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

[chuck540z3]

While I have you CF-104 experts lurking around, a question:  What color is the avionics bay behind the cockpit?  While all the computer equipment appears to be interior grey, a see both chromate green and grey in the DACO book.  Any recollection on what color they usually were?  I can't trust restored CF-104's, because their details are all over the map, according to what a few guys thought they should look like.  I'm hoping it's green to create a nice contrast with the grey boxes, but I'd rather be accurate if it's grey instead..

 

As you can tell, I'm on to this area now, using the Aires Electronics Bay kit.  It's a bit undersized, but a lot better to work with than the oversized Aires cockpit.

 

 

Thanks,

Chuck

[Finn]

Sorry Chuck can't help with that too much, didn't look in there too often, the ammo bay area was white with an aluminum bin that i loaded belts of 20mm by hand in more than a few times. Another possible colour is zinc chromate yellow as more than a few internal parts were that shade:

 

http://www.c-and-e-museum.org/marville/photos/cf104/104-1.jpg

 

Jari

[chuck540z3]

10 hours ago, Finn said:

Sorry Chuck can't help with that too much, didn't look in there too often, the ammo bay area was white with an aluminum bin that i loaded belts of 20mm by hand in more than a few times. Another possible colour is zinc chromate yellow as more than a few internal parts were that shade:

 

http://www.c-and-e-museum.org/marville/photos/cf104/104-1.jpg

 

Jari

 

 

Bingo!  This reminded me of the pic you showed earlier of the fuel tank below, which is also yellow.  This is "703", being restored at the Canadian Starfighter museum in Winnipeg.  With grey, black boxes and some yellow, this will look really interesting!

 

 

 

 

I also found this pic in that Facebook link you pointed out of "703".  It should have the older more detailed maple leaf if it has "RCAF", or "CAF" with the modern maple leaf.  I guess most people wouldn't notice or care anyway.

 

 

 

With this info in mind, onward!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Finn]

Here is a little more detail to worry about:

 

 

Jari

[Neo]

Lol pull handle 6ft.. 

[Finn]

3 hours ago, Neo said:

Lol pull handle 6ft.. 

Yes 6ft because the explosive charge that blows off the canopy is about 1ft from where that the door is so you don't want it to go off right in front of your face. Plus when the canopy goes up it will come down so the further away you are from the a/c the better. 

 

Jari

[chuck540z3]

December 30/20

 

As shown above, I’m using the Aires Avionics and Ammunition Bay (#2208) instead of the kit parts, which creates mixed feelings.  While I have always marveled at the detail and accuracy of Aires resin, long before 3D printing became popular, Aires is well known for poor fitting parts.  Sometimes they are way too small, like their J-79 exhaust nozzles for Phantoms and sometimes the fit is way too big, like their cockpit for this kit.  Since I didn’t hear of any issues with this Avionics Bay, I bought it with my fingers crossed. 

 

Here it is with all the little modular electronics boxes after they were cut off resin blocks.  The instructions are very hard to decipher which box goes into which slot, so I will show the correct layout below.  On the left is the ammunition box and since my bird doesn’t have a gun, this compartment will be covered, but I will be painting the box yellow since you can see it from the side with the avionics door opened.  This should come close enough to what the fuel tank looks like above, even though it’s not quite the right shape.

 

 

 

 

Here is the correct location of all the boxes.  Seems simple enough, but like I said, the instructions are quite confusing.  After a little trimming, but not much, each box slides into its specific location and actually clicks into place using the small tabs on the central wall.  Very cool!- and other than that little #6 box, you don’t need to glue anything to hold them in.  This should make painting up this box a breeze with mostly a yellow compartment and black boxes, while the circuit breaker and cover will be painted grey.

 

 

 

 

Now a little bad news.  It’s a good thing that I’m covering the fuel tank compartment, because the resin cover for it was cracked in half, while most of the little teeth on the hinge of the main cover are missing, which should mesh with the teeth of the base.  This cover was quite hard to cut off the resin block cleanly and there were several air holes in it.  These flaws have now been repaired.

 

 

 

 

One thing that really bugs me about many kits is that they don’t provide any kind of slots or attachments for doors and panels that are supposed to be opened, so you are forced to improvise something.  This kit doesn’t either and although the Aires interlocking hinge teeth are better, it will be tough to glue without making a mess, especially after painting.  Fortunately, I had a spare PE hinge in the stash, so I trimmed off all the resin teeth and will be gluing this to the cover first, and then after painting, to the fuselage at the end of the build.  While it may not look “accurate”, it will be a lot stronger and if I’m careful, you won’t see any glue marks.

 

 

 

 

Now the point of no return.  According to the instructions, you should cut off the fuselage top trim and some of the inside fuselage sides.  Again, the instructions are vague with no clear direction on how to handle this, so I started off very slow and trimmed a little, dry fit, then trimmed off some more.  Here is what I eventually cut off after several hours of work, which is pretty much everything! 

 

 

 

 

As I did with the resin cockpit, I trimmed the inside with a small diamond bit on a Dremel tool for the heavy lifting, followed by careful sanding with sanding sticks.  The goal was to get as clean and straight a cut as possible, so you need to be patient and do this very slowly and carefully.  One small slip with the Dremel tool and you will have a mess.  Trust me, I know!

 

 

 

 

After several hours of work and a lot of dust, I thankfully did a pretty good job.  The top of the sills are very thin and about as sharp as a plastic knife!  Down from the tops, however, the fuselage walls taper and are much thicker, so the walls are still surprisingly strong under the circumstances.

 

 

 

 

The resin bay itself needs some trimming as well, mostly to round the sharp corners.  Since the rear is not exposed, I didn’t worry too much about how it fit as much as making sure it wasn’t getting in the way.  I also glued on a thin styrene spacer to the front.

 

 

 

 

Here it is with the cockpit also dry fit to check for gaps, hence the styrene spacer between the two assemblies.  The seat back will cover most of this anyway and it won’t take much CA glue to fill the rest.  Note how the rear is tapered inwards

 

 

 

 

A few comments
 

• It turns out that the Aires bay is an exact fit, but too exact, and it takes a ton of work to get it to do so.  It could easily have been constructed a bit narrower, allowing for easier handling.
• As mentioned already, the quality of the resin casting is fantastic, but it’s also fragile and I had a few broken parts.
• About half way through sanding and dry fitting, I looked around the ‘net to see what others may have done with this kit, because I was getting concerned that I may have bit off more than I could chew.  Very surprisingly, I could only find one other application of this kit and it was done very differently.  Instead of trimming the fuselage walls as instructed, the modeler just parked the sills of the resin under the sills of the kit parts with no mention of doing so.  While technically wrong, the boxes are too deep and you lose the hinge and fastener detail of the resin top sill, it looked a lot better than using the kit parts.  If you don’t think you can tackle the kit instructions, this is a pretty good “Plan B” if you don’t care too much about accuracy.
• I would normally get down to painting this resin bay, much as I did the cockpit, but I have a lot of paint I need in the mail and you know what that means:  Delays with no firm date of delivery.  Instead, I think I’ll get going on the front and main landing gear with a difficult if not impossible mission in mind.  How do you build this kit without attaching the landing gear this early?  I hate landing gear sticking out before final assembly, which is why I found a way to attach the front gear at the end on my Kitty Hawk F-5E, Tamiya F-15C and Academy F/A-18.  The front gear on this kit looks like I won’t win, but maybe the main gear?  I guess I’ll find out soon enough!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited December 30, 2020 by chuck540z3

[Finn]

Nice work Chuck, as for the ammo bin/fuel tank since most will be covered by the hatch couldn't you just have a small portion of the tank like a lid or cap on top of the ammo bin? It might look better that way.  Also will you be adding pylons to your build? Wing pylons were easy to remove so that is why you'll see Cf-104s without them but the centreline pylon was a bit to take off and put back on also didn't effect drag or aerodynamics as much as the wing pylons.

 

Jari

[AlbertD]

Great job fitting the resin Chuck. You have nerves of steel.

[chuck540z3]

49 minutes ago, AlbertD said:

Great job fitting the resin Chuck. You have nerves of steel.

 

As I was deep into resin and plastic dust, I was thinking that I must have a few other parts of my body made of steel, or maybe I was just stupid!  LOL.  No guts, no glory!

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Hawkwrench]

You make all your work look so simple and easy to us, I'd love to have your modeling skills!!!

 

Tim

[Anthony in NZ]

Yes another great update.

Nice problem solving Chuck, I like your thought processes.  Very informative too, I have always had a love of the 104 and you are really going to have a cracker here...I can feel it.

 

Great info coming through from the other guys too...keep up the details on these birds, really makes for interesting reading

 

Cheers

Anthony

[Finn]

While we are waiting for the next build installment, here is another war story, yes it involves the CF-104. Several times a year at Baden the 104 squadrons would do live weapon drops, Mk-82 Snakeyes and 19 tube rocket pods (LAU-3/LAU-5003). This is what is speculated had happened as the pilot’s version differs in a few areas. After firing off the 4 pods of rockets on the first pass, the pilot came around to jettison the now empty pods, he pressed the Jettison button, the pods came off and his tip tanks as well. Don’t know if he noticed it shortly afterwards or the Range Tower called him to say his tanks came off. Nor it is not known if he knew right away what he did wrong. He returned to base and as he was taxing to his parking spot he probably had an AH HA! moment and realized that he had forgot to flip the Tip Tank Jettison Disable switch (which prevents the tip tanks from coming off when Jettison is pushed). So to cover his rear end, just speculating, he decided to flip that switch and say it didn’t work. Since he was busy taxing he felt around for the disable switch, lifted the cover, which he should have noticed was witness wired, and flipped the switch. BANG! Figuring he hit something he slammed on the brakes and stopped. There underneath each wing was a pylon along with a Twin Stores Carrier sitting on the tarmac along with a few bits and pieces, he had hit the Pylon Jettison switch instead of the disable switch. There is a photo of it in the David Bashow CF-104 book.

 

Jari

[jenshb]

I guess the entire squadron drank for free in the officers' mess that evening:)

[chuck540z3]

18 hours ago, Finn said:

Nice work Chuck, as for the ammo bin/fuel tank since most will be covered by the hatch couldn't you just have a small portion of the tank like a lid or cap on top of the ammo bin? It might look better that way.  Also will you be adding pylons to your build? Wing pylons were easy to remove so that is why you'll see Cf-104s without them but the centreline pylon was a bit to take off and put back on also didn't effect drag or aerodynamics as much as the wing pylons.

 

Jari

 

Thanks Jari,

 

One of the many reasons I do these WIP threads is to get tips, but also a nudge once in awhile to do something I wasn't planning.  I checked to see what can be seen under the ammunition door from the avionics bay and it's quite a lot, so I am currently trying to fabricate a fuel tank out of the ammo box.  Nothing fancy, but without a gun the ammo box had to go.

 

As for pylons I haven't given that much thought yet.  I would love to have just tip tanks and a Vinten Vicom pod that Canadians used, but this pod in 1/32 doesn't seem to be available.  Any suggestions for pylons and other stuff?

 

Cheers,

Chuck