F-104G Belgian AF

[franky boy]

Hi all

 

To much to choose from in the stash for this one and seeing a few Thunderstreaks certainly whetted the appetite for one of those. But decision made and I'm going to jump in with an F104G from the Belgian air force in natural metal.

 

I'll be using the Hasegawa J kit below along with a few bits and pieces from the DACO improvement set and some left over etch and resin from Eduards NATO Fighter boxing of this kit.

 

 

 

Decals from Armycast. The aircraft in question was based at Beauvchain with 350 squadron in 1964. Aircraft number FX02 being the second Starfighter delivered to the Beglian AF I think. Shame that Canadian one with orange tanks and tail planes wasn't based in Europe! Thats next after this one.

 

 

And hears the real thing! I plan to build mine with sidewinder's on the wing tips as below for a change, especially as I always find the Hasegawa tip tanks a pain and they don't fit the DACO wings that well either. I'm also planning to give AK Xtreme metals a run out for the NMF.

 

 

That's all for now. Updates to follow.

 

Thanks

 

James

[exdraken]

Nice choice!

[Hewy]

Great stuff james, a beauty to come I'm sure

Glynn 

[Col.]

Ooh nice! Can't recall seeing a Belgian Starfighter modelled in the early natural metal scheme so this will be a rare treat.

[Lex77]

Nice to see another Starfighter for this GB.

If I am correct this kit hasn't got the bulged main wheel doors the Belgian Starfighters have.

[exdraken]

5 minutes ago, Lex77 said:

 

If I am correct this kit hasn't got the bulged main wheel doors the Belgian Starfighters have.

The Daco set should have... if not used yet of course.... and the Eduard boxings should also have them...!

[franky boy]

On 8/8/2018 at 8:43 PM, exdraken said:

Nice choice!

Thanks Werner. 

 

On 8/8/2018 at 9:15 PM, Hewy said:

Great stuff james, a beauty to come I'm sure

Glynn 

Thanks Glynn. Hopefully she’ll turn out ok, it’s certainly a nice kit to work with.

 

On 8/8/2018 at 11:56 PM, Col. said:

Ooh nice! Can't recall seeing a Belgian Starfighter modelled in the early natural metal scheme so this will be a rare treat.

Thanks Col. Yeah, you normally only see the later camouflaged ones so it will be good to have one in NMF.

 

9 hours ago, Lex77 said:

Nice to see another Starfighter for this GB.

If I am correct this kit hasn't got the bulged main wheel doors the Belgian Starfighters have.

Thanks Lex. I have spare bulged doors to use on this one. Did the very early NATO G models retain the original flat doors and skinny wheels and the bulges and fatter wheels came a little later?

 

Thanks

 

James

[franky boy]

Hello chaps

 

Here's update number 1.

 

First up was a bit of scraping on the IP and the side consoles to fit the colour PE. I love these colour PE sets as i could never paint this detail this is one of those sets where Eduard have managed to not even get the colour close on the PE to the paint colour that they recommend for the rest of the cockpit so the grey areas were repainted with a brush.

 

 

And the tub. The paint is Gunze H317 and has had a black/brown/kleer wash. Just needs a flat coat now.

 

 

And the Brassin bang seat. I'm fairly pleased with how this turned out.

 

 

These are the PE parts for the sills of the cockpit. They'll be left off until the very end as I know I'll manage to wreck them otherwise.

 

 

And finally the coaming for the rear cockpit.

 

 

That's all for now. The other internals have all been painted so time for a flat coat and then stick it all together.

 

Thanks

 

James

[Col.]

Nice start 

[franky boy]

Hi everyone

 

I managed to get some good time at the desk this weekend and progress has been good so here's an update.

 

First of all I added the lights under the cockpit/nose section. The bottom red one is'nt represented in the kit so this was drilled out to. I don't think all 104's had this light but I put it in anyway for extra interest. The red lenses are left over sprue from the Daco set clear sprues.

 

 

And the fuselage lights were also drilled out and added before the fuselage halves were joined.

 

 

And here it is buttoned up.

 

 

And fairly poor photo on my part showing the cockpit.

 

 

Onto the seams next.

 

Thanks for looking. Comments welcome good and bad.

 

Thanks

 

James

[modelling minion]

Excellent work James, the cockpit looks fantastic.

Once the cockpits in place these go together quite quickly don't they.

[franky boy]

1 hour ago, modelling minion said:

Excellent work James, the cockpit looks fantastic.

Once the cockpits in place these go together quite quickly don't they.

Thanks Craig

 

Yes it's a good one for a quick build isn't it. I find you just need to take a little time to make sure all of the separate panel inserts fit well. I always have trouble with the one on the underside in front of the main gear bay where the centre line rack fits.

 

This is my third Has 104 now and it's fast becoming my favourite kit.

 

 Thanks 

 

James

Edited August 20, 2018 by franky boy

[franky boy]

Hi everyone

 

Time for a post summer holidays update just to prove that this build is moving forward.

 

So with the air intakes and other bits added the seems were rubbed down and sprayed to check for lines and then rubbed down again and so on. Once this was completed the nose cone and small angular panel at the leading edge of the tail on each side were sprayed ADC grey using Xtracrylix thinned with self levelling thinner. Going by the single photo that I've found of this aircraft in it's early NMF the large panel on the centre of the fin is painted a light grey colour. The Daco book appears to back this up on other NMF airframes although with no FS number so this was sprayed with a Gunze light grey matched to the photo as best as possible. The fibre glass panels were also sprayed with Gunze radome tan and then everything was masked ready for priming.

 

 

I wanted to give AK Xtreme metals a try on this build so the whole thing was primed their black base for their metal range. Shiny isn't it!

 

 

This was left for about 45 minutes and then on with the aluminium. Even shinier! I didn't want the aircraft to be this shiny so i went over it with another coat of aluminium tonight and it has calmed it down a bit.

 

 

I also tried masking of one or two panels, this one below with gun metal. The others around it also need some work.

 

 

And this one with stainless steel. It's a bit to blue for my liking so i think I'll try some white aluminium instead. The finish of the paint looks terrible in some of these pictures but it really is very nice.

 

 

The wings and tail plane from the Daco set have also been assembled and the wing tip rocket launchers added. The Tail plane was painted ADC grey as were the underside of the wings and white on top.

 

 

That's all for now. More updates soon as painting progresses.

 

Thanks for looking

 

James

 

 

 

[Hewy]

Turned out really well james, I'm really liking these ak paints too, after my p47 build, alclad are taking a back seat for nmf jobs 

Glynn 

[franky boy]

16 hours ago, Hewy said:

Turned out really well james, I'm really liking these ak paints too, after my p47 build, alclad are taking a back seat for nmf jobs 

Glynn 

Thanks Glynn 

 

I remember your P47, it turned out really well.

 

Yes my Alclad has been banished to the back of the paint draw to. When you can produce a finish that is probably equal to Alclad but with half as much effort it has to be a good thing.

 

James

[Lex77]

Looking very shiny! Some good progress on this one.

[Giorgio N]

On 8/10/2018 at 8:30 AM, franky boy said:

 

Thanks Lex. I have spare bulged doors to use on this one. Did the very early NATO G models retain the original flat doors and skinny wheels and the bulges and fatter wheels came a little later?

 

Thanks

 

James

 

Yes, a number of very early F-104G retained the original wheels and doors. The official parts catalogue for the Italian Air Force F-104s retained the small wheels til the end of the type career, even if it was impossible by then to find them used

[franky boy]

1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Yes, a number of very early F-104G retained the original wheels and doors. The official parts catalogue for the Italian Air Force F-104s retained the small wheels til the end of the type career, even if it was impossible by then to find them used

 

Thanks Giorgio 

 

I've been thinking this one over and although I already have the bulged Daco doors painted up I may well revert to the kit supplied earlier doors yet.

 

James

[franky boy]

Hi everyone

 

Paintings finished and it's time for an update.

 

o after the initial coat of aluminium I masked of a few panels and tried a few different colours. The dark one nearest the intake here is dark aluminium. This is actually an inspection door for the air intake and as such had its surround and hinges sprayed light grey for protection against corrosion. The one with the round light is polished aluminium, I loved this colour. And the next two back are both steel. Again a really nice shade.

 

 

As i applied an over all coat of aluminium to start with I found that spraying the darker colours over this rather than onto the black base didnt bring them up dark enough. So I masked all of the back end and re applied black base followed by gun metal for thr large panel in the middle, burnt metal for the two panels on each side which was then knocked back with a dusting of dark aluminium to calm it down a bit and the straight dark aluminium on the panels above and below the airbrakes. TBH there isnt much difference between between dark aluminium and gun metal. The same can be said for duraluminium and pale burnt metal. The angled grey panel on the fin is Xtracrylics ADC grey. The one behind is Gunze grey, cant remember which one, matched to a photo of a NMF 104 in the DACO book. The red band was also sprayed on.

 

 

It was pointed out to me in another thread in the cold war forum that the anti glare panels on 104's were often two different shades of dark green. Lighter on the radome and darker on the metal of the fuselage. I used Gunze aqueous H80 for the radome and then darkened it with  a bit of black for the fuselage section. The rest of the radome is again ADC grey.

 

 

The airbrakes also had the red bands sprayed onto them. I chose to go with the kit gear doors without the bulge in the end as I believe that some early 104G's were delivered with these ans the slimmer tiers rather than the later bulged doors and fatter tiers which were later retro fitted.

 

 

Thats all for now. Sorry for the shiny photos. My photographic skills are basic at best but then add in a load of very shiny metallic paint and the spot lights in our office and hey...........

 

Questions and comments welcome.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

James

 

 

[Col.]

Looks as if you've got some nice subtle variations of the fuselage metal tones there James.

[Lex77]

Nice choice in variation. Those AK Paints look really good.

[franky boy]

12 hours ago, Lex77 said:

Nice choice in variation. Those AK Paints look really good.

Thanks Lex

 

The AK paints are really easy to use compared to Alclad which I have always used in the past. You just spray them on like a normal paint rather than having to build up the layers quite so much.

 

James

[Hewy]

Looks smashing, very impressive 

[franky boy]

Hi everyone

 

I managed to get the decals on this week and got some snaps outside this morning which shoes off the metal finish allot better so here goes.

 

The stencils aren't particually accurate. They're a mixture of the kits, some from the Armycast decal sheet and then some robbed from an Eduard F-104 Bundes Fighter sheet.

 

 

 

And some to show the variations in the NMF around the rear fuselage.

 

 

 

 

And the underside.

 

 

 

Now onto some light weathering.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

James

[exdraken]

Fantastic work!

The outside Photos do her Justice!