratulations!

 

The NMF looks fantastic, with all the stencils it’s like a real bird.

 

Cheers!

Thanks a lot! I've become a bit addicted to stencils lately because they really do add a lot of realism! Glad you like the NMF... I hope I explained how I did it well enough to help others out with theirs.

[opus999]

Got the wings, outboard fuel tanks, horizontal stabilizer, wheels and front landing gear all glued on last night. I used Microscale's Micro Krystal Klear for these parts because (as many have found) super glue can cause fogging, which I found can be scratched off with a toothpick, but getting into all the nooks and cranies sometimes isn't possible. The Krystal Klear dries absolutely clear and I found it to be strong enough for wheels and wings.  It does take a little while to start setting up -- maybe 5 minutes or so before you can stop holding it in position.

 

Today I painted the exhaust: Base coat of decanted Tamiya gloss black, Alclad's stainless steel, a very light dusting of Alclad's steel, and a very light dusting of Alclad's smoke on the aft half of the can to make it look heat tempered. Then I did a coat of Aqua Gloss, then mixed a wash of Testors rust and paint thinner and did a sludge wash.  Finally, I used Testor's metallizer sealer to seal it all in. The inside was painted gunship gray with black Tamiya weathering pastels on the raised ridges. I think this did a decent job of replicating what I've seen in close up pictures of the real thing:

 

The other task today was to paint and install all the navigation lights.  Wow! That was tedious! They did turn out OK, but required a ton of patience, a magnifying glass, and very steady hands.  I had to insert these millimeter (or less) diameter plugs into holes in the fuselage.  It's worth the trouble, because it looks great.

 

 

 

My goal was to finish today, but alas I screwed up.  I discovered that I had put the oil streaks on the horizontal stabilizer in the wrong direction!!  I don't know how I managed to do that, but discovering that this morning was a real "Well duh!"moment (well there were some other words as well, but lets stick with the "Duh"). My initial fix looked pretty bad, so I ended up repainting the entire top. I've found that testor's gloss will stay tacky for 5 or 6 days, so next weekend I'll have to do another pin wash and aqua gloss coat. 

 

If I can find a half hour, I will paint the canopy that I had to fix. Once I get the canopy on, it will be done (except for the repainted horiz. stab. of course).

[opus999]

On 9/22/2018 at 1:27 AM, Terry1954 said:

I have to agree. The finish looks so good, like only those highly polished Canadian CF-104's did.

 

Really nice looking Starfighter.

 

Terry

Thanks for the kind words! Patience and surface prep really paid off.

[Nikolay Polyakov]

15 hours ago, opus999 said:

I hope I explained how I did it well enough to help others out with theirs.

Yes, it’s very helpful, thank you!

[opus999]

Did a lot of fiddly bits on Monday night.  Between taking my boys to Scouts, an elementary school open house and a local internet outage, I haven't been able to share anything until now!

 

Putting the main gear doors on was very challenging -- definitely not a kit for novices.  First, there are no alignment pegs or guides. Second, there's not a lot of room for fingers under that gear, making tweezers a must.  Add on to that I don't want to use quick-setting super-glue because it may fog my NMF.  I used Micro Krystal Klear, which works great, but it takes a couple of minutes to set enough where you can let go of it.  So I was trying to hold the gear door in place with tweezers in one hand while holding the model in the other, and the door was sliding all over the place... argh.   But it all worked out OK:

 

 

I also put the "barber pole" decal on the nose probe. Not as perfect as I would like, but you can only do so much messing with a decal after applying Mr. Mark Softener before the decal melts and smudges. Mr. Mark was the only way I could get the decal to wind tight enough around the probe.

 

 

I gloss coated the probe with Alclad Aqua Gloss last night.  Didn't take pictures of all the fiddly bits... don't want to overshare

 

 

[opus999]

Finished it yesterday!  Just had to get the nose probe on and the canopy.  Now, to "Ready for Inspection"!

 

 

In general, everything went well, but the painting experiments I did to simulate wear were a flop. The effect is not noticeable from a distance, and up close (e.g., with magnifying glasses) it just looks like fingerprints.  Still, it was worth a try!

Edited September 30, 2018 by opus999