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Janissary

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Posts posted by Janissary

  1. On 3/22/2024 at 1:51 AM, WouldbeIceman said:

    What a build!! It`s alway a great learning experience to watch your builds. I, like most builders would like to emphasize your painting and weathering skills - top class! And you choose subjects where you can use your skill to the max, without getting flak about overdone or unrealistic. More builds please! Maybe a German F-4F in the latest two-tone grey scheme for your next build?

    Another thing that I would like to commend you for is the press on attitude. Yes, the CF-104 has some differences that you didn`t catch on during the build - but you press on, no matter. My fav is the F/A-18C - next time I dig out one of my 20+ Hase kits I will use your build as the standard. Thanks for putting pics out here for us to follow and enjoy!

     

    Check Six and build something!

     

    Wouldbeiceman

     

    Thanks a lot! Like you said, painting and weathering are the most exciting steps for me in any build, and I look at every model to try out new things. With three kids. my pace has taken a major hit, but still trying to find time here and there. 

     

    My next build will be a J-10C and I will be building it for someone else as a gift. To my slight disappointment, my friend wants it extremely clean which is how today's J-10s tend to be maintained. While that should result in a faster build, I fear it is going to be a bit boring to look at. Hope to share the progress pics here once I make more progress. 

  2. 23 hours ago, KursadA said:

     

    Not really - you have used the correct ejection seat. By the time the CF-104s were repainted in the Turkish camouflage scheme in the early 1990s, all of the fleet had already been equipped with the MB seats that were removed from the F-104Gs that were retired earlier. There were no Turkish CF-104s still flying with the Lockheed seat after approx. 1992 or so. Excellent build!!

    Thank you Kursad, that's great to know! A few fellow modelers on FB said the same thing. I will cross that off the list. 

     

    14 hours ago, ST0RM said:

    Good lord, that's a great model. I'm floored by the weathering. Captured that faded look perfectly. 
    That's what I love about this hobby. How we push techniques further to achieve results that make them look more lifelike. 
    Congrats!

    -Jeff

    Thank you!

  3. Thank you Scoob, Rich. 

     

    Here are the final photos. Rather than start a critique corner entry, I've decided to post everything here. So this is a CF-104 from the Diyarbakir 8. AJU around the 1980s. It was a surprisingly enjoyable build, with a reasonable number of parts, good fit, and good surface detail. The MLG legs were a bit fiddly compared to the rest, but no major complaints. If you plan to build this kit, beware of the wing tank alignment. The horizontal winglets should be aligned with the main wings but if you don’t take the time to adjust (sanding, carving etc.), the tanks are majorly out of alignment canted toward the ground. I spent quite some time to correct that. I was shooting for a weathered but still operational aircraft. I did not have a ton of pictures of this particular aircraft so a lot of the painting and weathering is ‘made up’ along the way, by blending the colors, details and wear patterns I have seen on Turkish 104s. A big thanks goes to fellow modeler Ayhan Toplu for several critical decals. 

     

    Camo layers: Surfacer 1200, Gunze stainless steel, hairspray, Mr. Hobby Aqueous 303, 309, 310, and 311 thinned with X-20A, post shading, chipping, decals, gloss, oil washes, Testors flat. Wing tank orange were mixes of Tamiya red, yellow and white in several shades, plus some chipping.  

     

    At this point, I will call this a ‘what-if’ build. A lot of mistakes were shamelessly made as fellow modelers here and elsewhere highlighted the differences between F-104 vs CF-104s along the way 🙂  It actually does make for a more enjoyable build. Off the top of my head: The MB seat should have been the Lockheed C2, MLG doors should have been the non-bulged type and I guess skinny wheels, the IR sensor in front of the windshield should have been omitted, Canadian 104s were not wired to carry sidewinders on the underwing pylons (is this true?).  Will see if I can make a base and take some outdoor shots in a few weeks!

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  4. On 3/7/2024 at 1:01 PM, Gwen Phoenix said:

    Jani,

    There's no, unfortunately. But with the smallest size you can always use a brass, plastic or stainless steel 2mm outside diameter tube which inside diameter is smaller than that, in order to slide a smaller size rod inside. Albion Alloys have a great range of tubes with the different ODs/IDs.

    I've once seen Nigel from Nigel Modelling Bench on YouTube use each of the sizes supported by this tool with rods which had smaller ID than them in order to drill smaller sizes of rods with even the smaller drill bits.

    If I can find that video, I'll post it here for you.

    This one's even a great tool for strenghtening plastic undercarriage legs with metal rods.

    Cheers,

     

    Gwen

    I totally see what you mean, makes a lot of sense. 

     

     

    On 3/8/2024 at 10:02 AM, ALF18 said:

    Super work! I especially love the authentic-looking paint job. 😍🏆

    Here's what CF-104s looked like back in 1974, when my father flew them. This aircraft took part in the Tactical Weapons Meet. I was 15 years old, and used to climb under the barbed wire by the control tower in Baden to watch the jets taxi by. The Military Police never caught us, and the pilots all waved at us as they went by. The second picture is at a Tiger Meet, with my father at far right in the photo. Fantastic job, Janissary!

    Thank you very much. Awesome photos and memories that go with them. Reminds me of me and my dad perching outside of the Eskisehir AFB watching Saratoga F-14s, A-6s and F-18s rolling down the runway at the age of 13. 

     

    Here are a few more shots before I take the final photos. 

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  5. Just seeing this thread, it's interesting to me also. I am in for an F-4D and a late F-4E, but I don't have either kit yet. I had a ZM F-4D. When Tamiya F-4B came out, I sold it away thinking that Tamiya would release a D soon after (still waiting). Unfortunately, I am losing hope, and think we will not see a Tamiya D, just like we have not seen an F-16D. 

     

    Anyway, I now have a renewed interest in ZM D. The engine bulge is weird in that if it was not pointed out, I would not have noticed it, but now I cannot unsee it. So a ZM kit would mean I have to fix that section. That fix, together with a 1% chance of a Tamiya D, is holding me back. So I decided I will not purchase the ZM D until I am ready to begin the build. 

     

    Hear me out: If the ZM bulge is to be fixed, my first inclination would be to sand it down. The Hypersonic correction looks beautiful and I remember the work that went into it (template cross sections and comparisons with other kits). But is sanding it down a bad idea? I remember the bulge being so pronounced that you had to beef up the ZM fuselage from the underside not to create a hole in it. If I were sanding it myself, I would be eyeballing it. Just feels like with some aggressive but careful sanding, and with an eye on symmetry, it can be made look better than what it is now. I realize it all depends on the level of accuracy one wants, but cutting the ZM fuselage and gluing the correction feels too risky for me. Anyway, I guess just wanted to hear your thoughts on this. I have not seen anyone attempting this sanding option. 

     

     

  6. 18 hours ago, Gwen Phoenix said:

     

    Hi Jan,

    Nice build you're working on. Thanks a lot for the tip on the ejection seat handles!

    I'll give it back to you; HIQ Parts is your friend for this type of work. Check it out.

    Cheers,

     

    Gwendoline

    I'd never seen that before, thank you. The smallest size looks a bit larger than what I would normally use this for, but there might be smaller versions of this too. 

  7. 52 minutes ago, phantom said:

    Looks BEYOND great. Question, I am not sure if the ejection seat is right. When we sent our Starfighters to Turkey they had the other ejection seat type. Its possible Turkey retro-fitted the Martin Bakers but I didnt think they had.

    Thank you. I hope to finish it soon and plan to share more pics then. I think you are right about the seat. I started this with no real background in CF-104s, and in my references could to tell what type of seat it uses. But recently I came across a pic of CF-104 62-786 where the red headrest and no pull handles, which tells me it uses the Lockheed style seat. I am passed the point of fixing it as I use the ejection rail already, but you are right. 

  8. Thank you all. A small update on where it is. 

     

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    Fellow modelers reminded me that only the top left and bottom right wings had the roundels, so I had to remove two:

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    Getting ready for the pitot, and wing tanks:

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  9. Thank you. It's a single wire, 26ga. A picture is up earlier. I paint the two sides of the wire in two colors, then twist it slowly using the drill. I've never liked the braided appearance of two parallel wires twisted together. I got the idea from here:

     

    Yes. Chipping is a concern. I tried enamels, acrylics, dipping them in future etc. They all eventually crack once you start making the small loops. I have not tried lacquer paint, that will likely work best. Also, next time I do it, I will work the bare wire a bit by twisting back and forth, looping, bending, stretching prior to painting. Not sure if that will help but a part of me thinks it will. 

  10. It's been a while since I updated this thread, but I am onto painting and weathering now. I can summarize it as: Surfacer 1200, Gunze stainless steel, airbrush hairspray, draw camo lines, spray the lines with Tamiya Nato black, free-hand the base colors, marble the base colors with lighter and darker tones, start light chipping to give it a weathered look. 

     

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  11. On 9/1/2023 at 12:13 PM, legend1 said:

    well i cant help on that !!!

    I am not hung up on Tamiya or GWH or whatever, but I still don't get your point. I think you are trying to say that GWH nose is wrong, no offense but I don't think you are doing a good job illustrating your point. The photos are out of focus. You are too close to the models creating a strong perspective. If this is a phone, better to move the camera back, take a photo in the highest resolution, then crop it to make it as close as possible to an orthographic projection. If you are contending dimensional inaccuracies that can be measured, best to measure them and share here rather than ask everyone else to see what you are seeing. Only sigtau seems to have a vague idea of your point, but I think he too wouldn't say your point is clear. 

  12. 1 hour ago, Sarathi S. said:

    For an early B like you're talking about the A-model RIO panels should be fine.  

     

    47 minutes ago, GW8345 said:

    As stated above, for an early F-14B (F-14A+) the cockpit is the same as an F-14A so you can use a F-14A cockpit for a F-14A+.

     

    thank you both, that's great to know!

  13. On 2/7/2022 at 7:41 PM, A-10 LOADER said:

     

    Correct, the side stick controller was the same for LANTIRN equipped Alpha's and Bravos.

    The pre-LANTIRN / pre-F-14B "UPGRADE" RIO cockpit was more or less identical to the F-14A RIO cockpit. The F-14B "UPGRADE" went operational in late 96 to 97 with the new MFD,s ( PTID ), among other upgrades. PTID was integral to the LANTIRN upgrade so, if a jet had a GPS antenna on the "turtleback" ( spine ), it had PTID (A & B ). The Sparrow Hawk HUD wouldn't get to the fleet until 2001-2002, depending on the squadron, which in my research shows VF-11 ( mid to late 2004 ), 32, 101, 103 ( March 2003 ) and, 143.

    The "fishbowl" TID was removed first, between 1997-99 depending on the squadron. The Sparrow Hawk HUD came later and was only fitted to the F-14B, unlike the MFD ( PTID ) which was installed across the entire fleet, Late A/B/D. The MFD and the HUD were part of seperate "upgrades."

    Steve

     

    Hello, my question is about the Tomcat shown here: https://www.airliners.net/photo/USA-Navy/Grumman-F-14B-Tomcat/139422/L

     

    This is a VF-74 F-14A+, in 1990. I have the Tamiya late A kit. If I wanted make the above A+ for that time frame, my understanding is as follows:

     

    - I will use all the late A cockpit parts (fishbowl TID for the RIO) including the seats. I will not use the PTID or the lantirn side stick. 

     

    - I will use the B/D engine shrouds / fairing that come with the kit

     

    - I will need to get GE F-110 exhausts from somewhere

     

    - I will erase the oil doors on the engine nacelles 

     

    Is this accurate? I'm most concerned about the cockpit. The reason is I have traded away the B/D RIO instrument panel and side panels that are on Sprue U.  Now I am not sure if I can build the A+ above with the kit. 

     

    TIA.

     

     

  14. It's hard to describe but:

    - Better than any hasegawa model I have built.

    - Being in the Gold series, significantly better than Kinetic's old kits. 

    - It's a simple kit, not many parts to count, builds up quickly

    - Surface details and much finer than Kinetic's old kits. But I still deepened all rivets and panel lines to make them sharper and more consistent. 

    - A notch below Tamiya F-16's fit. So definitely not as good as Tamiya F-14, F-4, F-35, which I rate to be to better than Tamiya F-16

  15. Strange request, but I am looking for the box of this kit:

     

    https://www.tamiyausa.com/media/CACHE/images/products/grumman-f-14a-tomcat-2-late-model-carrier-launch-set-2-34bd/fe352c748413659090238e338d769d1c.jpg

     

    Mine was partially damaged and I want to a have a box in excellent condition. To ensure the box does not get damaged, it would be great if it could be stuffed with something light like scrunched up newspaper or something similar. I am hoping there might be some who don't mind parting with the beautiful box.

     

    I am willing to pay $20 shipped to 15090. 

     

    thank you.

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