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

[chuck540z3]

49 minutes ago, Chek said:

You can open the PB images individually in a new tab and see and/or save them un-watermarked.

If you save the pages, you can import those photos into the page's data folder to replace them as the file names are identical.

 

 

Thanks for that!  Also, if you want an abbreviated version of the highlights without all the noise of the build thread, this build has 8 pages and 63 photos in the November 2015 issue of FineScale Modeler.

 

BTW boys, I just started painting!  Scary and a bit frustrating, but fun at the same time.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Troy Molitor]

PaintinG.  OH joyous....!  

[chuck540z3]

Looks like painting will have to wait a few days, since I paint in my unheated garage.  With a space heater, I usually have no trouble painting in the winter, but there are limits- and we've been in this deep freeze for a week already!.....   

 

 

Chilly,

Chuck

Edited February 11, 2021 by chuck540z3

[Landrotten Highlander]

5 hours ago, chuck540z3 said:

Chilly

Here in Scotland we call it 'a wee bit nippy'.

[Marine104]

Excellent update Chuck. The worked panel lines look much better imho and your front canopy fix is the way to go, the additional replaced rivets has made the join look just like the real thing, things to note for my future F-104s there. Thinking back I actually ordered a new canopy sprue from Italeri after cracking mine which IIRC may have been due to 'pinching' it to fit the forward fuselage, they are brittle though these Italeri canopies. The slight ribbed texture on the centre aft panel should come up just right under metallic paint as you say, everything is 10x more obvious. 

 

 

I'm really looking forward to see how you paint this and replicate the rivets! -26°C, whoa that's a wake up call, it's only 0-ish here in England and I'm stalling on painting something.

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

[chuck540z3]

I've been waiting for someone to mention the "Polar Vortex".  The media in the last few years has claimed that global warming has caused the jet stream to wobble, allowing brutally cold air to drop to the south, creating this "new phenomenon", brainwashing the public.  Poppycock!  When I was a kid about a million years ago, we had 2-3 bouts of -25 C (and colder) events that would each last for weeks every winter.  Global warming isn't causing what we have right now.  Due to global warming, we have less of these events each year, despite the new media label for it.

 

Back to painting (before I get political!), I learned long ago that painting in my cold garage can actually work out very well for 3 reasons:

 

1. I can get a wet coat easier since the paint isn't warm enough to dry too quickly.  I use lacquers and enamels exclusively, so acrylics may not work as well.
2. I have a nearby space heater and when I'm finished a light coat, I hold the model near it, drying the paint when I want it to dry and not sooner.
3. Our cold air is super dry, so when I use a space heater the paint dries almost immediately.

 

These painting sessions are usually quite short- maybe 5-10 minutes, after which I bring the model indoors to let it dry properly in warmer air.  When dry, especially with MRP quick drying acrylic lacquer, I might go back out for subsequent coats and touch ups only 30 minutes later.  Thanks to our long winters, every single model I have ever made has been painted in my cold garage this way.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by chuck540z3

[Alex]

17 minutes ago, chuck540z3 said:

 

1. I can get a wet coat easier since the paint isn't warm enough to dry too quickly.  I use lacquers and enamels exclusively, so acrylics may not work as well.

 

That’s an interesting point.  My basement is heated, and I have to work very quickly and carefully to maintain a “wet edge” when spraying gloss lacquer.  It would probably be much easier if it was 0 degrees rather than 25.  But, my wife would NOT be happy with me if I turned off the heat in the basement.  And I don’t have a garage.  And despite the fact that it’s only -5 here instead of-25, I don’t fancy trying this outside ;-)

[aircommando130]

Man Chuck that's some cold air! That Starfighter's teeth are going to chatter! My garage is insulated 

but I have a 25,000BTU propane heater in there so it will warm up pretty good. At least you don't 

have to worry about your LaBatt's Blue getting warm! 

 

Cheers...Ron

[chuck540z3]

Looks like we're in a warm belt this morning at -29C, because 100 km away in Banff it's -38C (-36.4 F).  No painting in the garage there! 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Troy Molitor]

Woke up here in Memphis and were under icing conditions.  Great to look at but you can hear trees all moaning under the added stress.  I went to the post office earlier and saw several tree limbs down and a few actually falling while driving close by.  The magnolia and pine trees seem to be taking this added weight especially hard.  

 

And Thank you Chuck for sending down that wicked polar vortex!  Your comment made me smile.  True!  

[Finn]

In Germany, during Alerts to keep warm during the winter months, when the CF-104 would start up we would go outside to the back of the HAS, put on our gas masks and stand in the exhaust blast. It warmed you up pretty good, of course when it was time to taxi and more power was added, you'd get out of the blast or you would be knocked over.

 

Jari

[dmthamade]

6 hours ago, Finn said:

In Germany, during Alerts to keep warm during the winter months, when the CF-104 would start up we would go outside to the back of the HAS, put on our gas masks and stand in the exhaust blast. It warmed you up pretty good, of course when it was time to taxi and more power was added, you'd get out of the blast or you would be knocked over.

 

Jari

 Just need brats and bier, Prost!!

 

Don

[chuck540z3]

February 11/21

 

 

 

 

Enough of cold temperatures!  We Canadians are supposed to be tough in the winter, so I did a little painting after all.  Not much, mind you, but enough to help speed things up when it warms up a bit.

 

 

Before I started painting, I need to decide on a subject that was limited by the decals I had on hand, what I liked and what looked a bit different.  Almost all bare metal versions of CF-104 models have a red tail and other red markings which are cool, but I think a bit overdone if I want something different.  I also found that most of the pics I have of CF-104’s serving in Germany had white tails, so I decided to go with that instead.   I don’t like the kit decal scheme that much either, but thanks to Rockie Yarwood’s donation of Belcher Bits decals to me a few months ago, I can go for a “CAF” version for many serial numbers, as long as those numbers aren’t repeats, since I have only 2 of each number for both sides of the model.  As a result of all of all the above, I’m going with 104743 that looks like this at the front.  I am also going to add a MN-1A bomb dispenser to the center pylon as shown here, which is a shortened version of the SUU-21 dispenser I bought from VideoAviation.

 

 

 

 

I don’t have a pic of the whole jet, so I’ll use this pic of 104788 for the rest.  Again, two “8’s” in the serial eliminated this subject.  Note that it also has the bomb dispenser.

 

 

 

 

Since the surface areas were small and light colored, I painted the wings, horizontal stabilizer and nose cone first since they will need to be masked off, maybe for months, for the bare metal finish that will dominate this model.  This paint can now dry for the next few days before the weather warms up and serious painting begins.

 

 

 

 

The top of the wings are supposed to be flat white so I used MRP-004 White, which sprays beautifully, but the coverage is terrible.  After 5 coats I gave up and used Tamiya TS-26 Gloss White lacquer instead, which will eliminate the need for a gloss coat before decals at the same time.  Like all the Tamiya lacquers, they are a bit tougher to spray than MRP paints, but the finish is second to none.  This is what I will also be spraying in Gloss Black as a primer coat for the Alclad finish.  Ailerons and front flaps were left off for ease of painting and fear of breakage during assembly and painting.

 

 

 

 

One thing I discovered when reviewing many pics of the real deal, is that the white paint does not go right up to the wing root, but back a bit, leaving a notch of bare metal, while the front flap is white right up to the fuselage.  For example, check out the first pic of this build thread.  FYI if this was always the case, this was missed on the restored Starfighter here in Calgary, while the one in Winnipeg is painted correctly.

 

 

 

 

Same thing on the bottom of the wings, which are FS 36473 Sky Grey, MRP-242, which is a greenish grey. It’s a bit hard to see in this pic since the paint is almost the same grey as the bare plastic.  If I did this model again, I’d leave the main landing gear bay bare plastic and paint it with the rest of the bottom, since they are both metallic Aluminum.  The open gap where Part 9C has been left off was filled with foam, to help avoid overspray getting into the cockpit area, just in case.

 

 

 

 

The horizontal Stabilizer is also flat white, but both top and bottom.  Again, I used Tamiya gloss white, which I will knock down the shine on later after a few decals.

 

 

 

 

The sides and bottom of the nose cone are also FS 36473, but I didn’t mask off anything to avoid sharp paint edges later.  Note all the effort to mask off the cockpit and avionics bay area, which took a long time to do cleanly and hopefully totally sealed.

 

 

 

 

In the background I’ve put the wingtip tanks together and cleaned up landing gear doors and other parts to save time later.  As always, lots of cleanup required.  Hopefully my next update will be a super glossy black jet in preparation for many shades of Alclad.

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited February 12, 2021 by chuck540z3

[allthumbs]

Wow, the paintwork looks great! 

 

Was the white paint laid down over bare plastic? Or where those areas treated with a primer first?

[dodgem37]

Great show, Chuck.

 

Sincerely,

Mark