MikeA Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) After over two years, this one is finally done! The kit does build into an impressive model pretty much out of the box, if the fuselage panel lines are sharpened up a tad. I chose a longer route and foiled the beast, after an overall sand and polish, to deal with those pesky panel lines. There is a fair amount of scratch building in the cockpit, using the kit pieces with any semblance of detail removed as a basis, and also some of the Eduard panels. Many of the Eduard pieces were chopped and rearranged to get what I wanted. The flying instrument panel and instrument shroud/gunsight were scratch built as neither the kit nor the Eduard parts present the Canadian version. The build can be found here. Overall, no problems. Glue the front and rear fuselage sections together before joining the fuselage halves and use internal fillets for the wing/fuselage joints are the only essential tricks on this one. Extras used were: Eduard interior Airscale instruments and bezels Aires control columns Eduard electronic boxes (chopped up and added to) Eduard exterior (only a couple of pieces in the end - I should have saved my money and used whiskey bottle foil instead) Eduard seat with fabric belts(very very nice - essential really) Eduard wheels (the kit ones are incorrect for the Cf 104) Eduard burner can Aires wheel bays (the main bay is especially good and for the most part is visible despite the gear doors) Master pitot tube (metal and essential for durability alone) Videoaviation wing and central pylons (also beautiful pieces) CMK rocket pod (chopped and modified - I only needed it for the end pieces which I had trouble scratch building) Canuck Symmetrical Markings (amongst the best decals I've come across) Wessex Transfers (to print the decals for the Aete "X" markings and the tail flash) Mike Grant decals (various placards and a couple of instruments) It was my first attempt at foiling and I am extremely grateful to members of this forum for their helpful posts on achieving that. It was suprisingly relaxing and certainly way more spouse-friendly than Alcad. For the record, I went through just over 400 cotton buds, 500ml of alcohol, over 40 blades, and somewhere around a metre of foil to do the job. The foil was common kitchen foil with heavy duty foil only used when I was treating it with bleach and egg shells. The Microscale foil glue was cut 50/50 with alcohol and sprayed onto the foil in two misted coats. And the airbrush survived without coming to a sticky end. I used a limited amount of chrome Bare Metal Foil for the canopy framing and the leading edge of the vertical stab. No polish was used as i wanted to retain the natural variation in the panels. Hard to photograph as it is quite subtle across the bulk of the fuselage. There's only very light weathering using oils and Flory washes. It was also my first foray into attempting my own decals. The artwork was easy using a free download of Illustrator, but the successful printing on our Canon inkjet was not something I was able to conquer. I managed to get them printed and coated without colour bleeding, but the final product was just too flimsy and transparent to work with. The first couple of photos were taken outside, but the sun is a tad harsh. The model is surprisingly long and a beggar to photograph. Many thanks for the encouragement along the way! Any comments, suggestions etc on the finished model are welcome. I'm certainly happy with it overall - I've almost forgotten the couple of errors already! Hope you like it. Cheers, Mike Edited October 12, 2018 by MikeA Redundant Flickr titles removed Cheetah11, johncrow, MikeC and 23 others 26 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Ray Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Damn, Mike, that is beautiful! Great foiling job! And that was your first time? Amazing! MikeA 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncarina Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Mike, This is truly spectacular! Very well done. I’m heading over to your WIP right now! Cheers, Tom MikeA and Daniel Leduc 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Amazing work. Well done. MikeA 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeA Posted October 16, 2018 Author Share Posted October 16, 2018 Thank you for the feedback and likes! Much appreciated. Back to working on my first ship now, but may take a break for another LSP in between endless decks. cheers, Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Posted October 16, 2018 Share Posted October 16, 2018 oeoeoeh,...mighty fine 104 èh........... MikeA 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcel111 Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 Well done! The electronics bays behind the cockpit look superb! Cheers, Marcel MikeA 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin H. Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 I had a hard time reminding to myself that this was a model not the real thing. Wow what detail. MikeA 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Cross Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Really nice! Inspiring for the F-104G I'm struggling to finish (fit issues galore with the Aires AM stuff). MikeA and Kagemusha 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kagemusha Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Wonderful Starfighter. MikeA 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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