chuck540z3 Posted January 4, 2021 Author Share Posted January 4, 2021 You may be right and I have no idea where I got that pic. In any case, here's the real deal: CF-104 "862" Cheers, Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 Every time I see a picture of one of these planes I am amazed that they actually flew. I just Googled the stall speed - 198 MPH! Hopefully no one even pondered a carrier deployment... chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oldbaldguy Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 Actually, they did. Lockheed offered up a carrier borne version to the US Navy when it was looking for a simple but fast fleet defense fighter. It certainly would not have been for the feint of heart. Little to nothing ever came of the idea for obvious reasons, but they seemed to think they could do it. Tommy has a good bit of information on the project on one his sites. Paul in Napier, chuck540z3 and Alex 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted January 6, 2021 Author Share Posted January 6, 2021 (edited) January 5/20 Having been nudged by Finn to somehow create an internal fuel tank rather than just leave the ammunition box as is, I looked around for some pics of same. I couldn’t find one anywhere, other than the one of the restored CF-104 in Winnipeg that Juri showed earlier. The tank is roundish, painted chromate yellow, has some metallic straps holding it down and has a red placard on the top. Finn also provided this schematic of what’s inside, so at least I had something more to work with. Here is what I started with, with the ammo/fuel door broken in half. Even if it wasn’t broken, sanding off the casting block on the left will shorten the door, rendering it useless, while you can’t insert the light at the top from the bottom like the kit part on the right. Too bad, because it has great detail underneath. So I decided to use the kit door instead, but modified it to look more like the real deal as follows. I plan on keeping the fuel door closed, because there will be enough exposed already with the avionics bay and cockpit left in the opened position. To create a tank of sorts, I cut down the ammo box with a knife and added a wad of epoxy putty. This putty is supposed to be pliable for up to an hour and be hard in 5-6 hours. Well, 5-6 days later, it still isn’t very hard, but it was hard enough for me to add regular Tamiya putty and shape something similar to a tank. I do not recommend this product and should have used Milliput instead. What is good about this Aires kit, is that all the computer box “Jeep Cans” as they are nicknamed, can be painted and decaled separately. The compartment and fuel tank were painted a greenish yellow chromate color, while the fuse box was left grey, just like the reference pic above. After many, many hours of adding about 30 tiny Airscale placards and a dirty wash, everything turned out looking pretty good. While the computer boxes are black like the CF-104 example above, they are configured and cast like those found in the DACO book, which Aires acknowledges as a reference. Accordingly, I added the main wiring cables according to the DACO book and not the reference pic above, to adhere to existing cable connections on the boxes. All of the boxes and the compartment cover are just about identical to reference pics, so painting and detailing them was fairly straight forward. Here I have glued on the PE hinge I created earlier, to make final installation much easier and stronger. Note the fine detail within. Just for laughs, I pulled out the kit part for comparison. Not even in the same universe for detail…. Now a bit of a walkaround. The tank and all associated parts were scratch made according to the schematic above. I would have done a better job if you could actually see all of the tank, so all of my focus was on what you could see easily in front of it instead. There’s lots of detail and boxes down the sides that you can’t really see very well with the big boxes installed, so it was almost impossible to photograph. Trust me, they look really good! All the faces on the boxes on the left are photo-etch covers, which can be left open revealing added detail within. I closed these up, because I have enough stuff to easily break off already! Dry fit back in the fuselage along with the cockpit parts. This is really hard to do without gluing them all in, so excuse the gaps and other fit issues that will disappear when that finally happens. With the fuel door closed, there’s nothing to see of the tank from the sides. But get near the front and the tank starts to become fairly visible. From the front even more, although you can’t see much in the shadows of this photograph. This is why I went to all the work of making the tank. Overhead (modified) door will be painted underneath later. While these complex and detailed parts of this model have been fun, I’m really glad most of its over! Next up is landing gear clean-up and painting. Based upon the multitude of seam lines shown earlier, this could take a while! Cheers, Chuck Edited January 6, 2021 by chuck540z3 Landrotten Highlander, Buster99, Anthony in NZ and 27 others 27 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 Fantastic work, Chuck! Kev chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMK Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 No words do justice to that level of detail! Great work. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brett M Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 Woah chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
levier Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 If anybody could do it, it would be... chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaxos345 Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 Really jawdropping work Chuck!! John chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamme Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 Hi. Great job ! Cheers, Jamme chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodgem37 Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 Damn nice piece of work. Great show, Chuck. Nice piece of detailing, capping off the wiring. I particularly like the corner work on the tank. Sincerely, Mark chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocat Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 Oh well. Fantastic work. chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck540z3 Posted January 6, 2021 Author Share Posted January 6, 2021 (edited) Thank you very much guys! A few model supply items that might be of interest: - I just ordered 30 bottles of MRP paint, but MRP out of Slovakia won't ship directly to Canada any more. This may be due to our stupid Canada Post service not allowing the mailing of solvents and other paints as "Non Mailable Matter", with no regard to volume and actual risk of a few small bottles of paint. HobbyWorld-USA thankfully will, so they may not have got the memo. Having said that, I can get paint deliveries from SE Asia all day long, probably because they don't care about stupid Canada Post rules. - HobbyWorld is out of New Hampshire and I got my paint order in about 2 weeks by USPS mail. Pretty darn good. - UMM-USA (excellent hobby store) is out of Illinois somewhere and ship through Chicago, which is the black hole of the USPS these days. My last shipment took 6 weeks and my current two shipments (Rosie the Riveter and HGW decal rivets) still sit in a Chicago warehouse somewhere doing nothing after 5 weeks- so far. Pretty darn bad, so try to avoid the Chicago area if you're in a hurry for anything from the USPS. This is not a dump on the USPS in general, especially during this horrible pandemic, but some areas are much worse than others for deliveries. Cheers, Chuck Edited January 6, 2021 by chuck540z3 scvrobeson and dodgem37 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodgem37 Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 It may be the trip North, as I didn't have any problems with UMM-USA South to Maryland. Sincerely, Mark chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scvrobeson Posted January 6, 2021 Share Posted January 6, 2021 That avionics bay looks fantastic. Not even in the same universe as the kit part. Matt chuck540z3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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