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1/32 Italeri CF-104D


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Hey folks. I've been ogling my big Italeri 2-seat F-104 model for a couple years now, waiting for the right time to build it. My current living situation is a small constraint, because I can't spray with an airbrush - we live in a small rented condo, and I have no spray booth, no room for it, and don't want to suffocate my wife and me with the fumes. 

For that reason, a natural metal finish (with aluminum foil) or brush-painted finish are my options. The 'dual' CF-104 fits the bill nicely, since many of them wore natural metal finishes their whole lives.

 

The CF-104 is one of my two favourite aircraft in the world. Number 1 is the Hornet, of course. I love the 104 because my father used to fly it, and it was his favourite aircraft. I grew up through my teen years in West Germany, at a Canadian base (Baden-Soellingen) in the Rhine Valley next to France. Waves of 104s would take off and make so much noise that our teachers would just stop talking, sit down, and wait for the mass launch to be over in 5 minutes or so.

Here is my father, the dear-departed Bill McWilliams, in a hero shot taken when we first got to Baden in the summer of 1972.

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My uncle (married to my mom's sister) Dave McIntosh, also flew CF-104s. I've built two small CF-104 models for him. A silver one, representing when he started flying the jet in the 60s, and a camouflaged one, for when he was Base Commander of Baden about 1984, when the 104 was phased out of service in favour of the CF-18.

Here is Uncle Dave in his flying years.

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This is a foretaste of the finish that mine will have. In this photo, you see my friend Vic Johnson (RIP), back when he was a photographer at AETE in Cold Lake. Vic and I served for 5 months together during the first Gulf War, and I got to appreciate his personality and sense of humour. The 104s in Cold Lake wore red tails, while the silver ones in Europe had white tails.

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I think I'll do a Cold Lake aircraft, since I got to fly in two silver duals there. One was with Dave Bashow, author of an iconic book about the Starfighter. Dave and my father were on the same CF-104 course, and were quite close friends. I still maintain contact with Dave and his beautiful wife. Here's his book, which contains lots of stories and photos, including a story my father wrote about the aircraft. https://www.amazon.ca/Starfighter-retrospective-Canadian-aviation-1961-1986/dp/0919195121

 

Here is my father's course photo, with Dave and other good friends.

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I flew with Dave in a silver dual in the summer of 1979, but I didn't log the trip (it was between my Musketeer primary flying course and my Tutor wings course). The second trip was after I got my wings, with another ex-squadron mate of my father, Guy Dutil, in 104681. I might do that one if I can cobble together the right tail numbers.

 

Next post will show the kit and whatever aftermarket I have for it. As you can tell, I really care about this aircraft, so I want to do as good a job as possible on it.

ALF

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Another reason I feel empowered to build this kit now is that I actually have 4 Italeri 1/32 scale kits: two singles, and two duals. I had one of each in my stash, and not too long ago a HUGE box showed up unsolicited in the mail from my good friend Al Pelletier (who lives on Vancouver Island). He gifted me several kits, including one more of each. So, if I screw it up a bit, I will have a do-over another time.

These are the two types of Italeri kit:

VUJyU5D.jpg

 

The upper one will make the two-seat or 'dual' version (Canadians call them duals). It is a follow-on of the original single-seat kit below it in the photo. I've built one model from the F-104 G/S kit, and I loved it. 

F-104 variants primer: The F-104A and C models were the original USAF versions. The 'G' model was an improvement over these, and could be recognized by the larger rudder (hence the tail that projects further aft of the engine nozzle). The Canadian version looks very much like the 'G' (with the same tail as the G), but is in fact another variant, called simply the CF-104. It shares a lot with the G but has some differences that I will point out as I build the kit. The G version was used by many European NATO nations, like Germany, but some used the CF-104 version (like Norway). The 'S' version was Italian, and was the ultimate Starfighter. It had some overall improvements, and some minor external differences.

 

I'll be using aftermarket decals. The kit comes with Canadian decals, but not from the era that I want to build. Canuck Models (formerly WinterValley) made some excellent CF-104 decals in 1/48 and 1/32, which could make any variant of colour scheme.

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Here's what's inside the package:

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The tail number available is 783 (a single). I'll be using this sheet to make up the one I want:

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If you're wondering, no I won't be using an aftermarket cockpit. The kit's cockpit is surprisingly well-detailed, even the seats. Both kits come with parts to make either the Martin-Baker seat (for the G and S models), or the Lockheed C-2 seat (for CF-104s).

As a teaser, here's the cockpit I built for the single-seater from Italeri. You can see that while it's not resin AM quality, it's actually very good.

i2cgcPg.jpg

 

Now to get started!

ALF

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Best thing about the Starfighter, you can make a bunch in 1/32 scale. Build them....BUILD THEM ALL!

 

7u7hrFq.jpg

 

Yes, I too have one more to make. Dual as well. Might be 104666, we'll see.

 

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13 hours ago, phantom said:

Best thing about the Starfighter, you can make a bunch in 1/32 scale. Build them....BUILD THEM ALL!

 

7u7hrFq.jpg

 

Yes, I too have one more to make. Dual as well. Might be 104666, we'll see.

 

That's the dream, Phantom... 🙂

3 hours ago, Thadeus said:

awesome. Love a build with a good story.

Thanks! Hopefully the build can live up to the story.

2 hours ago, Pappy121 said:

With the original downwards ejecting seat - terryfying!

 

Pappy

LOL. Thankfully, only the F-104A had that (for a while). Lots of Canadian pilots used the Lockheed C2 (upward) seat during its time in service.

ALF

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Cockpit assembly. First of all, I just want to detour toward the decals. Two important things. First, there are instrument decals for some of the dials. You can see them at bottom left of one of the kit's decal sheets here. Also, you'll see that the kit provides a black anti-glare panel for the radome, which will greatly help me with the painting. It also has some tan-coloured (or fibreglass) panels for the fin, under the nose, and other areas of the aircraft. Cartograph makes beautiful decals!

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Of course, it's not all roses. To me, these Canadian roundels look bizarre. I've never seen maple leaves look so tiny inside the blue circles. Good thing I have AM decals for this one. On the other hand, it does come with a premade 633 serial number. I just might use those ones, adding '104', and make 104633. Still not decided.

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The kit comes with a colour painting and decals guide. It has multiple pages, for several different versions. The CF-104D is version D, which is very easy to remember!

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It took me a minute to decipher the instructions. The letters (H, U) in the black circles are colours. Fine, I have references for that anyway. I was looking for the part numbers, then I realized that 82c is part 82 from sprue C. I have built several Airfix kits lately, which used C82 labelling for the same part on sprue C. Once I figured that out, I quickly found the required parts to build the seats. 

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The instructions are beautifully done. Each seat version has its own page. Page 1, MB seat, front. Page 2, MB seat, rear. I started with Page 3, Lockheed seat front. One thing I particularly liked in the instructions was that there were drawings of the completed assemblies as well as the above drawing. If you look at where 82c goes into 10d, it's not easy to see exactly where it goes. Yes, I know that if I had looked carefully I would have seen the dashed line on the opposite part's interior... but I didn't at first. I tried to make the part fit, but things didn't look right, until I looked at the drawing of the fully-assembled step, and saw that the seat pan went on top of the little ledge on the side parts.

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Partially-assembled seat. The back portion is a bit precarious in the way it sits, with no clear pins to hold it in place, so I let it set like this before continuing.

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The two rails on the back have one surface where they need to mate, but it's hard to make sure they're perfectly spaced and parallel. The way I assembled them was to glue each rail into its slot in the seat-back, and make sure the flat portion where the join is was aligned with the horizontal bar on the back.

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Got both front (left) and back (right) seats mostly assembled. Small differences between them. Before the glue fully dried on the rear rails, I made sure I carefully inserted the tiny spacers at the top. They are different for each seat. Flat plate for front, and curved for right. Another thing to watch out for with so many parts that fit together is to make sure everything is 'square' and not crooked.

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Here are the front and rear cockpit tubs. I avoided a potential gaffe here (which was self-induced). The tub at the top is the front, and at bottom is the rear. I knew there would be two different tubs, so I saw that the rear portion of the front tub was the part that's installed on it, on sprue C. Then, I grabbed the cockpit tub that was on the same sprue. I failed to notice that the front tub was actually on sprue A, which had not been used so far in this assembly order. The cockpit tub that is on sprue C is the lower one in the picture, for the rear cockpit.

When I tried to fit the rear part in place on that tub (which fits the front cockpit), I found that there was a large gap between the side consoles and the rear wall. Hmm. More careful picture study. It appeared to glue into the right place. What's wrong? I looked again at the sprue (C), trying to find the other cockpit tub. It wasn't there. For the first time, I read the part number carefully on the instructions. The tiny 'a' looked a lot like a 'c'... doh! I pulled the rear wall off the wrong tub (you can just make out the glue marks on the lower tub in this picture), and installed it on the correct one - it fit beautifully. Disaster averted. Lesson learned: look VERY carefully at the part numbers, especially given this is a two-seat version, and there are subtle differences between the two cockpits that must be carefully followed.

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I'm letting things set while we go for a walk in the still-winter landscape. Late March in Quebec City, and still looks like mid-winter. Grrr.

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This was yesterday, after another 10 cm (4 inches) of snow fell. Temperature -5C (about 22F). Strong wind. Winter coat, tuque, hood up. Spring can't come soon enough!

ALF

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For the roundels, I think they were going with the 1965 1966 mini leaf. The wing roundels "appear" not too far off correct. But the fuselage roundels are far to big. I used the reddish front windscreen decals on a past build. Found them too large for the companies own plastic and removed them. At least the maple leafs look like maple leafs and not the cannabis leaf Hasegawa tries to pass off.

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Just a bit of work after our walk and supper. More careful study of the instructions required. The parts behind the front seat differ between the MB and Lockheed seats. You can see that parts 22c and 21c are for the 'MB Version', and that I want to use 19c and 20c. All the information is there, but it is clear that the instructions must be carefully consulted at every step with no assumptions made. I also noted that the front tub has 4 slots at the bottom rear, while the rear one has only 2. The outboard slots are where parts 19 and 20 plug in.

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Again, we are dealing with parts that have no fool-proof location guides. As best I could, I lined things up, and glued the bottoms to one side. I let it dry for a while, then came back to it.

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Here that sub-assembly is in position. I can see that the back of the rear cockpit wall could have been used to support the centre pieces, but it's too late now. I carefully glued the other vertical piece in position after this picture, and have set it to dry.

efB2kKF.jpg

 

More soon. Thanks for stopping by!

ALF

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3 hours ago, phantom said:

For the roundels, I think they were going with the 1965 1966 mini leaf. The wing roundels "appear" not too far off correct. But the fuselage roundels are far to big. I used the reddish front windscreen decals on a past build. Found them too large for the companies own plastic and removed them. At least the maple leafs look like maple leafs and not the cannabis leaf Hasegawa tries to pass off.

Interesting about the leaves. Perhaps the cannabis style is a prediction of what the Liberal/NDP coalition plans to do with the RCAF... 🙂 OOPS! Sorry for the political slip. It won't happen again.

ALF

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I don't visit he site for a couple of weeks and look what I missed!  You're really going to town, aren't you.  Looking forward to this build ALF.  Builds always take on more of a special meaning when there's a personal relationship.  Game on!

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21 hours ago, AX 365 said:

I don't visit he site for a couple of weeks and look what I missed!  You're really going to town, aren't you.  Looking forward to this build ALF.  Builds always take on more of a special meaning when there's a personal relationship.  Game on!

You snooze, you lose, buddy... 🙂

Or have you been hiding your face in a paper back since the Habs beat the Sens 5-1 ten days ago? Inexplicable. Nice to have you along for the ride.

ALF

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Still on the cockpit, of course. This set of parts looks innocuous enough... just glue some of the photo-etch (2PE, 3PE, etc) to plastic part 63c. No sweat! 

XqTrTve.jpg

 

Oh... then that assembly goes on top of the seat rails. Is it just me, or would those parts be a little bit small?

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Yep. Talk about tiny. It took me a few sessions, allowing the CA glue to dry between each step, and hunting for a part that fell on the floor at one point with my trusty mini flashlight. Luckily, the dog doesn't find PE to be very tasty.

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Seat dry-fitted, showing the plastic and PE assembly atop the rear portion. 

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I have to browse old photos to stay motivated. Here's my cousin Steve sitting in the front of a Dual in Lahr, ages ago. Working with these parts takes me right back to that era.

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Thanks for stopping by!

ALF

 

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The cockpits are ready for paint now.

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I'm deciding on the colour. The true colour is FS 36231, which is quite dark. IPMS Stockholm tells me that is a good match for Tamiya XF-54. Looking at paints I had, I found some of that, plus some XF-25. That is apparently a good match for FS 36314.

Here's the comparison from the IPMS Stockholm site:

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I think I'll go with the lighter colour, because it will show the detail more, and is not that far off the true one. Within the dim model's cockpit, it will help see things better. That's my story, anyway.

ALF

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Cockpit painting in progress. I brushed on the Tamiya XF-25 everywhere, then started on the detailed colours. First, references. This is a picture that Peter Doll sent ages ago, with somebody's idea of a patio chair:

iSWzkEy.jpg

 

The kit's seat is actually pretty good, although of course it's not of resin AM quality. It does come with a LOT of PE belts.

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Seat painting, along with cockpit instrument painting in progress.

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One important thing to note, for those who are very concerned with kit accuracy, is that the instrument panels provided are not representative of a CF-104. The thing my father always told me about the MIP was the HUGE attitude indicator. It had grey/black colouring, and even had headings on it, so flying level and holding a heading was super easy in this fighter. These panels are more representative of the F-104G and S cockpits, but I am not concerned about that level of accuracy. I also am not super detailing it with instrument decals, although my modelling idol chuck540z3 has turned me on to AirScale instrument decals. I may use them on another build in the near future. I've ordered a set of modern jet decals from a nice little Canadian company called Ultracast. I ordered a set last evening, and this morning at 9:30 I emailed them to ask if I could add a second similar set - but at the same time a shipping notice came saying they'd sent the decals. I chided them for being too efficient... 🙂 It was also only $4.50 for mailing to Ontario and Quebec, so it was a no-brainer to order from them instead of evil bay.

 

I think I'll be arranging the belts as if they are ready to be sat in, instead of dangling over the seats like resin and PE instructions show. Kind of like this:

evg6aYh.jpg

 

FyljrwW.jpg

 

Of course, the parachute won't already be in the seat, but the lap belts and shoulder straps will be out of the way in my build.

ALF

 

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8 hours ago, kurnass77 said:

Love your progress my mate, and in particular the pics of the real things you posted!

 

 

Gianni

Grazie, Gianni. I may not be the best modeller, but I love the subjects. Building the aircraft keeps my connections to them alive, and brings back great memories.

ALF

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22 hours ago, ALF18 said:

One important thing to note, for those who are very concerned with kit accuracy, is that the instrument panels provided are not representative of a CF-104.


On every Italeri kit I’ve seen / built the instrument panels & consoles have been notional at best, even in 32nd scale. 

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1 hour ago, habu2 said:


On every Italeri kit I’ve seen / built the instrument panels & consoles have been notional at best, even in 32nd scale. 

Interesting fact. I haven't built a lot of Italeri kits on subjects I know well. My Hornets have been Academy, Kinetic, Hasegawa, Hobby Boss, and they got it mostly right - easy, though, because the Hornet is such a simple panel. 

Good to know.

ALF

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Seats are done. I decided to do the rear one (at left here) with the shoulder straps tucked above the headrest, and its lap belts over to the side, and the front seat with the belts all on top of the seat.

jxmvGGC.jpg

 

I wedged the seats into their respective tubs, with a tiny bit of difficulty (the control sticks make them a bit hard to squeeze in).

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The two cockpits do fit together, but slightly stacked, not level like this picture. They don't glue together as a tandem pair in a clear fashion, so I'll leave them separate until they plug into the fuselage.

llj8rBA.jpg

 

I've seen in previous build threads that the main landing gear have a lot of excess plastic to trim. Yup.

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The gear are very nicely detailed, and the instructions clearly show the attachment points and the orientation of the small tubular parts that fit along the main portion of the gear. I've decided to live dangerously, and glue the gear in place as per the instructions, risking damaging them as I manhandle the kit. Chuck540z has some excellent advice in his thread about the single-seat version of this kit, showing how a few simple mods can make it possible to insert the main and nose gear legs at the end of the whole assembly/painting process.

DSIsRM2.jpg

 

You can just see the bulkheads and main landing gear already glued into the right fuselage half in this dry-fit staging. I trimmed a bit of plastic off one bulkhead to make for a better fuselage half fit. I then wanted to investigate the fit of the rear fuselage section on the forward fuselage. The real aircraft breaks apart here to remove the engine, so it's a natural seam. In some other kits for other types (the Kinetic Alpha Jet comes to mind) with a similar front half/rear half set-up, I've seen huge gaps if you follow the instructions. In this case, I found that the rounded sections front/rear fit nicely together, so I'll follow the kit's assembly order. The alternative would have been to glue the right rear fuselage to the right front fuselage, then the two left sides to each other, then the two long halves together. That's not necessary in this case.

pVa2XxK.jpg

 

Here's what the two cockpit tubs end up looking like as they are glued into place on the right fuselage half. 

SjDuT0P.jpg

 

Now to glue the two halves together!

ALF

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On 3/27/2022 at 4:25 PM, ALF18 said:

Interesting about the leaves. Perhaps the cannabis style is a prediction of what the Liberal/NDP coalition plans to do with the RCAF... 🙂 OOPS! Sorry for the political slip. It won't happen again.

ALF


And shockingly they selected the F-35, tens years late though. Hopefully they don’t do something to fudge the contract and revert to the Lada (Gripen). Putin is the greatest seller of the F-35 in the airframes history.

 

Nice to see you back, really miss you on Facebook too. But I’ve sort of taken a break from it too, can get tiring with all the conspiracy theorists who flock there.

 

Hopefully you move into a big castle soon and can resume full scale modeling again. Are you waiting for the price of plexiglass to drop so you can install custom built display cabinets?

 

Look forward to your build, I had a back seat ride in a 104 too, I’ll need to look up the tail number. It was a variegated dual at 417 in 1982. The jet had just returned from Europe.

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Just before gluing the fuselage halves together, I installed the two clear parts for the intake-mounted navigation lights. They fit nicely. I used a silver metallic pen to make the reflective surface on the inside - here you can see the effect. After this, I used a permanent marker to make the red (left) and blue/green (right) colours on the outside.

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Time for the fuselage halves. I took my time, and am fairly happy with the results. There are only very small gaps to fill here and there.

Roe4rsX.jpg

 

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The avionics bay fit is not ideal. I really wasn't sure where to glue the various parts to the fuselage, so it's a bit crooked. I've decided to close up the bay anyway, ready to go flying.

The nose gear bay is super detailed. After putting the fuselage halves together, it's time to build up the nose gear bay. The bottom is one piece, as are the two sides and the centre part at right on the picture. Nicely detailed, with a few quite small parts. I think most modellers will be happy with the way this gear bay looks busy and detailed right out of the box.

NcHnzGG.jpg

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If you're used to building single-seat 104s, you may think the instructions are incorrect about the installation of the nose gear bay into the under-fuselage panel. Yes, the nose gear strut is at the rear of the bay on the dual, while on the single it's at the front of the bay. One of the oddest differences between the single and dual 104. For trivia buffs, the two-seat CF-104s were built at Lockheed's plant in the USA, while the singles were all (except for a prototype) licence-built by Canadair in Montreal, at the Cartierville airport. This airport no longer exists - the runways were made into a real estate development for townhouses and condos. That's a good thing. The odd airliner has landed at Cartierville in the past, since its long runway was only a few miles short of runway 24R in Dorval (Trudeau International, or CYUL).

 

 There's some very nice PE for the canopy sills. I have not installed the tiny PE add-ons yet, because I KNOW I will destroy them as I handle the fuselage. These add-ons include knives to break through the canopy, and the explosives for the canopy jettison system.

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The speed brakes are installed closed. Yes, there's nice detail inside them if they are posed open, but my father told me years ago that the speed brakes always closed when the engine/hydraulics shut off - that's just the way they worked. If they were ever open on a CF-104 that was shut down, it was because maintenance opened them manually.

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Thanks for stopping by. As I let some stuff dry, it was time to grab some Maple Taffy at our Sugar Shack. Our apartment block has this annually, and this year it's not cancelled by COVID. Yum.

lL0SfpO.jpg

 

ALF

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11 minutes ago, Scooby said:


And shockingly they selected the F-35, tens years late though. Hopefully they don’t do something to fudge the contract and revert to the Lada (Gripen). Putin is the greatest seller of the F-35 in the airframes history.

 

Nice to see you back, really miss you on Facebook too. But I’ve sort of taken a break from it too, can get tiring with all the conspiracy theorists who flock there.

 

Hopefully you move into a big castle soon and can resume full scale modeling again. Are you waiting for the price of plexiglass to drop so you can install custom built display cabinets?

 

Look forward to your build, I had a back seat ride in a 104 too, I’ll need to look up the tail number. It was a variegated dual at 417 in 1982. The jet had just returned from Europe.

Hey Scooby, yes I miss you and other great guys on Facebook as well. What with all the conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, and F-35 haters, I just had enough. We are indeed looking for a new home on Montreal's south shore. Our deadline is in 15 months, when our current apartment lease in Quebec City expires. Prices are crazy though, and we may have one built. Fingers crossed. I plan to install some custome shelving, and if there's a few pesos left over I might invest in plexiglass lol.

Fingers crossed on the F-35 buy for Canada. I don't count my chickens before they hatch with government meddling.

I'm still on Facebook Messenger, if you ever want to chat. Had a great video call with Elmo the other day.

ALF

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The wings are simple. As Chuck said in his 'kicked up a notch' thread, the leading edges and trailing edges are very thin, just like the real thing. (cue the inevitable comments from guys who got gashes in their foreheads as they worked on the aircraft).

I've never seen a CF-104 parked with the flaps (leading or trailing edge) drooped, and they don't sag when hydraulics come off, so I glued them in place in line with the main body of the wings. Here's what they look like.

8RP1djH.jpg

 

For a natural metal CF-104 scheme, the way all 104 kits work is perfect. The tops of the wings are a glossy white. The bottoms are a grey colour. There is no masking required, because the wings slide neatly in place, with a nice tight fit, at any time. I will be painting them before they are put in place, and in fact I'll do the metal foiling of the whole fuselage before the wings are installed. Very nice accident of the design of this kit. Here's a dry-fit to show what I mean.

n6RG3ts.jpg

 

Here's an illustration of my clear light technique. I glued the clear pieces in place (in this case inside the aft fuselage sides), then I used the illustrated metallic silver pen to colour the insides of the clear parts. This gives them the reflective surface effect I mentioned earlier.

95oCu2U.jpg

 

I've now glued the aft fuselage halves together, and added the rudder. I held the rudder in place, in a neutral position, by using a clamp. If you look carefully at the two circular lights that were in the above picture, you can see the depth effect that the metallic pen adds. I will use permanent markers later to colour them appropriately. I forget if these are silvery (in which case they remain like this), or some are an orangey-red. There is a strange gap along the bottom of the rudder, which is larger than on the real thing. I will think about filling some of it, but not sure I will.

ZZvKxy4.jpg

 

On the inside of the join between the front and rear fuselage assemblies, the kit has PE detail rings. I'm sure they would look fantastic if I posed the parts separately, with the engine removed, but that's not the plan.

XNG8Bud.jpg

 

Here's what the forward PE piece looks like, sitting in place. The gap around the outside is quite small. Looking carefully at the rear fuselage, and imagining it also would have a PE piece as in the instruction drawing above, I can only imagine the two PE rings would increase the size of the gap between front and rear assemblies.

My only concern about potentially leaving out the PE was whether or not the engine would be supported. 

EFZDOco.jpg

 

I did a bunch of dry-fitting, and found that the join between nozzle and tail is fairly tight. Even if the engine is left to float freely inside the fuselage, the nozzle part is held nicely in place. My plan now is to just glue the rear portion in place, then apply glue to hold the nozzle where it should be. I will freely admit that I'm the kind of modeller that looks for easy solutions to things that just don't show when the job is done.

ALSozFT.jpg

 

Some kits and resin sets supply nozzles that are either fully open (like this one, above), and some have a nearly-closed nozzle. When a 104's J-79-OEL-7 engine is shut down, the nozzle opens up fully, just like this one. My father once described to me a dire potential emergency in the 104 - a nozzle that fails fully open. Just like a garden hose, when the nozzle opens up, thrust is greatly reduced. Even at MIL power, the thrust is quite low. A happy accident of compressibility and supersonic vice subsonic flow, though, leads to the following. Subsonic flow (i.e. when the engine is NOT operating in afterburner), works like a garden hose. Obstruct the opening (by closing the nozzle somewhat), and the speed of the outgoing water is accelerated. Open it up, and the water just dribbles out. When in afterburner, though, the relationship between opening size and flow rate is actually reversed. The larger the opening for supersonic flow, the faster the flow and higher the thrust. If the opening is closed down, the thrust is actually LOWER. 

This is why on afterburning jets you'll see nozzles fully open at idle, and gradually closing as thrust increases toward MIL power. Go into afterburner, and the nozzles crank wide open. Reducing power within the afterburner range, you'll see the nozzles close a little bit, decreasing the thrust. This allows afterburners to have a bit of thrust variability, so that a wingman can have a bit of excess power to keep up in formation, especially on take-off.

The second point is how much this assembly reminds me of a picture taken during a Tiger Meet, as my father and squadron mates posed beside one of their aircraft (from 439) after they arrived. That's my father at the far right. Notice how there is no visible gap at the bottom of the rudder?

p5ebBV4.jpg

 

ALF

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Now for the most tedious and difficult part, the foiling. While I continue to finish the main assemblies, I am also preparing the foil. In this case, you can see I use cheap dollar-store foil, because it's thin, and will therefore mould into panel lines, etc, more easily. I also like that it's cheap.

These two segments will become the dirty darker segments around the tail.

cq9CmHK.jpg

 

The CF-104 has an interesting array of different colours of natural metal around the tail. To do the portions that are darker, I will boil some eggshells, then add in the aluminum foil, which will then be discoloured to the point that it looks like these segments. I use a little pot, also bought at the dollar store, because my wife will NOT let me use our regular pots for this. Go figure.

WA7ohIn.jpg

 

Thanks for stopping by!

ALF

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