F-104G Starfighter 1/48 Kinetic / Markings TBD - For now Canadian CF-104

[exdraken]

looks fantastic, hope you can repair the decal damage!

 

 

[Rob K.]

Can't find any Canadian decals here in the UK yet, but I decided to have another try with wat I have.

 

Masked around the Red Maple:

 

 

The maple is ready for some Mr. Color Super Italian Red:

 

 

Cut out the old style Maple from the Belcher sheet:

 

 

At least the Maple came out ok I think:

 

 

Should have left a little more white on the cutout, it just doesn't entirely match up. So Tomorrow I'll either remove a little more blue from the old decal (by airbrushing white). Maybe I will just airbrush the entire blue circle if I can find a match (Insignia blue?).

 

Hopefully it is salvageable.

 

Thanks for watching,

 

Rgds,

 

Rob

[baldwin8]

39 minutes ago, Rob K. said:

Hopefully it is salvageable.

Wow!!! Is "perseverance" your middle name? I'm wishing you all the luck to pull this off.

[Rob K.]

Managed to mix up some insignia blue (actually matched it to the spare roundel):

 

Will have a look tomorrow with a fresh pair of eyes if it needs a further tidy up, but I think the result is acceptable. Will gloss coat the wings tomorrow.

 

 

Let's hope for no more surprises..........

 

Rgds,

 

Rob

[Rob K.]

Hi,

 

Quite happy with the roundel recovery after yesterday's decal set back.

 

Applied the dark brown Flory clay wash:

 

 

Wiped the wash away with damp kitchen towel and touch up again in those areas which needed further attention. Did the last wipe down with a dry novus wipe.

 

 

 

Also masked again around the intakes and the nose to airbrush some alclad flat coat in order to reduce the shine in those areas.

 

 

The Canopy parts do not offer the best fit, An additional 1 part closed  canopy option would have been helpful. I am going to display the cockpit open for this reason.

 

 

Just waiting for the wheels and the Belcher weapons set to arrive through the post, in order to finalize the build.

 

That's all for now.

 

Thanks for watching,

 

Regards,

 

Rob

[Rob K.]

Hi, not much to show, mainly waiting for a few aftermarket parts to arrive.

 

Did a little bit of weathering in the vicinity of the exhaust with Tamiya weathering master brown (probably some further fine tuning to be done):

 

 

Inserted the nav lights in  their positions after first having painted them with Tamiya clear colours.

 

 

For the non coloured (white) lights I used drops of UV resin and the uv torch.

 

 

 

Just received the mastercasters CF-104 narrow wheels with spokes, I think the front tyre will represent the heavy loadout of the 5 * bl-755 ordonance when the time comes to attach those..

 

 

 

Off to paint some tyres now.......

 

Thanks for watching,

 

Rgds,

 

Rob

 

 

[reini]

Great looking Starfighter! And good recovery on the decals, masking job on the wing insignia is flawless.

 

Your build is really making me wanna build yet another Starfighter  

[Rob K.]

7 minutes ago, reini said:

Great looking Starfighter! And good recovery on the decals, masking job on the wing insignia is flawless.

 

Your build is really making me wanna build yet another Starfighter  

Thanks Reini,

 

It's not the easiest build I find, but carrying on.

 

Rgds,

 

Rob

[baldwin8]

4 hours ago, Rob K. said:

For the non coloured (white) lights I used drops of UV resin and the uv torch.

UV resin? What is this magic of which you speak?

[Rob K.]

1 minute ago, baldwin8 said:

UV resin? What is this magic of which you speak?

It is a clear resin, which hardens instantly when you shine an uv light on the glue. I believe it originates from the dental business. Good for certain lenses. It also comes in a handy pen:

 

Rgds,

 

Rob

[Rob K.]

The kit is without a doubt one of the most challenging builds I have ever constructed.

 

Managed to spill CA Glue on the horizontal stabilizer, which was sanded down, re-scribed and resprayed. (I will spare everyone the imagery)

 

Was planning to display the kit with flaps and leading edge up and level, however there were quite large gaps between flap and fuselage. This was quite significant and did not look right. Although there are very few images of "parked" Starfighters with flaps down, I felt this was the only option left without resulting once again to major scratch build techniques.

 

Fitting of the canopy is another major hurdle. I don't think I did anything wrong during the construction process, but the ejection seat was way too high for the canopy to be closed.

The very odd construction of cementing a 4 part framework on the canopy, which then touches the ejection seat preventing it from closing properly. (although it wouldn't close properly without the framework either)

In the end I had to remove the ejection seat again sand it down so it rest lower on the electronics bay bulkhead.

 

The kit is not finished yet and I am awaiting the Belcher weapons set, but here are a few pictures. It still needs some touch ups here and there.

 

I may give Starfighter and myself some rest for a while in the meantime. When everything is all attached I will post some images in the RFI forum.

 

Also going back to work next week, so less time to post material concerning this and follow on builds.

 

Thanks for watching and thanks to the Canadian BM's  for their help during this build👍

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regards,

 

Rob

 

[Steve in Ottawa]

Rob, this looks like a real nice job - Well Done!

 

[Rob K.]

8 hours ago, Steve in Ottawa said:

Rob, this looks like a real nice job - Well Done!

 

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the help and advise along the way.

 

Rgds, 

 

Rob

[franky boy]

Excellent work Rob and a great come back on those decals. Well done for not chucking in the bin!

 

As others say above it makes me want to pull a 104 from the stash and get building. 

 

James

[Rob K.]

4 hours ago, franky boy said:

Excellent work Rob and a great come back on those decals. Well done for not chucking in the bin!

 

As others say above it makes me want to pull a 104 from the stash and get building. 

 

James

Thanks James,

 

If I were to build another F-104, I think I would give the Hasegawa a try in order to see if it builds any easier. There are so many parts to this kit and easy to make mistakes or damage along the way.

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

Regards,

 

Rob

[franky boy]

39 minutes ago, Rob K. said:

Thanks James,

 

If I were to build another F-104, I think I would give the Hasegawa a try in order to see if it builds any easier. There are so many parts to this kit and easy to make mistakes or damage along the way.

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

Regards,

 

Rob

I’ve built 4 of the Hasegawa kits now can testify as to how easily it goes together. The only slight problem that I had was closing the canopy. I have a few more in the stash and I certainly don’t intend moving over to the Kinetic kit until they’re all done. 

[Steve in Ottawa]

I haven't built a Hasegawa kit yet, but the heavy rivet dimpling, particularly on the wings (and the tailplane?), is something I'd want to eliminate or greatly reduce somehow. I've seen a lot of operational CF-104s in the flesh and the wing riveting is virtually invisible under a coat of paint.

[franky boy]

50 minutes ago, Steve in Ottawa said:

I haven't built a Hasegawa kit yet, but the heavy rivet dimpling, particularly on the wings (and the tailplane?), is something I'd want to eliminate or greatly reduce somehow. I've seen a lot of operational CF-104s in the flesh and the wing riveting is virtually invisible under a coat of paint.

Steve

 

The Daco improvement set is worth considering and you can buy the sprues separately rather than the whole set. Only minor problem is that the Hasegawa wingtip tanks need a bit of fettling to get them onto the Daco wings. 

[Rob K.]

2 hours ago, Steve in Ottawa said:

I haven't built a Hasegawa kit yet, but the heavy rivet dimpling, particularly on the wings (and the tailplane?), is something I'd want to eliminate or greatly reduce somehow. I've seen a lot of operational CF-104s in the flesh and the wing riveting is virtually invisible under a coat of paint.

Steve,

 

Would you say that from what you have seen with regards to surface detail that the Kinetic kit appears accurate or still too heavy with regards to panel lines, riveting etc?

 

I get the impression that the Hasegawa build may be a little heavy on detail in your opinion from what you have heard or seen?

 

(There is still the temptation of a follow up build to try and get the build right.....maybe a Belgian NMF F-104 G since I have the decals)

 

Regards,

 

Rob

 

 

[Steve in Ottawa]

Hi Rob,

 

I haven't seen a Kinetic kit in the flesh so I don't think it would be fair to try and compare the two. (and I haven't looked at a Hasegawa kit in a while) In one of your photos you have a nice close up of the left side of the tail. It looks to be more subdued than the divots that Hawegawa has there, but I'm not sure.

 

 

[Rob K.]

Hi,

 

Received the Belcher weapon set. These BL755 bombs have got a lot of markings on them, but no decals were included, so I masked according to what I could find on the web.

 

The bombs differ a little in appearance from the ones in below picture, but masking the very thin yellow lines was impractical for my level of skills, so I went with the look that I found on Tornado's, Typhoons and Harriers where instead of thin yellow, there were thicker white lines visible.

 

 

 

 

The tail fins seem to have various colours, so after some browsing I came up with below. The bombs are attached with tiny magnets. The centre pylon is also held in place on the fuselage with magnets. 

 

 

 

Some touch ups and accentuation (slight wash) are still required.

 

Regarding the kit itself,........ I was not quite happy with the cockpit and top avionics bay gaps, so completely filled and sanded around the aft cockpit again and resprayed.

Yes, I needed some extra decals as well following this correction, which will arrive shortly. Will post an image when back to normal.

 

That's all 

 

Regards,

 

Rob

 

 

[Rob K.]

Hi,

 

This particular CF-104 (104705) at one point in time carried a removable orange camera pod. 

 

The real thing can be found via below link:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/17wu4hydafy5jzz/DND Canada photo AEC74-119 CF-104 having belly camera pod installed.jpg?dl=0

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/392wwdn6webhhu1/DND Canada photo AEC74-118 CF-104705 and tech with camera pod.jpg?dl=0

 

My own scratch built version is attached via a mini magnet (also removable).

 

 

 

 

 

Nearing the end of the build, just waiting for my replacement decals......

 

Thanks for watching,

 

Rgds,

 

Rob

 

 

[Rob K.]

Hi,

 

For the finished product please find below link:

 

 

Thanks to everyone who followed this WIP and provided feedback, critique and advice along the way.

 

Much appreciated!

 

Regards,

 

Rob