Italeri TF-104G Marineflieger - final struggle

[The Madhatter]

Great build so far - I quite like the Starfighter. I remember some kids in my class when I was like 8 years old telling me once that the wings were so sharp they could decapitate a person.

It's funny what you believe as a child.

Just slightly off topic, but where did you get that wooden stand from?

[Fanes]

On 9/1/2020 at 3:51 PM, red Dog said:

Looking great Joachim.

I'll remember that orange trick. It looks great to me

 

16 hours ago, Out2gtcha said:

 

Same here, I have a day glow 104D to paint, and will definitely remember that

 

 

It looks good so far for a slightly faded orange but I Have no idea how to achieve the heavily faded finish which 27+81 - the zipper I want to display shoows

 

 

Maybe with a basecoat of tan instead of yellow?

6 hours ago, The Madhatter said:

Great build so far - I quite like the Starfighter. I remember some kids in my class when I was like 8 years old telling me once that the wings were so sharp they could decapitate a person.

It's funny what you believe as a child.

Just slightly off topic, but where did you get that wooden stand from?

Well it may depend on the zipper's speed?

The wooden stand is from from LMG Laser model graver. I've been looking for quite some time to get a stand, similar to the one from Hobbyzone USA, which was available in Europe.

I wouldn't consider it perfect since construction needed some sanding/carving to get everything to fit. On the other hand I can't imagine working without such a stand ever again.

[Fanes]

Just a quick update:

all masks are reapplied and a layer of Alclad black filler was shot to get an even base for the following colours.

The demarcation between upper and underside was masked. I usually prfer to freehand everything but the straight line running across the whole fuselage is too eassy to mess up.

 

[Fanes]

The good news: the underside has recieved it's colour.

The german navy zippers had a silver grey belly (RAL 9006). Depending on the age of the paint and the lighting of any picture.

This underside colour can be anything in between light grey and a metallic grey. After some back and forth I decieded to use AK's real color 210 for the job.

It did look good in the jar, but as before the performance during painting reminded me of those acrylic colours from Vallejo. Rather coarse pigments, tip dry and a general inconsistency in paint flow made airbrushing a hard work. Enough complaining - onto the individual steps:

 

marble over the black base - I tried to get a somewhat preshaded look on th belly's panel lines.

 

up close you can see several flaws.

 

Everything blended in. I first worked on every panel individually followed by a even thinner coat (80% levelling thinner) over alrger areas to blend th individual panels.

 

 

The result is a bit heavier than what I usually do but the contrast will be toned down later with multiple filters and gloss/flat coats.

Now to the bad news:

The uppersides were painted RAL 7012 which is a dark grey. You can see the contrast to the light grey if you scroll two posts up.

I was happy to see that there's a basalt grey in the MRP lineup. They are in my experience a dream to airbrush, tough and usually a good match for the actual colour. Well not this time.

 

The upper patch on the fin is pure MRP basalt grey. In my opinion (compared to RAL colour chips and photos of the german 104s) it is way too light and lacks the distinctive slight blue hue. I tried to improve the result on the lower patch with one third of marking blue added. Now it's a fairly decent match to photos of the real thing but the contrast to the silver grey just isn't there.

My approach so far:

spraying a very light (grey) filter over the undersides to get a lighter overall finish without losing too much contrast in the finish itself.

What do you guys think?

Edited September 6, 2020 by Fanes

[Lothar]

Excellent progress as always - one question if I may: What nozzle size do you use for this

basic paint step?

Lothar

[Fanes]

4 hours ago, Lothar said:

Excellent progress as always - one question if I may: What nozzle size do you use for this

basic paint step?

Lothar

Of course you may, Lothar!

I use a 0.15mm nozzle - alltogether with very thin paint (even MRP thinned down with 20% thinner) for the marble stuff and a 0.5mm to blend everything in.

[Chek]

On 9/2/2020 at 4:44 PM, Fanes said:

 

 

It looks good so far for a slightly faded orange but I Have no idea how to achieve the heavily faded finish which 27+81 - the zipper I want to display shows

 

 

 

 

For the faded day-glo, apply a good undercoat of white, then spray your day-go orange over it, taking care to apply lightly toward the upper surfaces where the fade is most extreme.

There's no need for any other colours to be harmed in the making of this effect.

[Chek]

On 9/2/2020 at 10:14 AM, The Madhatter said:

Great build so far - I quite like the Starfighter. I remember some kids in my class when I was like 8 years old telling me once that the wings were so sharp they could decapitate a person.

It's funny what you believe as a child.

 

 

I've seen a late '50s promo film of a Lockheed engineer (I presume) actually slicing up a tomato on the leading edge of an F-104.

[Fanes]

16 hours ago, Chek said:

 

For the faded day-glo, apply a good undercoat of white, then spray your day-go orange over it, taking care to apply lightly toward the upper surfaces where the fade is most extreme.

There's no need for any other colours to be harmed in the making of this effect.

Thanks for your input chek - I try to remember that on my mext build

[Fanes]

It's time for an update!

Despite spending a lot of time reading/watching alle those nice builds here on LSP I couldn't motivate myself to get to the bench again.

Today I felt the need to shoot some paint and here's teh result.

I started with the usual marbel base coat thingy.

 

 

Once again the idea was to get something inbetween the "pre-shade look" and a completely random finish.

My final mix for the basalt grey consists of 70% MRP basalt grey, 20% MRP marking blue and 10% Tamiya black. The marble coat looked quite blueish and at that moment I wasn't sure if I was heading in the right direction.

Well the blend coat pulled everythin together:

 

And a quick comaprison between intermediate finish and marble coat:

 

I have to admit that taking pictures of this beast is quite tricky - at least compared to the usual single engine prop.

The next big thing I have to tackle are the touch-ups and corrosion control repaints which make the origunal's finish quite unique.

[red Dog]

I'll remember your mix, it seems pretty good adding that marking blue.

Well done

[Fanes]

18 hours ago, red Dog said:

I'll remember your mix, it seems pretty good adding that marking blue.

Well done

Thanks Olivier. You might want to adjust the mix to get the contrast to the underside colour right. Th undersides on my zipper seem to be too dark.

 

Back to the bench. I promised touch ups in my last post and well there are some. But not what you guys might expect.
Some idiot spilled paint on the finished port wing. Well - out with the sanding stick and some black primer.

 

It's not perfect (sanding around the mask was nearly impossible) but it'll do with some grey on it:

 

Now onto the simulated touch ups!

The beautiful side view of the real deal:

To get the desired look I added more MRP basalt grey to my own mix until it felt right. With 20% more thinner and the finiest needle in my airbrush the freehanding went quite smoothly.

You can see the result on the tail up close:

 

And from afar

 

Unfortunately this is where I had to stop because of my references or more precisely the lack of them. I couldn't find any pictures of the port side and the uppers.

So my options are:

- go with some artistic license

- copy the pattern from other airframes

- mirror the starboard side

- or all of the above?

 

Cheers

Joachim

Edited September 22, 2020 by Fanes

[Gazzas]

Very nice work, Joachim!

[red Dog]

Don't stall for that Joachim,

 

I'd do a mix or artistic licence and copy from other airframe

I wouldn't mirror

[Derek B]

Hi Joachim,

 

Like you, I could find nothing on the internet which shows the aircraft you are making in that condition for the area you are interested in. All I could find was an image of the aircraft wearing the same scheme in a much fresher condition.

 

 

I think that you may have to go 'generic' on this one in that area, but from what I can see, it appears to be worn and faded fairly consistently on the upper fuselage and spine area above the wing with less scuffing and marks compared to the upper wing surfaces if that helps?

 

 

Good luck

 

Derek

Edited September 23, 2020 by Derek B