The Red Baron's Zipper

[billn53]

This is something I've wanted to build for a very long time -- 45 years, to be exact!

 

In fall and winter of 1976-77 I was a freshly-minted Ensign attending the US Navy's Nuclear Power Training Unit, deep in the desert west of Idaho Falls, Idaho.

 

 

 

At the same time, former Lockheed test pilot Darryl Greenamyer of the Red Baron Flying Service, also in Idaho Falls, was attempting to beat the low altitude speed record with a souped-up F-104 Starfighter he had built out of scrounged parts.

 

     

 

   

 

On October 24, 1977, Greenamyer set a FAI Class C-1 Group III 3 km speed record of 1,590.45 kilometers per hour (988.26 mph), which still stands to this day.

 

 

 

On February 26, 1978, while preparing an assault on the FAI altitude record using the same aircraft, he was unable to get the landing gear to lock before landing. As it was dangerous to land in this condition, he was forced to eject and the airplane was destroyed.

 

 

 

Hasegawa has produced two versions of the Red Baron Starfighter -- one in 1/72 and another in 1/48 scale. There is also an old 1/72 ESCI kit (molded in bright red plastic!!!). For this project, I will be building the 1/72 Hasegawa kit, mostly out-of-the-box. My intent is to finish it in-flight over desert terrain, as on the box illustration.

 

 

 

Let's see what Hasewaga has given us:

 

 

 

Many of these parts will not be used -- some because they are not applicable to Greenamyer's civilianized Zipper, others because I'll have no need for landing gear.

 

 

 

Molding is generally crisp, although there is some light flash on some of the parts:

 

 

 

A clear sprue includes the three-part canopy, various lights, and a clear (?) instrument panel:

 

 

 

The decal sheet, printed by Cartograph, looks very nice. But, I worry how well the large white markings will fit on the model. As a backup, I might try using the decal sheet to produce a set of masks with my Silhouette cutter (something I've not tried before -- if anyone has some tips for me, I'd really appreciate it!)

 

 

 

Construction begins with the cockpit, as usual. The cockpit attaches to the nose gear bay, which is then inserted into the fuselage. I found the instructions a bit vague about where, exactly, the cockpit attaches, and my first attempt put the cockpit too high in the fuselage. The photos below shows how it should be done:

 

 

 

   

 

Hasegawa thoughtfully provides a panel for the faired-over gun port on the left side of the nose, which fits perfectly:

 

 

 

Cockpit in place, the nose halves are glued together:

 

 

 

To close off the nose gear bay, I inserted Blu-Tack in the opening to help support the bay doors:

 

 

 

The two door pieces are, together, too wide for the bay opening, so I sanded the long edges until they fit, and glued them in place. Not perfect, but nothing a little Bondo won't fix!

 

   

 

As I mentioned earlier, the kit's canopy comes in three pieces. I'd much prefer a single-piece canopy for an in-flight model, so I "borrowed" a canopy from Monogram's F-104 kit to see if it will fit:

 

 

 

Not too shabby! The Monogram canopy is a little short, and the front corners a bit too wide, but I should be able to make it fit!

 

 

That's my progress after a couple evening's work. Despite its idiosyncrasies, I'm finding the Hasegawa zipper to be a nice little kit that builds up quickly. Maybe I'll have to get a few more for my stash haha!

 

 

 

[billn53]

In between classes and mid-term exams, I managed to find a few hours to work on my Red Baron zipper project. Focus of this update is the rear fuselage.

 

Hasegawa's F-104 is notorious for its prominent rivets around the rear engine area, which need to be filled in somehow. For this, I used a trick that I first employed on my Trumpeter F-105 build, when I first got back into modeling.

 

Using white correction fluid, I liberally painted over the offending rivets. 

 

 

 

This stuff dries very quickly, and can be easily removed with a paper towel or Q-tip wetted with alcohol. This was the result, which took only about ten minutes of work:

 

 

Of course, some of the panels lines ended up getting filled in, but those were quickly cleaned out with a scribing tool.

 

The Red Baron F-104 did not have an arresting hook. A test fit of the rear fuselage revealed a small gap where the hook would have gone. I filled the gap with pieces of styrene.

 

 

 

I next painted and assembled the afterburner can and nozzle parts, and closed-up the rear fuselage:

 

 

 

Care must be taken that the engine assembly is properly centered in the fuselage:

 

 

 

I screwed up when adding the center frame to the main landing gear bay. I glued it flush with the front of the rear fuselage assembly. Instead, it should have been located more forward, so that the tab (circled) can fit into an alignment hole in the forward fuselage's rear bulkhead:

 

   

 

With the tab where I had it, I was concerned that the join between the forward and rear fuselage sections would be weak. It was too late to re-locate the center frame piece, so I took another route:

 

   

 

A generous application of Bondene literally welded the forward and rear fuselage sections together!

 

 

 

My last task was to add the mail landing gear doors. The kit wasn't designed for an in-flight configuration, and the doors needed a bit of fettling to get into place. Even then, the fit isn't perfect:

 

 

Once more, Bondo to the rescue!

 

 

 

And with that, the fuselage is nearly complete (except for the intakes, and a bit of seam-filling and sanding):

 

 

 

[billn53]

Between being a full-time student at the local university, and a bit of travel for some post-retirement consulting work, I've had very little time at the bench. I managed to squeeze a couple of hours in today, so here's what little progress I've made since my previous post almost a month ago!

 

I sanded down the Bondo I had applied over the closed main landing gear doors, you can see how iffy the fit was:

 

 

Otherwise, the fuselage fit is pretty good. All I've needed to do is fill in seams at the rear-bottom of the fuselage with some Mr Surfacer:

 

 

 

But, perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. Hasegawa's F-104 has a reputation for questionable fit around the air intakes, and I've not yet added those. In preparation for that, I painted the interior of the intake trunks with Tamiya rattlecan silver, and then used Molotov chrome on the intake cones and inlet edges:

 

  

 

While the paint was drying, I filled the holes on the underside of the wing with 0.035" rod, which I'll later cut away and sand smooth:

 

 

 

Final exams are next weekend, followed by six weeks off before summer session begins. Hopefully, I'll be able to make quicker progress then.

 

 

[Thom216]

Cool build of a truly flashy bird!

[billn53]

1 hour ago, Thom216 said:

Cool build of a truly flashy bird!

Painting will be the challenge. Hasegawa provides decals for the scheme, but I need a backup plan in case the decals don't work out. 

[Fritag]

I confess I didn’t previously know of Darryl Greenamyer or the low altitude speed record.  What a good story - an F104 out of scrounged parts! Brave man - and how sensible to make sure the bang seat was operational!

 

Looking forward to seeing this come together.  Good luck with the scheme 

[Rob G]

9 hours ago, Fritag said:

I confess I didn’t previously know of Darryl Greenamyer 

 

You've never heard of the man who burned Kee Bird, the B-29 on the Greenland ice? Read the story and weep... 

[billn53]

I had a tough physics exam this morning, and tomorrow is my calculus final. What better way to decompress from one exam and get my mojo for studying, than to spend a few hours at the bench! 😆

 

I previously installed the Starfighter's intakes, which (as expected) took a bit of filler and sanding to get a smooth transition with the fuselage:

 

 

 

The fuselage is now complete, except for adding pilot Darryl and canopy:

 

 

Not much room in the cockpit, and little will be visible with Darryl in place:

 

   

 

Here is the intrepid pilot, sans boots (and feet!). I'm going to try zenithal highlighting (a kind of pre-shading), after having seen how well it worked out for @AliGauld 's 1/48 Spitfire pilot.

 

 

 

After many thin coats of paint, here's how my pilot looks. Not nearly as nice as Alistair’s result, but maybe more practice is needed:

 

 

 

And here's Darryl with controls in hand, no doubt making “zoom-zoom” sounds:

 

 

 

Next step will be to install the canopy. Stay tuned!

 

p.s. Anyone need a pair of boots?

 

 

 

 

 

[AliGauld]

Not sure how I managed to miss this one but I'm all caught up now.

A lot of work but it's all looking splendid so far.

Nice job on the pilot figure. That must be tricky in 1/72.

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[Thom216]

3 hours ago, billn53 said:

p.s. Anyone need a pair of boots?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those should be attached to the base somehow!

[billn53]

11 minutes ago, Thom216 said:

Those should be attached to the base somehow!

Sometimes, a loose boot has a story behind it!
 

 

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Bill, just catching up—this is moving along really well—hats off to you going back to school—your correcting fluid technique is solid, I used it on my 1/72 Trumpter F-105 after following your build—it has stayed in place for the long haul.  Loved the part on the boots and look forward to how this build unfolds—best, Erwin

[billn53]

A little more work completed between exams.

 

I did some minor trimming around the edges of the Monogram single-piece canopy, to make it fit better to the Hasegawa kit, then polished it up. The photo below looks better than in real life:

 

 

I did notice a minor blemish in the canopy, consisting of a thin line running across the canopy right over the cockpit. I tried sanding and polishing it out, without success, so I believe the flaw is in the plastic itself. It's not really noticeable to the naked eye (I had to use the dreaded macro lens and a very bright light to get the photo below):

 

 

Of course, now that I know its there, it will always draw my attention.

 

The canopy has since been dunked in Pledge/Future and will have a full 24-hours to cure before doing anything more with it.

[k5054nz]

I have the Esci kit waiting for time and attention as an over-the-desert dio too, and would LOVE the Hasegawa 1/48 to do "on the ground". It's encouraging to see your work on this!

[stevehnz]

I've just spotted this thanks to my countryman, thanks Zac @k5054nz, my sense of the literal somehow overlooked the title.

 This kit was one of my early online buys, & still languishes in stock, I'll be keen to see this come together, who knows, it might persuade me to get it out of stock. The story of Greenamyer & the F-104 is a thriller, that of his involvement with Kee Bird much less so.  I'll be looking forward t the next exciting installment.  

Steve.

[k5054nz]

22 minutes ago, stevehnz said:

that of his involvement with Kee Bird much less so.

I have a 1/72 Academy B-29 and some decals waiting for me to finish my impression of a post-restoration Kee Bird - something that sadly remains a What If? rather than a Real World build.

[billn53]

While waiting for the canopy to dry, I decided this would be a good time to add the mount for the stand. My intent is to insert a styrene tube "sleeve" into the fuselage, coming out at an angle beneath the starboard wing. An acrylic rod, sized to fit the sleeve, will be bent so that it mounts vertically to the base and to the right of the zipper. 

 

Here's the acrylic rod and its styrene "sleeve":

 

The receiving hole, drilled into the fuselage:

 

And the styrene sleeve glued into place, lined up carefully to ensure it is perpendicular to the F-104's centerline:

 

Once the glue holding the tube is fully cured, I'll cut it flush with the fuselage.

[Serkan Sen]

Nice progress so far Bill. I have the old ESCI kit somewhere in my stash but as far as I remember the decal sheet was not in good condition. Even the box color has changed into yellowish white and orange/red.

Serkan

[billn53]

21 minutes ago, Serkan Sen said:

Nice progress so far Bill. I have the old ESCI kit somewhere in my stash but as far as I remember the decal sheet was not in good condition. Even the box color has changed into yellowish white and orange/red.

Serkan

Exactly like mine!

[billn53]

I finished and cleaned up the hole for my acrylic rod stand:

 

and then, epoxied the canopy in place:

 

 

Normally, I would use watch cement for this, but that takes 24-hrs to set up and I didn't want to wait that long. Instead, I used this product:

 

Next task will be to fair in the canopy with the fuselage (recall that the Monogram canopy is slightly too short for this Hasegawa kit).

[billn53]

I ended my last post with, "Next task will be to fair in the canopy with the fuselage..."

 

Little did I know this would be a much bigger job than expected! Because, when I removed the tape holding the canopy down while the epoxy set, I discovered the rear of the canopy had shifted slightly off center:

 

 

This created a ledge on the left side, and an overhang on the right. My first thought was to remove the canopy and re-glue it in its proper position, but the epoxy had it firmly in place and I was afraid of breaking the canopy. Thus, I had to make corrections with the canopy in place.

 

The ledge on the left side wasn't too bad of an issue -- With judicious sanding of the fuselage side, and some putty, I could make it presentable. The overhang on the opposite side was a different problem! To correct that required me to sand down the canopy itself 😨. I also had to fill-in the gap at the front of the canopy (Monogram's canopy being slightly shorter than the Hasegawa piece it is replacing).

 

 

 

So much for my nice, clear canopy!

 

So, the plan was to 1) reshape the canopy to correct its fit, 2) remove the resulting scratches with progressively finer grades of sandpaper, and 3) polish, polish, polish to restore the canopy's clarity as best as possible.

 

This is an in-progress shot:

 

 

And, here is the result of my efforts:

 

I'm surprised at how well this appears to have worked out, and now am thinking that in-place sanding & polishing might be the way to go for future builds.

 

There is one problem, though. A static charge must have accumulated while polishing the canopy, which attracted small bits of dust & debris to the inside of the canopy (especially visible over the black glare shield.) I have an idea or two on what to do about that. More on that, later.

[billn53]

I was able to remove much of the debris under the canopy by rubbing an acrylic rod with a cloth, thereby creating a static charge, and then using the rod to move the little bits and pieces away from the most visible areas of the windscreen. I still have some of the debris present, but not as much as before. Physics at work!

 

I next applied Peewit masks and painted the canopy framing in appropriate interior colors (aluminum for the windscreen and main canopy framing, black for the fixed rear portion).

 

    

 

The little tool shown with the Peewit masks is a fingernail "dotter", which is used to paint small dots on nails but is also great for burnishing the edges of masking tape.

 

I also had my first experience with bending acrylic rod. For this, I found a couple of helpful YouTube videos. 

 

The mounting hole in the fuselage is at an angle, which I measured and decided I will need a 45-degree bend in the acrylic rod stand. I built a quick jig to help achieve the desired angle:

 

Then, I carefully heated my rod with an embossing heat gun, and made the bend:

 

Voila! Success on my first try! What are the chances of doing this again?

 

I now have a decision to make: Should I 1) attach the wings before painting the red & white colors, or 2) paint do the wings separately and later attach them to the fuselage? The first option ensures I have a clean seam along the wing root before painting, but adds the risk that the wings may break off while masking & unmasking the distinctive Red Baron scheme. The second option makes masking and painting easier, but then I'll have to attach the wings, fill/putty any gaps along the wing root, and then do a paint touchup along the root.

 

Decisions, decisions . . . .

 

[billn53]

Decision made:

 

 

You can see my simple alignment jig for getting the correct 10-degree anhedral on the zipper's wings.

 

 

 

[billn53]

Painting has begun in earnest!

 

My intention is to paint the entire aircraft white, then use masks to do the red areas. Both of these colors can be difficult to paint. For the white, I am using Mr Hobby Base White 1000 as my primer/undercoat, then I'll follow-up with Tamiya Pure White (TS-26), which I've decanted from the rattlecan:

 

This afternoon I sprayed the base white, and I plan to do the Tamiya Pure White tomorrow morning (assuming it has finished gassing off from the decanting).

 

I've used TS-26 before and it truly lives up to its "Pure White" name! Here's how it should look when done:

 

I have a flight out tomorrow afternoon and will be away for most of the week. Assuming I can get the Pure White on in the morning, that will give plenty of time for the paint to thoroughly dry before doing the masking and painting the red.

[k5054nz]

Excellent work thus far, she's looking fantastic!