Italeri CF-104 Starfighter "Kicked up a Notch": KLP Publishing eBook now Available!

[scvrobeson]

20 minutes ago, ScoobyDoo said:

 

I ordered from Hobbyworld recently, it was very slow and he shorted me two bottles last order. I tried to contact him but he didn’t return any of my emails. Unfortunate as he was fast and a good communicator in previous dealings.

 

E-mail, or Facebook works with Matt.  I've used Facebook messenger through the Hobbyworld page, always gotten fast replies.  I've been short bottles a couple times, they've shown up later on though.

 

Matt 

[chuck540z3]

January 11/21

 

 

A big update!  As shown above, the landing gear parts are full of big seams, so it’s taken me a long time to clean them all up, or at least most of them.  Here’s all the parts painted up and when I install them, I will be adding the odd hydraulic and electrical line if it’s obvious.

 

 

 

 

Here’s the main gear dry fit together.  I have to admit that despite all the seam lines, the gear parts are fairly well molded, detailed and accurate.  Most of the front of the front of this gear bay will be covered with doors, so adding a lot of detail here is mostly a waste of time.

 

 

 

 

 

I have the ResKit tires and wheels, which are specific to the CF-104 rather than just a generic F-104G.  Here they are when compared to the kit wheels.  They were a ton of work getting them off their casting blocks and sanded down to size, then holes were drilled to fit the gear parts, although they main gear has square rather than round axles.

 

 

 

 

 

Painted up and weathered a bit, they look pretty good and the inner wheel has an accurate brake line connector for when I add these lines.

 

 

 

 

Before I close up the fuselage halves, the engine needs to be installed, so I thought I’d get going on the ResKit resin engine.   More resin blocks to cut off.....

 

 

 

 

With no instructions, other than this diagram I found on-line.

 

 

 

 

Here’s the parts after getting them off the casting blocks, next to the kit nozzle, which would require significant clean-up to get all that crap out of the opening cleanly.  That little brass ring was not used, since it’s installation would be very difficult and more importantly, you’d never see it hidden behind the grill on the left of it.

 

 

 

 

After a coat of Tamiya gloss black lacquer, followed by Alclad Steel.

 

 

 

 

Here’s what the interior look s like on a J-79 engine I took in 2007 (note the date on the cone: 2006/12/11).  The rear is usually a rust color while the ceramic sides of the flame tube are green.  Note the flame holder on the bottom.

 

 

 

 

So I painted the individual assemblies in a similar fashion.

 

 

 

 

This is why I deleted that brass ring, which would be completely hidden behind this circular grill.

 

 

 

 

Like all exhaust staining, every exhaust is a little different, so I used this one as my template.

 

 

 

 

And tried to paint it in a similar fashion with a multitude of Alclad paint colors.

 

 

 

 

The detail on these resin exhausts is incredible!

 

 

 

 

Dry fit together, this exhaust looks fairly close to the real deal.  Too bad you’ll need a flashlight to see it!

 

 

 

 

I then noted the length of the assembly at 86 mm from end to end.  More on this later.

 

 

 

 

The engine attaches to the rear of the landing gear bay, but there are no locking tabs to hold it in place.  Since this join needs to be strong, I added a pin made from a drill bit and drilled holes to connect the parts.

 

 

 

 

While there is a tab at the back of the engine for it to be glued to, the rest of it is kind of free floating, other than a tab at the top of 2 brass fuselage walls.  This will be reinforced when I glue everything together.

 

 

 

 

The engine is held in place, however, when the rear tail is attached, but that doesn’t happen until near the end of assembly if you follow the directions.

 

 

 

 

Here is how the kit exhaust fits at the rear, which is pretty close to reference pics.

 

 

 

 

And where the resin exhaust would fit if it was the exact same length.  Based upon the reference pic above, I think this is just about perfect.

 

 

 

 

So if I want the resin exhaust to fit the same way, the whole assembly should be 161 mm like the kit parts.

 

 

 

 

With the resin parts already 86 mm (which is variable as I cut them), I need the front half to be only 75 mm, so I cut the kit parts accordingly.  Note I have drawn a line with a felt pen noting the top of the engine assembly, to ensure the flame holder winds up on the bottom, where it should be.

 

 

 

 

And now dry fit into the fuselage, by slipping the engine into the front and adding the exhaust from the rear.

 

 

 

 

Just above perfect exhaust exposure I think!.  This exhaust can just be slipped on at the end of the build in order to protect it from damage.

 

 

 

 

With the resin cockpit, resin avionics bay, resin wheels and resin engine, I’ve just had it with resin blocks and dust!  Next up is to check the wing fit before I glue everything together, because I’ve read that the wings may need some shims on the inside of the fuselage to keep the dihedral in the correct position.  I also need to add 8 navigation lights before I glue anything!

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited January 12, 2021 by chuck540z3

[DrewH]

Perfection Chuck! 

[F`s are my favs]

So far so awesome!  I just noticed (in the second to last pic) that the nozzle itself is slightly angled downwards in comparison to the lenght of the engine/exhaust duct. Should it be like that? It could be just an illusion though. 

[dodgem37]

That was one fine presentation, Chuck.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[chuck540z3]

13 minutes ago, F`s are my favs said:

So far so awesome!  I just noticed (in the second to last pic) that the nozzle itself is slightly angled downwards in comparison to the lenght of the engine/exhaust duct. Should it be like that? It could be just an illusion though. 

 

Thanks!

 

This is partly due to the angle of the photograph, but mostly the dry fit of the nozzle to the flame tube, which is sloppy without glue.  When glued in place, all should be well- or at least I hope so! 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Finn]

Here is a belly view for weathering reference, also note some early tip takes had a shorter inboard fin:

 

 

Jari

[Marcel111]

Beautiful work on that exhaust!

 

Marcel

Edited January 12, 2021 by Marcel111

[Hawkwrench]

Chuck, what razor saw do you use to cut away the resin stubs?

 

Tim

[chuck540z3]

9 hours ago, Hawkwrench said:

Chuck, what razor saw do you use to cut away the resin stubs?

 

Tim

 

Whatever saw fits the task.  I have a number of saw blades with an X-Acto set on the right, while my go-to saw is the CMK saw on the left, that also comes with different saw blades from very fine to coarse.  While thin and sharp, the depth is limited, so I usually start the cuts with it and finish off with a saw on the right.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Hawkwrench]

Thanks Chuck. I think it's cool for an expert modeler like your self to open up and tell us what tools you have and use. 

 

Tim

[Oldbaldguy]

I have almost the same batch of saws but I can’t find any of them.  Good saws, tho.  Wherever they are.

[chuck540z3]

January 14/21

 

With the cockpit, avionics bay, most of the landing gear and the engine done, it’s time to glue everything into the fuselage and seal it up.  This is going to be very tricky, since the many resin parts need to be glued with CA glue while the fuselage halves will be glued with ordinary Tamiya thin cement- and all at generally the same time.  I have a method to do this that has worked for me in the past, so I will show how to do it later.

 

Before I glue anything together, I want to glue the engine intakes onto the fuselage halves for ease of handling and before I even do that, they should be pre-painted.  My references show the CF-104 intakes to be flat black up to the back of the front cone and white behind that, while the areas between the intake and the fuselage should also be painted before installation, to ensure a clean and smooth finish in a very tight area.

 

Here is what the parts looked like before installation with a note on a big error in the instructions.  This kit gives you 2 choices for intake covers, with a triangular intake door on Parts A16 and A17 and square intake doors on Parts A11 and A12.  The instructions have 8 versions of F-104’s from A to H, with G being the CF-104.  Page 21 of the Instructions show that the triangular doors are for A and H only, while on Page 22 the square doors are to be installed on versions B/C/D/E/F and the CF-104 version G.  This is dead wrong.  According to the kits decal instructions and from what I can see on references, the only version with square doors is version C, which is the only F-104S.

 

 

 

 

I decided to glue the intake halves together first before installing anything onto the fuselage for ease of handling.  Since you will be able to see some of the back of the intakes, they were painted black as well. 

 

 

 

 

 

I then glued the intakes onto the fuselage halves.  Here you can see why I pre-painted the areas between the fuselage and the intake.  Since this model will be painted with Alclad lacquers, I used Tamiya Gloss Black lacquer that I will be using as a primer, while the front cone of the intake will get a clear dull coat later.  Note the triangular and not square door, which is on both sides.

 

 

 

 

For all my whining about some of the kit parts so far, the intakes fit pretty darn good.  The main seam where the intake parts are glued together, however, should be mostly filled and sanded smooth as you will see below.  Note the flawed fasteners at the top, which are on both sides.  These were filled and re-punched as well.

 

 

 

 

The rear of the port side intake has a noticeable step that should be sanded down.  Unfortunately, this has the most fastener detail on the entire model in front of it that needs to be restored after sanding.  Thankfully the starboard side fits almost flush.

 

 

 

 

After gluing, sanding and re-scribing, the intake should look like part of the fuselage, rather than an added part.  I will be adding further rivet detail later, depending on how my HGW raised rivet experiment goes later.

 

 

 

 

Based upon the DACO book, I made many changes to the panel lines at the top, especially the L-shaped panels at the front.  Not perfect by any means, but the changes are a good compromise between reality and the limitations of the kit panel lines, which are off a bit to begin with.  As we say in modeling too often, "Good Enough!"  Note that the CA glue filler is clear, so much of the ghost detail can still be seen.  The black panel line wash helps me see what I've done and also where I've screwed up.

 

 

 

 

All the key panel line changes from above noted.

 

 

 

 

This existing fuselage panel line didn’t line up with the intake, so it was filled and re-scribed on both sides.  Rivet detail was then added to both sides of the narrow panel.

 

 

 

 

The bottom was much easier to deal with, because the L-shaped panel lines are already there.  Weird that they weren’t on the top already, which would have been much easier to deal with.

 

 

 

 

The changes.

 

 

 

 

And a peek down the front of the intake, where you see the black front and just white behind.  Thankfully perfection within the intake isn’t a priority, since you can’t see much in such a tight space, so a flawless finish and weathering is a waste of time.

 

 

 

 

Next up, full assembly of the fuselage and all the fragile guts that go inside.  Wish me luck! 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited January 15, 2021 by chuck540z3

[Alex]

On top of everything else it is astonishing how fast you are able to crank out this super high quality work.  I started my current P-51 project a couple days after your first starfighter post, and at the rate you are going you will be three models past this one by the time I’m done!

[chuck540z3]

25 minutes ago, Alex said:

On top of everything else it is astonishing how fast you are able to crank out this super high quality work.  I started my current P-51 project a couple days after your first starfighter post, and at the rate you are going you will be three models past this one by the time I’m done!

 

One word:  Covid-19  Thanks to this horrific pandemic, I work from home like many others, which frees up about 1 1/2 hours of commuting time and an hour a day for lunch that I used to waste when going to work.  My home office desk is also my work bench, which allows me to check emails, do some work and glue little pieces of plastic together, so I'm modeling about twice as much as I normally do in winter, which is also when I do most of my modeling.  Rather than 1 model per year, I'm doing 2 lately, which is a far cry from the modeling machines I often see in the Ready for Inspection Forum that kick them out every 2 weeks at a very high skill level.  For some of them, modeling must be their job?!    I might be just jealous as well. 

 

Cheers,

Chuck