Italeri TF-104G Marineflieger - final struggle

[Fanes]

9 hours ago, Out2gtcha said:

Very nice! I like the orange on the tanks with the Luftwaffe scheme, nice and eye catching. I've had similar silvering issues too, and found with me, it's mostly a gloss issue.

Thanks Brian, the thing with the gloss was my first thought as well and I guess I'll have to give it another coat.

[Troy Molitor]

Nice!  I don't always follow the jet builds but when I do, I'm usually impressed.  This is looking awesome Fanes.  

[Fanes]

On 12/1/2020 at 11:43 PM, Troy Molitor said:

Nice!  I don't always follow the jet builds but when I do, I'm usually impressed.  This is looking awesome Fanes.  

Thanks a lot Troy! I usually don't build jets either

 

Back to the zipper. I decided to add another layer of gloss to avoid the struggle on the starboard side.

Well it's a lot more glossy afterwards.

 

Back to decalling tomorrow.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Fanes
spell check

[Isar 30/07]

So good to see you back on this fantastic build, Joachim!

 

Servus - Reimund

[Fanes]

Happy new year mates!
It's been a month since my last post and all the decals are now applied (finally).

Applying decals is one of my least favourite tasks. There's a 1/48 Rafale waiting for the last 20 stencils for around five years now..

Back to the Italeri decals: the heavy gloss helped with the application but there was some silvering nonetheless.

Best practice was:

• really hot water with setting solution
• massaging the decals on with q-tips
• flooding them with micro sol - no point in being thrifty
• after a decent drying time: pinch holes in the silvering areas and re flood with micro sol

Here's the resualt from below

 

and the port side

 

At this point I would like to thank @DrDave for donating the bilingual stencils/warning signs on the nose. Thank you very much Dave!

As I'm posting this the clear coat to seal the decals is already drying on the bottom. The top side will follow tomorrow.

Then I'll have to mask and spray the red stripe around the rear fuselage.

[Fanes]

Getting closer to the finish line

 

Shooting clear in two sessions takes time but isn't photo worthy.

So I decided to move on to something I forgot in the first place. The red warning stripe around the rear fuselage.

Italeri wants you to use 5 or 6 separate decals - no way.

Out with the Tamiya tape!

 

Since red doesn't cover so well, a thin coat of MRP grey (M495) was shot inbetween to get rid of the demarcation between the dark blue grey and the bottom grey.

Followed by multiple thin coats aof Gunze insignia red

 

Et voila:

 

Now that I had a closer look the red on the Italeri decals is very bright (you can see it below the Marine lettering) and more so on the fuselage fuel filler cap (resp. the red ring around it) in my last post. Now what?

• Live with it
• repaint the red stripe
• repaint the larger decals (fuel filler caps)
• hope for the filters/wheatering to blend everything together

[Landrotten Highlander]

I go for the last option (hope for the filters/wheatering to blend everything together).

 

To my eye the differences in the red are minimal in that they do not detract the eye from the overall image.  The filters, weathering and other techniques you will be using will tone this further down.  There is a discussion regarding modelling and art going on in another topic, and one of the things we look for in Bonsai is 'perfect imperfecction'.  The minor tonal variations in the red will add t the 'realism feeling' of your model.

[themongoose]

They look pretty close in the pic. I’d go with opt4. That should blend it all together. Looking damn good my man!

[Oldbaldguy]

Option four.  Stops the “which red is the real red?” discussion.  If you walk around a working airplane, you see various shades of any given color, often side by side.  Looks great.

[alaninaustria]

Wow, what a beauty!

Cheers

Alan

[Out2gtcha]

100% Option 4.  Hell, had you not said anything, the reds look hella close on my admittedly crappy monitor and I would have never noticed.  

[Michael931080]

Beautiful build up so far on this Two Seater Starfighter!

 

[Fanes]

Allright then - option 4 it is

I have to do some touch ups but I think weathering will start tomorrow.

Curently I'm planning:

• washing, but only slightly darker than the underlying colours - no need to overemphasize the trenches eh panel lines
• some sort of filter, haven't used any pre mixed so far, so most likely oils (maybe a dark green hue for the top and a light grey for the bottom)
• big maybe: salt fading for the upper surfaces

[Fanes]

Well scratch that with weathering yesterday

I comepletely forgot to paint the white stripes on the starboard side of the tailplane.

No idea what they are meant for. Some Zippers have two of them (the german ones), some have one stripe but on both sides and some don't carry any.

Trusty Silhouette to the rescue:

 

While scrolling through the Daco book I found a wonderful picture of said stripes and immediately realized that i forgot some decals as well (the "2"s for lifting points)

 

Now everything is on - a final (this time I mean it) gloss coat to seal those decals will follow later today.

[Derek B]

well spotted Fanes (excellent work, as always). I wonder if those fin white stripe markings are horizontal tailplane position indicator related?

 

 http://www.916-starfighter.de/Large/2298.htm

 

Derek

Edited January 8, 2021 by Derek B