Italeri TF-104G Marineflieger - final struggle

[Fanes]

The work continues:

The new decals from Airscale had arrived and 1/48 was a much better fit with the Italeri IP as you can see:

 

I'll apply another gloss coat later today to seal them up.

While these decals were drying I started working on the new front coaming.

I used lead foil - genereously donated by @Isar 30/07 thanks again!

Not bad for a first try. Now I have to figure out how to get some wrinkles in there.

 

 

And some more madness to finish with:

the rear hatch of the computer bay recieved some special attention.

That's my first try with Archer rivets and I'm impressed how those turned out.

 

Cheers

Joachim

[Fanes]

Yesterdy I spent the whole day at the bench and it was a joy (most of the time)!

The cockpit recievd a dark grey wash followed by a flat coat.

 

As you may  see the instrument dials are still missing its glasses. I wasn't patient enough to punch 40 pieces of clear styrene - on another day.

Instead I installed the Anyz knobs and switches which was a joy if the mounting hole was drilled all the way through. (I urgently need to remove the dust before shhoting pictures)

 

Fterwards I turned my attention to the elctronic bay which saw some colour and a small amount of PE placards

 

The top left corner is a bit sparse. I have to figure out what I've forgot.

Anyway let's have a look at the computer bay:

 

Eduard PE in place, partially repainted the YZC (oh boy that was scary) and added some wires. I really don't like the graininess on the printed parts but withput the eduard PE you're pretty much lost when trying to detail this area.

Speaking of eduard PE: I lost multiple hours trying to install the eduard seatbelts. They are just way to stiff to get them into shape. Got them fixed in one place, bent to shape - yeah they're for sure not fixed anymore.

 

Lucky me has to do the wrestling again on the rear seat...

 

 

 

[Lothar]

With the weather being so gorgeous these days you spent the whole day inside working on fiddly

parts I don't even see? Well, at least it was worth it Joachim  - fantastic detail work !!

Lothar

[Fanes]

13 minutes ago, Lothar said:

With the weather being so gorgeous these days you spent the whole day inside working on fiddly

parts I don't even see? Well, at least it was worth it Joachim  - fantastic detail work !!

Lothar

Shhhht Lothar - no one needs to know that I'm crazy (mumbling to the kits in his stash: no, we're not crazy)

As a compensation, I'm going to spend the whole day cycling today

[Fanes]

I finally found the patience to add the seatbelts to the second ejection seat.

Without futher ado (read: complaining), here's the finished cockpits:

 

And from above - yes the ejection handles aren`t the same size...

 

Jumping multiple steps forward I did my first dry fit of the completed pits in the fuselage.

I had to scrape some material from the rear walls but mostly I'm happy that it fits!

 

Pleas excuse the mess on my bench and take one more look at the cockpit

 

One more thing to note: the starboard wing was a perfect fit while the port one needed a 0.5mm shim to get a proper anhedral.

I finally start to see some light at the end of the tunnel and might eventually  finish the zipper in time.

 

[Fanes]

In order to button up the fuselage the wheel well and the main landing gear have to go in first.

Since I want to finish the zipper in the near future, there's no attempt to add detail to the wells.
The only things added: tow rings and brake lines.

 

Most time consuming is and was the clean-up of all the parts. I really miss a Tamigawa kit right now!

Something shiny to finish the post - one layer of Alclad aluminium on the brassin rims

 

[Fanes]

A quick update:

Landing gear and wheel wells painted and ready for a subtle wash.

 

Fast forward multiple hours - the cockpits and and wheel well are now in place and the fuselage is ready for glue.

Getting everything in place was scary as hell. Fit is sometimes vague (rear cockpit tub) and in other places extremly tight (sidewalls vs. rear walls).

I was really close to binning the whloe thing but I guess from now on it'll be easy.

 

Now I still need to tackle the wing pylons which don't fit at all.
Should I get the resin replacements from videoavaiation?

[MikeA]

Very nice build! Those two seaters look just right.

 

The Videoaviation pylons are really great. You can easily modify the kit pylons by shaving off a sloping section from them which corrects both the fit and the angle of them. The Videoaviation ones will overhang the rear flaps by about 1mm, due to the kits wing chord being slightly too short. The modified kit ones will fit perfectly but still lack the finesse of the Videoaviation part.

 

The details can be found in my Cf104 build from a couple of years ago should you wish to explore the options. 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

 

[Fanes]

35 minutes ago, MikeA said:

Very nice build! Those two seaters look just right.

 

The Videoaviation pylons are really great. You can easily modify the kit pylons by shaving off a sloping section from them which corrects both the fit and the angle of them. The Videoaviation ones will overhang the rear flaps by about 1mm, due to the kits wing chord being slightly too short. The modified kit ones will fit perfectly but still lack the finesse of the Videoaviation part.

 

The details can be found in my Cf104 build from a couple of years ago should you wish to explore the options. 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

 

Thank you very much Mike!
I have your build bookmarked as a reference for quite some time but must have scrolled past the pylons.

Well, I've already ordered the pylons today morning along with the intake covers which will provide a nice contrast to the bluegrey.

[Fanes]

A lot of progress but not much is worth taking a photo - except you want to see me filling and sanding seams..

Just the nice bits for today.

The elctronic bay is glued into place and has recieved a wash + flat cloat

 

During installing I managed to break of the ejection seat handles, so I will reinstall them with the final bits after painting.

To get the fuselage ready I have to install the engine (completely invisible) and the nozzle.

After playing with my Alclads (and Radu's brilliant spatter stencil) the brassin nozzle looked like this:

 

Scrolling through pictures of the MTU engine I noticed that the nozzle was quite blotchy and everythin but uniformly coloured. Additionaly the recessed parts were of a lighter shade.

I'm quite happy with the outcome.

After a quick wash with dark brown (almost black) oil colour:

 

And a closeup of the left part. The cone behind the flamholder shows a brownhish wheatering in most pictures so I added some burnt sienna oils.

 

That's it for now - I'll head back to the bench to some more sanding.

Unfortunately the new pylons from videoaviation arrived today while I wasn't at home. Two more days of patience

Edited July 5, 2020 by Fanes

[mozart]

Very effective painting Joachim, subtle but effective! 

[Fanes]

The fuselage is finally closed up but I'll wait with shooting any pictures until I have filled and sanded all the imperfections (read treneches).

Something nice happened, too:

I recieved the small bits from videoaviation and additionall to the two goodies I ordered, there was a small gift as well.

 

That's incredibly generous - kudos to videoaviation!

[Fanes]

My building has come to sloth speed. There is a lot of small stuff to do which takes a lot of time.

While the videoaviation pylons look beautiful and fit the wings at almost a perfect angle, they are too long for the (obviously short) Italeri wing.

Some cutting and sanding later you get the pylon on the left.

 

Unfortunately some rivets are really soft so I'll have to redo them (I hate riveting)

Talking of pylons and wings: like @Madmax pointed out in his build the flaps and slats show some gaps/short shot parts.

The wing's leading edge needs about 1mm up front to match the slats.

 

And there's a huge gap between the flaps and the fuselage which needed another shim

 

As I am looking for motivation to shoot some primer to clean up the panel lines and rivets I decided to do another tedious work:

masking

Out with the Tamiya tape, sharp knife and the punch and die for the round corners.

 

And all dry fit in place

 

I still have to do the intakes but then major construction should finally come to an end.

 

Until then: enjoy and comment

[mozart]

Canopy masking, one of my least favourite jobs too Joachim, there's no easy way to do it - just grit your teeth and get into it!  I've been cutting masks for my Lightning this morning, much more pleasurable using the Silhouette cutter.  I must experiment a bit more with translating the curved shape of a canopy to a flat mask so that I can use the Silhouette for that too.  Keep going my friend, you know it will be worth it!

[Gazzas]

Some very nice work Fanes!