1/32 Italeri CF-104D

[ALF18]

I busied myself with final assembly of the main fuselage. First task was to get the engine piece to sit in place nicely. Try as I might, with the full engine installed, it stuck out just a tiny bit more than in the picture from the Tiger Meet above. After much trial and error, I went for the drastic solution. I chopped the engine's forward portion off, leaving it mostly just from the turbine circle forward, as seen here.

 

I then put some wedges of plastic in place at the top of the truncated engine, and glued the aft bit of the engine so that the nozzle was at an angle and distance out of the tail that looked about right. It might actually be about 2 mm too far out, but it stuck out further when the whole engine was in place.

 

Without the long engine sticking out, it was much easier to glue the aft fuselage in place.

I will need to fill the gap slightly, because it is a huge trench. At least it's straight.

 

I brush-painted the gear wells after installing the last struts. Since the main gear well will be almost entirely shut (as it normally is, even with gear extended), that should be sufficient. No detail painting required in here. Note that I've left off the intakes for now, because I will apply foil to the hidden part of the fuselage before, so it can be applied more easily than after the splitter plate is in place.

 

Nose cone in place. Most of the fuselage is done. I've left off the intakes as mentioned above, and I also left off the dorsal fin to make it easier to foil.

 

I started assembling the tip tanks, and underwing tanks. Not sure if I'll add the underwing tanks, but the tips will be there for sure.

I LOVE the detail on these parts.

 

I also painted the nozzle NATO black, then dry-brushed with metallic grey.

 

ALF

 

[ALF18]

Now for the black magic of the foil. I cut a bunch of strips of kitchen foil, and got out my little pot that is reserved for this purpose. I announced to my wife that we were having eggs!

 

As the eggs were cooking, the water was coming to a boil in the little pot. I cracked the eggs, and put the eggshells into the near-boiling water.

 

I gently folded the strips of aluminum so as not to make big creases. Here is the beginning of the boiling process.

 

I let the foil sit for at least 20 minutes in boiling eggshell water, turning them over once in a while.

 

I pulled them out, separated the strips, then had a look. Not quite enough (this was after 15 minutes). I put some back in.

 

Now I have varying shades of dry, blackened foil. Given that I don't need large areas, this should be sufficient.

 

More soon. Thanks for stopping by!

ALF

[ALF18]

Did some crack filling. Relatively minor, except for that huge fore/aft fuselage join. It's hard to see with this lighting, but I also painted the greenish-grey panel at the front of the lower tail.

 

 

 

And, the same colour under the nose. I used Tamiya JN Grey.

 

ALF

[ALF18]

Here are some parts choices. The kit is great, given that it allows any variant from CF-104 to F-104G to F-104S to be built, but one must be careful which parts to use. In fact, those who live around Edmonton Alberta can be somewhat fooled, by the aircraft that is pretending to be a CF-104 in the museum at the Municipal Airport.

This is a picture from flightglobal.com's  Pinterest (I can't find the ones I took years ago), illustrating some differences. First of all, the real 104651 had a catastrophic engine failure, and the two pilots ejected. It was destroyed. This one is actually an ex-RNlAF (Netherlands) F-104G that has been refinished to look like a CF-104.

Look carefully at the bottom of the windscreen. It has the typical G-model IR sensor, which the CF-104 doesn't have.

 

Also, red under-wing tanks are wrong, and the pylons should be natural metal, not a grey/white. Even the red tip tanks were quite rare - they were almost always silver as well.

The picture below from the museum's web site shows (if you look carefully) that this has the wrong main landing gear doors for a CF-104. Look very carefully, and you'll see that they are bulged. Only the G and S models had those bulges, not the CF-104.

 

The kit supplies the right doors, thankfully.

Here are the wrong ones - bulged. Not CF-104.

 

Here are the correct doors for the CF-104.

 

The other part choice is the intake nacelles. The upper ones (with the not-square doors at the back) are correct for the CF-104 and the F-104G. The lower, rectangular doors with the large hinges at the top are only for the Italian F-104S.

 

Finally, here's the cockpit of the F-104G posing as a CF-104 in the Edmonton museum. The panel is missing the huge attitude indicator that my father loved so much.

 

If you're in Alberta, and you want to see a correct CF-104, head down to Calgary and look at this one. It has been lovingly restored by some former CF-104 techs, and is very accurate. Worth a visit!

https://www.rcaf.museum/visit/virtual-tour

 

More later. Thanks for stopping by.

ALF

 

[ALF18]

I started applying the burnt metal portions.

 

I used a bit of steel wool to even out the colour on the dark foil. I then got some high-shine foil, and tacked it on to the centre part below the tail. Notice that I used my black and white printer to print out a reference picture, as a guideline.

 

Gently smoothed down, and burnished in place with a toothpick. I then cut the edges along panel lines. Just need to do the top part here.

 

Top part done. This will be a long and tedious operation, but it should yield good results. For your viewing pleasure, here are two similar projects I did in 1/48. The dual is kitchen foil, and the single is Alclad.

 

My 1/48 CF-104 shelf is full. 🙂

 

ALF

 

[Mr.Happy]

Wow!

 

Truly amazing work and history of the CF-104.

 

Keep up the great work and I’m looking forward to the next update.

 

Take Care,

 

Mr. Happy 

[ALF18]

On 4/14/2022 at 11:38 AM, Mr.Happy said:

Wow!

 

Truly amazing work and history of the CF-104.

 

Keep up the great work and I’m looking forward to the next update.

 

Take Care,

 

Mr. Happy 

Thanks Mr. Happy. I have been slacking off lately - we're busy acquiring a new house, hosting family, and a bunch of other things. Back to the bench in a few days, I hope.

ALF

[Scooby]

1 hour ago, ALF18 said:

Thanks Mr. Happy. I have been slacking off lately - we're busy acquiring a new house, hosting family, and a bunch of other things. Back to the bench in a few days, I hope.

ALF

 
Good luck on the new Castle, make sure it has a spray booth exhaust and built in display cabinets. 😳

[BastianD]

On 4/11/2022 at 10:12 PM, ALF18 said:

I started applying the burnt metal portions.

 

I used a bit of steel wool to even out the colour on the dark foil. I then got some high-shine foil, and tacked it on to the centre part below the tail. Notice that I used my black and white printer to print out a reference picture, as a guideline.

 

Gently smoothed down, and burnished in place with a toothpick. I then cut the edges along panel lines. Just need to do the top part here.

 

Top part done. This will be a long and tedious operation, but it should yield good results. For your viewing pleasure, here are two similar projects I did in 1/48. The dual is kitchen foil, and the single is Alclad.

 

My 1/48 CF-104 shelf is full. 🙂

 

ALF

 

Wow, excellent technique and result!

[ALF18]

22 hours ago, Scooby said:

 
Good luck on the new Castle, make sure it has a spray booth exhaust and built in display cabinets. 😳

That's the plan! I have authorization from the boss to use the whole basement as my man cave. It will be fun to design the space.

2 hours ago, BastianD said:

Wow, excellent technique and result!

Thanks Bastian! Making slow progress.

ALF

[ALF18]

Got the tails done both sides. This is the part that takes the longest time.

 

Did some painting of the outer intakes. The black lips don't have to be carefully delineated - the foil will be cut in a straight line atop the black. I have also painted with Tamiya flat aluminum the intake doors. After covering with foil, I will be cutting out the small line around the doors, to make the effect you see below the picture of the model.

See how the outline of the door is a lighter colour? Look just above the red 'ARMÉES' in this picture.

 

Now for the obligatory 'technique' shots. I learned the hard way, a few models ago, to use small segments of foil. This avoids creasing and other problems. For the upper segment here, mid-fuselage, I am doing symmetrical panels along the spine. Another thing I make sure I do is to make the left and right sides the same, so putting foil on top of the spine accomplishes that.

I cut a segment that would easily cover the panels on both sides, with some extra. Better to have too much than to fail to cover a panel. I then gently pressed it into place with my fingers, and did some initial burnishing with a toothpick. The far side is still floating in the air.

 

I then went to the other side, and carefully pressed the foil into place along the spine, taking care not to have it stick to the outer part before I had it closely touching the curve of the spine. I worked my fingers along the top of the spine, moulding the foil down, then worked from the centre to the front and back with my finger, avoiding creasing. When the whole piece was lightly touching the fuselage, I got out the toothpick and burnished it all into place. The blunt end was used at first, then I used the pointy part to pick out the individual rivets and deepen the panel lines.

 

 

After it was all burnished into place, I cut along the OUTSIDE of the trenches, so that when I put down the next piece I can run the very sharp knife down the centre of the trench, and have to gaps at the panel lines. I then carefully peel the foil away using tweezers. Note that I am using some of the leftover parts to cover odd shapes, like the fuselage just above and below the intakes. This is why I didn't glue the intakes in place yet - I want to make sure I have an easy time attaching the foil under the intake lips.

 

Burnished in place, and trimmed.

 

I get a bit lazy (gasp in surprise, for those who don't know me). I often use bits of scrap that I cut off to do little bits underneath, like the longitudinal beam in the main gear well.

 

Back to the grindstone!

Thanks for looking.

ALF

 

 

 

[ALF18]

Long, tedious foiling process. I did the areas around the intakes, because these will be visible behind the splitters.

 

In parallel, I applied foil to the outsides of the intakes.

 

 

Then I glued the shock cone portions in place.

 

Finally, the outer portions.

 

Here's an example of how I rushed things. By using too large a piece of foil, I ended up with a crease that I was incapable of burnishing out.

 

I chopped out the offending piece, leaving a bit of overlap beyond the panel lines.

 

A new piece, and problem solved. If you look very carefully, you'll see the tiny lip sticking out at the top of the new panel. I am about to pull it off with tweezers, and complete the burnishing process.

 

ALF

[ALF18]

Some dry-fitting of the wing. I like the way that almost all Starfighter kits allow the attachments of the wings at the very end, because it hugely simplifies painting with this scheme.

 

Coming along nicely. Only a bit of foiling to be done on the bottom parts.

 

Thanks for looking.

ALF

[phantom]

Oooooooo shinny

 

[ALF18]

Got all the foil in place on the bottom, and installed the ventral fin and arrestor hook. The undersides of the wings need a little touching up, and the outsides of the tires need paint.

 

The wings aren't even glued in place. The attachment points are really tight, and hold them nicely. I painted the red on the horizontal stab, but need to add the little cap piece to the rear part of the upper tail.

 

Working on the front windscreen. I shaved off the IR bump on the front, but of course that left me with a little hole. Grrr. Filled it with putty (showing bottom here).

 

Hard to see detail, but putty is drying. I've started outlining the metal frames by hand, using a metallic pen. It ran out of ink. Luckily, I have another new one.

 

I did some dry-fitting of the front instrument shroud and the windscreen. I ended up having to trim the shroud somewhat, especially along the sides. The gaps on the side will not show under the windscreen. I also had to make sure the combining glass was bent way back, otherwise it would not fit under the windscreen.

 

A little dry-fitting. Looking okay. Not sure I like the dry-brushed silver effect on the glare shield - I might redo it with a darker colour, to make it look a bit dirty and used.

 

Thanks for stopping by. More cockpit details coming soon.

ALF

 

 

 

 

[ALF18]

Very slow progress. Real life is taking over some of my modelling time, but positive things are happening (like ironing out the final details for our house design, and preparing for a trip to Vancouver Island and Vancouver next week).

The hardest things to foil were the tip tanks, because of their curvature. In fact, the leading edge of the tanks was almost impossible to apply foil to. Here is one tip tank dry-fit in place.

 

If you look closely at the forward edge of the tank, you'll see that I've painted it with aluminum-coloured paint. This is actually not that far off reality, given that the forward edges of the tanks took a lot of wear from dust and dirt particles in the air, at high speeds.

 

Here's a picture of a CF-104 wearing the all-green and all-black radome camouflage from the mid 70s in Germany. Note that all 4 external tanks have silver noses. All 4 have been 'sand-blasted' down to the bare metal. That's why my fuel tanks are so dull on the noses... at least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

 

The canopy rails include some fiddly bits. On the forward left side are the canopy breakout knives. These are held in place in a metal bracket. The kit comes with PE to make the brackets, and plastic part 42 to represent the knife.

 

Of course, I managed to bend the PE too much, and snap part 13PE in two. Not only did a part break off, but it fell onto the floor, and after 5 minutes I gave up searching for it. I may just glue the knives into place without their brackets.

There are two other types of part on the canopy sill. The rude-looking cylindrical parts (30) are part of the canopy jettison system, and are a gold colour. The little Y-shaped brackets are part of how the canopy closures work.

 

 

 

In this picture with my cousin, you can see that there's a minor error in the kit instructions. The break-out knife is actually installed on the canopy frame, and is visible by the legs of the guy who is fiddling with his camera beyond the aircraft.

 

ALF

 

 

[ALF18]

The tip tanks are now installed, plus the horizontal stabilator and the centre canopy section. Time for decals! There are of course little fiddly bits to add, but I tend to break those off as I apply decals, so they will wait until the end.

 

The decal sheets, from Cartograf, are quite extensive. There are lots of stencils, and various national markings. The Canadian markings are from the Air Division in Europe, in fact from a particular era. Note the tiny maple leaves (yes, outside of Toronto we use the proper plural, not the one from that hockey team that is a perennial disappointment to their loyal fanbase). The tail numbers, under the flag, are 12633. This puts the era in the mid-sixties, when we had the new flag, but hadn't started using the 104633 numbering system, and of course it was RCAF.

Since I'm doing an aircraft from 417 Squadron (the Operational Training Unit, or OTU) in Cold Lake, I couldn't use many of these decals.

 

I found an old half-used Leading Edge sheet, which has more modern roundels and has the ARMED FORCES/FORCES ARMEES and big CANADA for the intakes. I'll have to cobble together some tail numbers from somewhere else, because I used them on the previous build from this sheet. This sheet also has the red and white COLD LAKE banners for the tail, so the main markings are all there.

 

I started with the huge wing roundels. These have always added a great splash of colour to the CF-104's natural metal schemes. I applied these first, because there are some stencils that go over top of these on the excellent Cartograf sheet from the kit.

 

As the Phantom said earlier, SHINY! Oh, and sorry for your Leafs, Shawn. Believe it or not, I kind of hoped they might go a little further in the playoffs.

ALF

[phantom]

9 hours ago, ALF18 said:

Note the tiny maple leaves (yes, outside of Toronto we use the proper plural, not the one from that hockey team that is a perennial disappointment to their loyal fanbase).

As the Phantom said earlier, SHINY! Oh, and sorry for your Leafs, Shawn. Believe it or not, I kind of hoped they might go a little further in the playoffs.

ALF

 

 

Hey, I'm still in mourning over here!  Model is coming along great!!

[ALF18]

20 hours ago, phantom said:

 

 

Hey, I'm still in mourning over here!  Model is coming along great!!

Thanks, Shawn!

I really need to move to the new house - too bad it won't be until next spring. My modelling space is way too small for such a big kit, especially when I'm trying to separate wet areas from dry ones for depositing decals on the bench, to a dry place to cut the sheet.

 

I know, I know... first world problems! Cue the Monty Python "When I grew up, we couldn't even afford the shoe box to live in..."

The decalling is coming along nicely. I'm using a hybrid of the two sheets from earlier, plus some numbers I found on an old Leading Edge sheet. That's how I settled on the tail number 646 - it happened to be the one on the sheet.

 

I know there may be some minor inaccuracies in small markings compared to the era of this machine - but we won't tell anyone, right?

 

This is where I have to leave this. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, SWMBO and I are flying from Quebec City to Comox/Nanaimo/Vancouver for 10 days. We'll be visiting with our good friend Al Pelletier (of ARC and Facebook modelling fame) and his wife, as well as family and friends on Vancouver Island and Vancouver. Should be fun, except I was so busy making this model I forgot to pre-order good weather.

I'm looking forward to seeing Al's shop, where he makes his magic. Talk to you all later.

ALF

[Youngtiger1]

Just saw your foil work and I am impressed. I think I missed it between the lines but can you share how you are attaching the foil to the kit? Some type of glue or magic? Lol TIA.

 

Mike

Edited May 20, 2022 by Youngtiger1

[ALF18]

On 5/20/2022 at 4:55 AM, Youngtiger1 said:

Just saw your foil work and I am impressed. I think I missed it between the lines but can you share how you are attaching the foil to the kit? Some type of glue or magic? Lol TIA.

 

Mike

This is the stuff. I brush it carefully onto one side of the foil, and allow it to dry until it's transparent. If I'm not careful, the glue can leave small ridges (brush strokes), which show up on the model later. The key is to brush thin coats of glue, and smooth it out as much as possible before it gets too sticky and clumps up.

I order it from this place: https://www.bare-metal.com/index.html

They even mailed it to Canada.

ALF

[ALF18]

Had a great visit on Vancouver Island with Al Pelletier and his lovely wife Jo-Anne. Here's Al in the Comox Air Force Museum, with a huge Vampire that he finished for them. The decals are from https://www.abovebelow.ca/, which has taken over the designs from CanMilAir. The new owner, Andrew, has a fantastic printer that no longer requires decal film to be brushed on to use the decals. 

After our 2-week-long break, it's time to get back into modelling here. More progress coming soon.

 

ALF

[11bee]

Nice work Alf, I like the eggshell trick, need to remember that one for future use. 

[ALF18]

21 minutes ago, 11bee said:

Nice work Alf, I like the eggshell trick, need to remember that one for future use. 

Thanks 11bee!

ALF

[ALF18]

Almost at the finish line. I used my usual trick of painting the red ribbon on the white pitot tube background by using a red permanent marker, visible beside the model here. I also made the little mirrors out of the PE in the kit, and glued the environmental control system tubing into the canopy frames. A little CA glue, and some support from my glue bottle and Future container, and they should dry in place.

 

 

If the sun peeks out from behind the rain clouds tomorrow, I'll post some pics of the finished model.

Thanks for stopping by.

ALF