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

[spyrosjzmichos]

Lovely details Chuck! 

[Rocat]

Beautiful progress!

[chuck540z3]

Thanks guys! 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[chuck540z3]

December 16/20

 

I continue to tweak and trim the BB resin pit, which is very time consuming and exacting, especially when dealing with a cockpit that isn’t made for this kit.  One new item I’d like to show is “Waterfiller Putty” made by True Earth, where I got their “Metaliner” washes I used on my Tempest.  I found this putty in Pete Fleischmann’s awesome Pavehawk chopper build, which he used to fill all the rivet depressions before adding 10,000 Archer raised rivets!  

 

This putty isn’t one I’d like to use for most filling tasks, since being water based, it shrinks like crazy and you need to add several coats in order to build up the putty enough to get the surface even.  The good news is that it dries fairly quickly and can be removed with rubbing alcohol or water based acrylic paint thinner on a microbrush or Q-tip.  For tight spaces that are hard to sand and with small detail you don’t want to sand off, it worked great filling the gaps at the top of the resin side walls.  Here it is after several coats in white, with the excess cleaned up with alcohol and lightly sanded at the top when it had dried.  This was a lot easier to use than Tamiya putty cleaned up with their lacquer thinner and there are no fumes to deal with.

 

 

 

 

While the BB kit has the lower instrument panel, it doesn’t have the top one, so I need to use the kit ones, which are both plastic or PE on left, if I carve off the face of the plastic.

 

 

 

 

Canadian CF-104’s have a different upper IP with a prominent Attitude Director (Artificial Horizon?) in the upper middle and some other gauge on the right of it (Horizontal Situation?), so I carved off the middle and added a few Airscale brass gauges that looked similar to what I see in references.  I have Airscale decals for them as well, so the only decision is to keep the Attitude Director horizontal or let it go vertical as it looks when it has no power.  I’m guessing the latter.

 

 

 

 

Here’s the major resin parts after they have been cut off the casting blocks and cleaned up, with a few glued on.  Getting that block off the bottom of the C-2 seat was a bear to remove without damaging the delicate details of the seat, like open buckles and such.  Thankfully, I pulled it off with no mishaps. 

 

Black Box/ Avionix assembly instructions are famous for being vague, poorly printed and having extra parts that have no home.  These instructions didn't disappoint!  Thank goodness for the DACO book to steer me in the right direction

 

 

 

 

The seat has 2 side arms that are used in some fashion during ejection, so I drilled holes and used pins to attach them.  Luckily I didn’t carve out the inside of the handles, which is supposed to be blocked off according to references.

 

 

 

 

A view from the right side

 

 

 

 

And the left.  The detail on this seat is amazing, so the goal from here on in, is to not screw it up!

 

 

 

 

Most of the cockpit dry fit to ensure that all parts are just a drop in later at the appropriate time.  The lower instrument panel was already dry fit to the sidewall panels with lots of trimming earlier. 

 

 

 

 

The side rails just slip onto the seat, with the head assembly to be glued to the rear cockpit wall later.  I’m glad I used this wider kit part rather than using the thinner resin rear wall for added stability.  The upper IP and control sticks will be added later at the end to avoid breakage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dry fit into the fuselage halves.  This was far from plug and play, with a hundred little adjustments here and there, but I have to admit, I had fun doing it.

 

 

 

 

Next decision is which glare shield (coaming) to use.  While the BB resin version has lots of complicated detail, I found that most reference photos show that all this stuff is usually covered with a green canvas covering, which the kit one is apparently trying to replicate.  I think I can improve that look and the kit HUD display is really quite nice (not shown), so the nod is to the kit part again.

 

 

 

 

Dry fit, the upper IP will fit perfectly underneath the glare shield when attached to the lower IP, with a slight forward offset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One last thing to check is the fit of the top seat assembly under the front edge of the rear glass.  According to references, this clearance is minimal, but this looks a bit too tight.  A quick sanding of the seat bottom at the rear will fix this, even though the canopy and rear avionics compartment will be in the open position permanently.

 

 

 

 

I model on….

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited December 17, 2020 by chuck540z3

[Squizzy 78]

I can’t wait to see the paint job you do on that cockpit Chuck!

Great work 

[Grunticus]

Great to see you work on this. I built the TF-104G a while back, and seeing this wants me start another one (pledged to self to do one in Belgian SEA cammo). Looking at my stash probably not a good idea.

 

I you permit I have a question, not specifically about this build but in general. I see more and more builds where the unpainted parts receive a wash to bring out the details. I was wondering if this affects the ability to renew the wash after a coat of paint covers that first wash, i.e. there will already be wash in the depressions (Panel lines, rivets, etc). Will it be harder te re-accentuate them, or easier? Thanks, and keep up your great work!

[chuck540z3]

11 hours ago, Grunticus said:

Great to see you work on this. I built the TF-104G a while back, and seeing this wants me start another one (pledged to self to do one in Belgian SEA cammo). Looking at my stash probably not a good idea.

 

I you permit I have a question, not specifically about this build but in general. I see more and more builds where the unpainted parts receive a wash to bring out the details. I was wondering if this affects the ability to renew the wash after a coat of paint covers that first wash, i.e. there will already be wash in the depressions (Panel lines, rivets, etc). Will it be harder te re-accentuate them, or easier? Thanks, and keep up your great work!

 

Thanks and a good question, which I have been asked before.  While I can't ever say that I'm the first guy to apply a dark wash to the plastic before paint, I'm pretty certain I started a trend of applying black Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color a few years ago, at least here at LSP.  It's not for everybody, but here is why I did (and now likely many others), as well as a few comments:

 

1.  I typically re-scribe all panel lines and re-punch most rivets, as well as add new detail, which can't be seen very well against gray plastic in photographs.  To show off what I did here in these WIP threads, I added the wash to make this detail all pop and be highly visible, which I admit I really like the look of.

2.  After I did it the first time, I discovered a few flaws that I had never seen before.  Roughly sanded plastic, small cracks and especially flaws in the clear CA glue I use for a filler started to show up.  These flaws are usually easily fixed at this early stage and much easier than after a coat of paint when they usually show up.  When I apply my first coat of paint now, the flaws have diminished substantially due to this early quality control check.

3.  Depending on the final paint coat color, I sometimes want the panel lines and rivets to show up slightly under the paint, which worked well for me on my bright yellow Harvard and light blue F-15C.  This can look a lot better than the zebra pre-shading of all panel lines that seems to be less popular every year. 

4.  I can make the darker areas come back after paint by selectively and lightly re-scribing and re-punching panel line and rivet detail, which controls where this detail is recovered and where it is not.  You would be surprised how dark it can still be by scratching the surface.  A dark wash after paint fills just about everything, which is not what you always want.

5.  You are correct that this wash can slightly fill recessed detail, diminishing the ability to add a wash later after paint has filled it further.  If I think this will be an issue, I just lightly run a scriber through the panel lines to remove some of this dark wash before I paint.  Since I enhance most of this detail already, making it deeper, this is rarely an issue.

 

HTH,

Chuck

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by chuck540z3

[Finn]

Chuck here is a CF-104 seat that got successfully used:

 

http://canadianstarfighterassociation.org/starpix/28. Successful Bailout.jpg

 

the "arms" have webbing attached to them to help keep the seat occupants appendages from failing about when ejecting.

 

Jari 

[MikeA]

Nice work on getting that resin to fit so well. I can't imagine how many iterations that took! There's not a lot of room to play with.

 

One observation - the glare shield on the Canadian darts is very different to the one included in the kit. There may have been a couple on airframes that returned to Canada after serving with European forces from memory, but otherwise they were a non-extendable simplified version.

 

Cheers,

[dodgem37]

What a fine presentation, Chuck.

 

What is the viscosity of this putty?  Does it run?  How did you shape this?

 

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mark

[chuck540z3]

10 hours ago, MikeA said:

Nice work on getting that resin to fit so well. I can't imagine how many iterations that took! There's not a lot of room to play with.

 

One observation - the glare shield on the Canadian darts is very different to the one included in the kit. There may have been a couple on airframes that returned to Canada after serving with European forces from memory, but otherwise they were a non-extendable simplified version.

 

Cheers,

 

Thanks for that tip.  I checked and, sure enough, they are quite different, so I'll have to modify the kit one.

 

8 hours ago, dodgem37 said:

What is the viscosity of this putty?  Does it run?  How did you shape this?

 

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mark

 

The viscosity of the putty is quite thin- hence the significant shrinkage and multiple coats- and it is applied by either using the eye-dropper end of the bottle or you can apply it with a microbrush, etc.  For areas that have putty where you don't want it, water on a Q-tip or microbrush will remove it before it dries.  Once it's dry, further clean-up and smoothing can be achieved by applying alcohol with these applicators, or you can just sand it like normal putty if it's perfectly dry.

 

Again, this isn't the putty I would use for most filling tasks due to the shrinkage and I don't think it's a tough as regular putty.  For small and delicate filling tasks, however, I really like it.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited December 17, 2020 by chuck540z3

[Alex]

20 minutes ago, chuck540z3 said:

 

The viscosity of the putty is quite thin- hence the significant shrinkage and multiple coats- and it is applied by either using the eye-dropper end of the bottle or you can apply it with a microbrush, etc.  For areas that have putty where you don't want it, water on a Q-tip or microbrush will remove it before it dries.  Once it's dry, further clean-up and smoothing can be achieved by applying alcohol with these applicators, or you can just sand it like normal putty if it's perfectly dry.

 

 

I've always liked "Perfect Plastic Putty" (don't recall the manufacturer) in the tube for this reason.  It's quite stiff, so you have to spatula it on, but it can easily be smoothed and removed either wet or fully dry with a moistened Q-tip, or, as you say, sanded when dry.  The main drawbacks I see are strength (it can't be structural the way CA or Squadron toluene-based putty can) and surface - it dries with a porous surface so shows up easily under paint.  I overpaint it with Mr Surfacer or thin CA and re-sand to get a hard, smooth surface.

[Rocat]

Great looking progress.

[chuck540z3]

2 minutes ago, Jennings Heilig said:

Great work Chuck!  Wow... you're an inspiration.   FWIW.. the F-104 didn't have a HUD, just a gun sight.  The first US aircraft with a true HUD was the A-7.

 

Thanks.  Which begs the question:  If the early Canadian CF-104's didn't have a gun, what is that thing if it isn't a HUD of some kind?  I have lots of pics of this area on CF-104's and they all have the glass contraption and rarely the gun, so I assume it is displaying non-gun info on the front glass.  Anybody know?

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[chuck540z3]

As I learn more and more about F-104's and CF-104's specifically, one of the funny ironies of the Canadian version is that they didn't have the nasty gun early on until ~ 1974.  We Canadians are more civilized than that.  Instead, they used the ammo and gun area to store extra fuel so that it could, among other bombing missions, drop a Nuke and have enough gas to crash somewhere safely past the blast area.  Ahhh, the good 'ol Cold War days.  

 

Since I digress from modeling, here's another distant memory that is still vivid in my mind.  When I was a kid, maybe about about 10 or so in the mid 60's, my Dad took me to the local airshow which was at the old Calgary Airport called McCall Field.  In those days the flying displays were very close to the crowd and I remember having a CF-101 Voodoo and CF-104 Starfighter do head to head flypasts a low level right in front of us.  I recall looking left and right and seeing the small specks that were these jets in the distance and not hearing anything but a distant roar, then suddenly they had crisscrossed right in front of us in silence, with the load roar coming a few seconds after they had.  WOW!  It was such a rush, especially when you're only a little kid.  It now surprises me that I'm finally making my first CF-104 56 years later.  Maybe a Voodoo one day as well?  I don't think they make a 1/32 version other than vacuuform, which is a pity.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited December 18, 2020 by chuck540z3