“Ken’s Starfighter” Hasegawa CF-104 417 Squadron RCAF 1/32

[MrB17]

I’m building this for a dear friend I’ve known since we were in Air Cadets. Ken and I have talked on the phone for hours, many times. We both have a passion for aircraft, and modelling them. Ken had his commercial license and was off to a great career when he became mentally ill, and his life changed dramatically. He could no longer work, so he played at many events and restaurants with his accordion, to earn a bit of extra money. We both built models of aircraft, including rubber powered and later RC, however Ken liked my paintwork and I ended up giving him a lot of my built models and even painted a few of his builds.
 

We both love the CF-104 Starfighter and have seen and heard them fly, many times. Ken bought a 1/32 Revell Starfighter that was already built, in the CAF Tiger Meet scheme, and he wondered if I could strip the paint off and redo it in regular RCAF bare metal. I have stripped many models, but the yellow paint must have been industrial grade paint. It took a long time with many applications. I have worked on it on and off for a while, the kit was poorly moulded with a lot of sink marks. So I purchased a used Hasegawa kit for Ken and I am building it here because I have to finish it asap. Ken was recently diagnosed with cancer, I promised him I would build the Starfighter and if there’s enough time the Airfix Mk.IX Spitfire in Buzz Beurling’s markings. So I am dedicating all of my time to getting these done so he can enjoy them and display them in his apartment.

 

Sorry for the long intro, I just felt I needed to do that.

 

So here we have the Hasegawa kit and I have already desprued everything, removed parting lines and wet sanded the raised detail off. The nice thing about silver plastic is that when you sand off the details you can see clearly exactly where they were, so scribing goes quickly. I have scribed the wings and they should be ready to paint tomorrow, I can also do the red stabilater. I try to paint first before foiling to avoid having to put masking tape on the foil. I have put together the ejection seat and cockpit tub, and cemented the empennage together, as well as the engine. The kit is designed to have a removable empennage so the engine can be displayed. I also custom mixed that 501-109 greeny bluey grey for under the wings, I added some transparent teal to Tamiya XF-12 IJN Grey and I’m happy with the result.

 

The basket case Revell Starfighter above is going back to the closet.

The Hasegawa 1/32 Starfighter is off to a good start.

Not sure about the engine yet, but Ken wants a period correct pilot. The pilot figure just to the left of the engine has the early style helmet with the unprotected visor, so it can be detailed and look good in the cockpit. Having a pilot in the cockpit negates the need for all the remove before flight paraphernalia if one is going to display it parked on the tarmac.

Ken actually had a lengthy phone conversation with Wing Commander Bob Middlemiss, talking about Buzz Beurling and the Starfighter. There’s a photo of Bob Middlemiss in the cockpit of one of the first CF-104’s, and he has the early helmet, so I’ll try to make the pilot figure closer to what I see in early RCAF photos. More tomorrow…

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Marklo]

Welcome to the GB Jeff and give our regards to Ken hopefully the cancer is treatable, even still it’s a tough thing to deal with…

[MrB17]

Got the weird grey on the bottom of the wings, and ready for the red stabilator now. Started painting cockpit details and made some modifications on the pilot figure.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[MrB17]

Got the white on the tops of the wings and the red on the stabilator, and some more work on the cockpit. Wet sanded the raised lines and rivets off of the fuselage and intake parts. The wings took 4 coats of Tamiya flat white, thinned down 50/50, that keeps it nice and smooth. Everything is getting a coat of clear gloss acrylic before any decals. The instrument panel has a few differences from the CF-104, but I don’t have time to address that. I want to have the fuselage buttoned up by the weekend, so I can start foiling. The last time I built a Hasegawa 1/32 Starfighter, was in 77 while I was at CFB Borden. It was the C model, but the only one available. I have a picture of it somewhere that I took on the floor of the barracks, with the tail under the wall heater so it looks like it’s coming out of a hangar, that way you can’t see the short tail. I’ll try and dig it up for the inspiration gallery.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[MrB17]

The cockpit is mostly finished, and I was able to get the fuselage together as well. The old raised detail instrument panel looks ok painted up. I have crystal clear drying on the panel in the photo, so it’s still milky. With the fuselage now together, I can fill the seams and scribe it tomorrow.

 

I think there’s some extra detail that needs to be added to the seat. The pilot will be seated in it, but the top on either side of the headrest is barren.
 

The side consoles are Tamiya Nato Black with a black Vallejo wash and then scruffed up a bit.

 

The scope is two coats of Tamiya Smoke over the silver plastic.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[MrB17]

Ok, missed a few days, but made good progress on the 104. With foiling, the intakes took a bit of figuring out. If I glue the intakes on and then foil, it would be tricky to get the foil in between the intakes and the fuselage. So I foiled the area where the intakes cover the fuselage. I just went to the nearest panel line with the foil. I painted the inside of the intake Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black and assembled the intake cone into the intake, then I puttied the inside of the intake assembly where it’s visible. I foiled the inside of the intake assembly where it is separated from the fuselage. Then I cemented the intake assemblies to the fuselage, I made sure the mating surfaces were flat and they fit really tight along the visible joint. Although the joint was tight, the outside edges were at different heights and would be noticeable, so I was able to wet sand everything down to be flush without using any putty. The dark area on the intake/fuselage joint is just the way the silver plastic looks when you sand a lot of it down. I was able to do this without touching the previously foiled areas. Although I haven’t done a lot of foiling lately, I did quite a bit in the past. One pleasant surprise for me was that the Tamiya kabuki tape won’t pull up the foil, I accidentally taped over a foiled area and winced when I pulled it gently back as best I could and it didn’t seem to have any effect. I tried it on some other areas and it worked fine. I also drilled out the holes for the old formation lights and filed out the area on the fuselage spine where it appears to be a fibreglass panel behind the canopy. I filled them with some UV cure clear that had now turned amber, I can tint later. At least the lights are round and not oval like the kit representation on the empennage. I was able to wet sand the lenses flush and they polished well.

 The pilot figure is representative of an RCAF pilot with the early bone dome before the red ear-muffed variety. I had to add an oxygen mask and hose to the pilot’s open face, I wound some fine brass wire around some plastic rod and gave it several coats of dark green. I made the mask from Tamiya quick type epoxy putty, moulded right on to the face. I had painted the pilot’s visor with a couple of coats of Tamiya clear black smoke, it looked really nice until my big clumsy thumb collided with it. So I removed the paint and will redo it after I’m done manhandling the fuselage. I forgot to take a photo of the finished pilot before he got strapped in, but I added more little details, like the pen pocket on the left arm and added some indication of zippers elsewhere on the flight suit. I will also add the seat harness before I close the canopy up. This thing is a beast! It’s length is impressive just sitting across my horribly cluttered desk top.

Cheers

 

Jeff

[MrB17]

The scribing etc. has taken longer than expected, but now I am at the stage of getting it wet sanded and polished prior to foiling. I tried to simulate the stressed skin in various areas, especially the empennage around the engine. I filed the plastic down along the rivet lines and then sanded until I had a smooth transition. It’s really hard to see in the pictures, but I can feel it with my finger tips and I’m confident it should look right. I cut all the panel lines and used my rivet tools to replace the rivets after the initial wet sanding and final treatment of the seams. The final wet sanding and polishing will take down all the cuts and rivets but they should still be visible under the foil. I’m hoping to have it all foiled when Ken comes over to see it on Wednesday. I have my work cut out for me.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[hakkikt]

The stressed skin is definitely visible at hot end!  Do you already know what kind of foil and glue you are going to use?

[MrB17]

 

1 hour ago, hakkikt said:

Do you already know what kind of foil and glue you are going to use?

I just use household foil, and Micro metal foil adhesive. You can either paint it on the foil or on the section of the model you want to foil. Most foil has a visible grain, so you can change the direction of the grain between panels and use shiny or dull side as well. If the metal foil adhesive isn’t available, you can use thinned out furniture varnish, but you have a short window of tackiness to get the foil down. The metal foil adhesive will stay tacky much longer, so you can cover a large piece of foil with it and use as needed. I tape the sheet to a piece of cardboard and after the adhesive is on, I just lean it against the wall with the foil down, so no dust collects on it. I have a sheet ready to go now, so I am very close. The wings and stabilator are painted and I have the undercarriage assembled and ready for paint.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[MrB17]

Yesterday I was able to mask and paint most of the non aluminium surfaces. I used Tamiya XF-12 JN grey with a little bit of transparent green blue added on the fin panel, nose cone and on the outside of the intakes. I custom mixed the transparent green blue by mixing Tamiya clear green and clear blue. I did this because green navigation lights are a very dark green blue colour and just using Tamiya clear green doesn’t really look right. They should make a transparent green blue specifically for navigation lights, but also it comes in handy for painting on the edges of parts that would be laminated glass or armoured glass, you just need to reduce the intensity with some Tamiya clear added. I used this technique on the HUD and I will try to get a good picture today to show it.
I sprayed Tamiya XF-1 flat black on the intake lips and shock cones, forgetting to stir it with my little electric hand mixer, I ended up with satin black, old age has its drawbacks. I also sprayed the inside of the hot section of the engine with the same now satin black paint. This will make a good base to give it depth when I add the streaks and soot etc. I sprayed the inside of the wheel wells with flat aluminium and again forgot to spray the inside of the gear doors, I did spray the landing gear though.

Ken will be here shortly and we will discuss the aluminium finish. Whether to proceed with the foil, or use a good paint. When I foiled the gear doors and the bit around the intakes, I could barely see the detail underneath. Even with the Bare-Metal foil which is thinner, I got the same result. So I either need to scribe deeper or use paint. The parts that I painted show the details very clearly, so we’ll choose how to proceed today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

Edited May 14 by MrB17
Added a picture

[MrB17]

After meeting with Ken on Wednesday, we decided on going with the Bare-Metal Foil. I ran around the fuselage with my knife and deepened the panel lines a bit, just so I can see clearly where to trim the foil. It will take more time but I am on it today, I just finished airbrushing the last of the non metal panels. I had to order a Leading Edge decal sheet for the stencils, they should be here by next weekend, which will be good timing. I will post pictures later.

 

While I was going over the fuselage to check everything was ready, I noticed that the burner can seemed to be sticking out a little too far, and was tight against the inside of the fuselage. I had already cemented the empennage on, so I had to carefully saw into the joint with a .1mm saw. I got it off cleanly and noticed the front of the engine was binding and not seated properly. I neglected to check the bulkhead that the engine face fits into before I cemented it in (the bulkhead). Fortunately I didn’t cement the engine in place, so I pulled it out, had to get in there with a sheet of sandpaper rolled into a tube to clean it up. Now it looks good. 
The tire portion of the main wheels was damaged, but I have a set of rubber ones from the Revell kit. The Hasegawa 104 originally had hollow rubber tires and they were soft enough to give a slight bulge, but the Revell ones are solid, so I’ll have to settle for a flat spot. The Revell wheels however, were pretty crude compared to the Hasegawa ones. So I carefully removed the tire portion of the Hasegawa wheels and it took about 3 hours of filing and fitting, but I got them to fit.

 

So on with the foiling tomorrow. Here are some pictures of the painted areas and the wheel modifications. The raw fibreglass panel on top of the fuselage behind the canopy was a lot of thinned down paint layers overlapping and then sanded through some layers, yellow green, buff, transparent yellow, red brown and pale grey. I have to polish the light lens and make a flat ring of foil to fit around it. While I have the engine out, I’ll finish painting the burner can. The large main gear doors cycle to almost closed, but there is not a trace of where to cement the actuator and no indication of a piano hinge, not even a panel line, very strange. The large gear doors are foiled and burnished, while the small ones aren’t, just to show the difference, also one of the nose gear doors is half burnished. The application is easy, it’s the burnishing that takes time.

The canopy will be closed, and fortunately I test fitted the clear parts, only to find the pilot’s helmet was hitting the canopy. So I had to reposition him and it’s all good now. I taped him down snugly until the cement dries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

Edited May 18 by MrB17
More descriptive and photos added

[MrB17]

Started the foiling today. I left off the empennage and started with that. I was really curious to see how the stressed skin would look. I think I am happy. The burnishing was followed by polishing, I used Autosol, it comes in a tube and is generally used for chrome or metal polishing. It leaves a protective film that will have to be removed before clearing and decals. It does look ok, the rivets and fasteners are subtle, but they are there. One thing I learned is that you don’t necessarily need to scribe the major panel joints. I used kabuki tape to outline the panels and then used them as a guide to trim the foil, by using this method I can make a little bit of overlap to ensure complete coverage. I am going to have to tint some panels with transparent black thinned out so I can gradually build up the tint without going past the point of no return. I can also add a pinch of flattening agent to change the sheen. The Bare-Metal foil smooths out really nicely, but it doesn’t stretch much to negotiate compound curves, but it can be overlapped in sections and then burnished down with a polished aluminium rod. The seam is extremely difficult to detect with the naked eye. Here’s some pictures of the empennage being foiled.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Marklo]

Looks great so far. You should try  Tamiya X-19 smoke it’s a translucent black and might fit the bill for tinting the panels. 
 

Way way back people used to boil the foil with eggs, with the tint deepening in proportion to the time you boiled it.

[MrB17]

16 hours ago, Marklo said:

Looks great so far. You should try  Tamiya X-19 smoke it’s a translucent black and might fit the bill for tinting the panels. 
 

Way way back people used to boil the foil with eggs, with the tint deepening in proportion to the time you boiled it.

Thanks for the boiling foil with eggs tip, I am keen to try that out at some point, it’s too late for this one.

 I have a full pot of X-19, so I will experiment with it on some scrap with foil on it.

I got some more foil on today, I only had a few hours but I am shooting for Thursday to finish foiling, then decals and clear.

Cheers

 

Jeff

[MrB17]

More foiling today. In some of these pictures you can see the difference between the foil applied with a cotton bud, a wooden dowel and the shiny side of a steel tweezer. After the burnishing comes the polish which will eliminate some of the burnishing marks. Full steam ahead tomorrow, well it’s already tomorrow, so later this morning. The intake cheeks are going to be the most challenging, but not as bad as a cowling or the nose of a DC-3.

Panel burnished with a cotton bud…

Panel burnished with wood…

Comparison between cotton bud and polished steel…

I use my spray booth as a work station, because I need the best possible lighting to see where I am going when trimming off the foil…

Starting to shine…

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Hook]

Awesome work, that foil looks the canine's danglies!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[MrB17]

Got all the foil on tonight except for the canopy frame. I still have to burnish and polish it but I am a day ahead of schedule. Received a decal from Leading Edge Decals today for the stencils etc. So clear coat and decals and final assembly and I think we’re going to make it.

 

 

This is the carnage from a day of foiling. The end result will be worth it.

She cleans up pretty nice.

The speed brakes are only designed to be open and there’s no ledge around the opening, so I think I’ll make a little ball of epoxy putty and smush them into place.

I have to repaint the stabilator, I left a paper towel with alcohol on my desk and it made contact…drat!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Marklo]

1 hour ago, MrB17 said:

The end result will be worth it.

Clearly it is. That looks amazing. Of course the nmf looks so realistic , now it needs a little grime, smoke, panel wash, pigments. 😃

[MrB17]

I finished polishing today and after cleaning the aluminium with 99% isopropyl alcohol, I gave it a coat of Future and let it dry. I polished the canopy and windscreen and painted my transparent green blue along the edges. This kit is probably about 50 years old now and I noticed the canopy was starting to yellow, so with the transparent green blue, and polishing, it looks a lot better. The wings got a coat of Future so the decals will respond the same anywhere on the model. I brushed the Future on because it’s difficult for me to see what I’m covering when airbrushing clear over shiny aluminium, I can see if it’s beading and work it until it covers. It usually takes with a second brushing, so working it is easy and it flows so smoothly. The model will be ready for decal tomorrow. Then touch up and final assembly.

 

A few “artistic photos” the spray booth doubles as a photo studio.

 

 

 

I really wish Johnson & Johnson would change back to the original name and label, it looks so cool!

Cheers

 

Jeff

[MrB17]

The Tamiya X-19 Smoke airbrushed over aluminium foil is very effective. I didn’t add any clear to it but thinned it down a bit more than usual. I developed the layers starting with the lightest tint then letting that dry, then masking the darker panels progressively. Three stages of tinting in all, the most tedious part was very carefully unmasking. A couple of little lifts that can easily be repaired. I think I might have overdone the stressed skin on the aft end, but it looks cool. I put the wing insignia on top and the RCAF 731 under the wing, I think I put too thick a coat of liquid decal film on and I had to do three applications of solvaset to get them down, once the decals are on, one coat of clear over top. The decals are going to take up most of tomorrow, I have extensive stencils as well as the markings. The foiling of the canopy parts was started yesterday and finished today, which pushed me back a bit. They were quite finicky to mask so I brushed on the light grey to reduce the risk of pulling off the thin strips of foil. I carefully put a masking tape handle on the outside of the canopy parts and clamped them on my magnetic stick clips, this helped with handling during painting and was a great way to let them dry between coats. The photos are a bit of a dress rehearsal, everything is just sitting in place, the canopy, landing gear, tail section and wings. Getting back to it tomorrow morning.

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Lex77]

Nice one. Really like the metal finish.

[MrB17]

One of Ken’s favourite things about the CF-104 is the red and white spiral and the plastic pitot probe is just asking to be broken off. I wanted to get a brass one from Master, but I didn’t think it would arrive in time so I made a pitot probe from a sewing needle and some brass tubing, I have done this before and Ken really likes how it looks. The brass tube was the right outside diameter but the inside was too small, so I carefully drilled it through with my pin vise. I then drilled into the back of the plastic one and then cut off the tapered end that fits onto the nose cone. I faired it in with CA and then sanded everything smooth and blunted the end of the sewing needle to prevent accidental holes in fingertips. Painted it gloss white and used the spiral stripe decal from a Leading Edge decal sheet.

The complex main landing gear with all its linkages really taxed my patience today, but I finally got it mounted nice and solid. The old Hasegawa instructions are pretty vague as to exactly how everything is supposed to fit together, so a lot of dry fitting and looking at photos. The gear doors have absolutely nothing in the way of mounting guides, so that will be the first thing I tackle tomorrow. 
 

The wings and tail are now all cemented in place. I made a harness for the pilot and had it layed out on my cutting mat and then I accidentally cut through it several times when I was cutting out some decals and forgot it was underneath. So I made another one which will go in tomorrow. I used a DSPIAE cutting guide to make the harness out of kabuki tape and then I ran one of my rivet wheels down the middle of each strip. The cutting guides are really nice and let you cut kabuki tape to any desired size, the 1mm was too small and the 2 mm too big but I was able to cut 1.5mm with the guide. I painted them light grey and then applied a dark grey wash to darken them a bit and show the little dashes along the strips. The second time I did this I used a small cutting mat to mount them on and kept it well clear of my main cutting mat. I used some black wash on the burner can and applied some soot to the inside and the back edge of the fuselage. The nav lights will be added to the wingtips and the round holes for the nav and position lights will be fitted tomorrow as well as a bunch more stencils from a Leading Edge decal sheet. I didn’t have any 1/32 RCAF decals for the CF-104, so Above and Below Graphics came to the rescue. I didn’t have to use any Micro-Sol except on the roundels, they went on nicely.
 

Here’s a few photos of today’s work.
 

Tomorrow is D-Day, I have to finish it, so I’ll be putting some photos in the gallery as well.

 

The scratch built pitot probe, hard to see the CA because it’s clear but it smoothed the transition from the outside of the tube to the pitot very nicely. You can see one of the harness straps peeking out from the edge, this is the one that got cut up by accident.

 

Gear doors and pitot probe ready for tomorrow.

Decals applied to the starboard side now.

The “hot section” looking hot!

Love that big Red Ensign! The real Canadian flag IMO.

Cheers

 

Jeff

[MrB17]

Well here it is, get your sunglasses on! I’m waiting until tomorrow to go to the gallery, I would like to take some photos in natural sunlight if there is any. 
 

I scratched the wingtip nav lights from clear plastic from the sprue for the canopy and painted them with clear green blue and red, as well as the ones on the intake cheeks. Clear orange for the top lights on the hot section and clear for the bottom ones. White rear nav light also. Some stencils from Leading Edge and finished the markings decals from Above and Below Graphics.
 

There were a lot of redos and I still might touch up a few things. If I had the time I would have liked to do more, but Ken is in hospital and not sure when he’s going home, so I might have to present it to him a bit later. I’m going to build a display case for it, as there are a lot of things that can break off, like the pitot probe, attitude indicators etc. with the rubber tires, it has to be picked up to position it, trying to slide it would result in damage to the landing gear. The second harness turned out better, so maybe accidentally cutting the first one was meant to be. The spiral decal for the probe took three tries but it eventually succumbed with some Micro-Set. I didn’t need much Micro-Sol, most of the decals went down nicely without it. I used the Leading Edge for the turbine warning stripe, it was slightly curved and matched the contours so well it almost fell into place. I attached the probe with crystal clear because it’s flexible and if it gets inadvertently bumped, it would just fall off with no real damage.
 

Back in 77 I built the Hasegawa 104C as a CAF one while I was in trades training at CFB Borden (often referred to as CFB Boredom). Because it was the only one available in Barrie at the time.
In a couple of the photos below, I placed an old Hawk chrome plated 104 beside it, I didn’t build this particular one but got it from a friend, it’s the original chrome plated one not the Authenti-Plate that came later. The whole thing is shiny chrome but it looks cool. 
This build has been bittersweet because of the circumstances, but when I sent Ken the last photos he was over the moon thrilled and that’s what it’s all about.
 

Now I can tackle my Connie in the Heller GB and many thanks to the illustrious Enzo the Magnificent @Enzo the Magnificent for the extension. 
 

I had to keep lifting up the probe, as the crystal clear hadn’t fully set yet.

 

I can smell the JP-4!

 

As a kid, the highlight of the Abbotsford Airshow was the clean 104’s streaking by at transonic speed. How I miss that screeching howling beast!

The strake had a rounded corner at the front, so I cut the corner off and put some scrap styrene to sharpen it up.

The real 731 resides a few kilometres away at the BC Aviation Museum where the Hawaii Mars also resides. It’s getting to be a really top notch museum.

 

On the bench with the probe being supported while the glue sets. I’m going to miss this but it will eventually end up at the museum, so I can visit it again.

The Hawk chrome plated 104C sits beside big brother. I had to manipulate most of these photos as the glare was insane!

Looking down, what a view!  With that, this is the end of this build…🥲

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Marklo]

Fantastic result and I love the fact that you’ve gone to so much trouble for a friend too.

[Lex77]

Well done! Great result.