3 x F-104 in 1/72

[Thadeus]

Hello there!

 

I'm back with another subject that hopefully will up my number of finished builds this year.

For a while now I've been thinking about building some F-104's. So I got myself three different kits - Italeri F-104G, Academy (Revell) F-104C and Hasegawa F-104j/CF-104. I've built two Italeri F-104c's and while the first one was a mess the second one was pretty nice. Sadly it was destroyed a while ago.

 

 

I've heard a lot of good things about Hasegawa and Revell F-104's. The Italeri kit seems to get generally good opinions too. The two latter kits have some flaws, especially with the canopy and fuel tanks.

 

 

Funny thing - my Academy boxing had two clear sprues (tossed unprotected with both other sprues in same bag). The one nearer to the camera was quite scratched.

 

 

Another fun fact, the Academy F-104C has all the parts for the F-104G too.

 

 

 

So this means two tails, two ejection seats. I'm not convinced on the ECM bumps that are to the left side of the pic. The one under the radome shouldn't be rounded to the front.

 

 

Both Academy and Italeri kits feature nice decal sheets as well. I'm of course suspicious of Academy decals but I decided to try and use them instead of getting an aftemarket sheet.

Hasegawa kit is well known and so are its decals.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

[phantom]

Nice, make sure one is Canadian!

[Thadeus]

On 10/1/2024 at 9:24 PM, phantom said:

Nice, make sure one is Canadian!

 

Actually, this is the plan.

I've though up this project as a quick build so that means building some uncomplicated schemes. I figured initially a gray Italian scheme, and gray Japanese or Spanish scheme. But eventually I'm going to build Italeri as Italian G with Recce pod, Revell/Academy as a silver C from first Vietnam deployment and a green Canadian bird.

 

I did find some cool reference sites for my project:

 

https://www.i-f-s.nl/f-104s-in-combat/

https://www.starfighters.it/gruppi-volo/

 

I wanted to make Italian F-104G as a machine deployed to Turkey in support of Desert Storm - according to Italeri decals - MM6445 "3-32". According to

https://dstorm.eu/pages/en/italy/f-104.html this should be MM6545. The detail is so small I doubt anyone will notice.

The F-104C will be 57-928 as there are decals in Academy kit, and I found some pics with silver shock cones. I'd build a camouflaged Starfighter, but I already built one, and I plan on rebuilding it again with Italeri kit.

And for the CF-104 I'm going for the #733 from 439 squadron. My dad had an old Matchbox F-104 in Canadian markings with this tiger head painted on the intake. Somehow I expected it to be similar decal but on close inspection the design is totally different. I found out this decal from Matchbox kit was actually a Tiger Meet marking. https://www.i-f-s.nl/tiger-meets/

 

[Thadeus]

So... I really meant this to be a quick project. But it kind of felt like 'blink and You'll miss it' build for me.

So I started with some basic assembly - first i went after the speedbrakes on Italeri and Academy kits. I usually remove the moulded bay details so I can go in from the other side to help with the basic fit.

Sadly, I didn't take any pics of the fit I "managed" to achieve. It wasn't good on the Italeri kit. Also, attaching the tail piece first didn't leave me with the best fit. The F-104C was better here, as far as I can remember.

 

 

 

Academy was similar proces but the fit was much better.

 

Some work was also done on the wings.

 

 

And fuel tanks. You can already see the difference in shape of the fuel tanks between each kits.

 

 

Only a few moments later I had the cockpits in and fuselages pretty much closed. I painted the cockpit on the Academy kit, applied decals on the flat surfaces of Italeri kit and attempted to apply decals for the Hasegawa kit. They weren't the best fit.

 

 

And the fuselages. The Academy and Hasegawa kits are split in several parts. I had the idea to make two halves, but the support isn't the best on the nose to aft fuselage part. And while Hasegawa was pretty good fit, the Academy wasn't. You can also see the amount of panel lines between three kits.

 

 

Well, the quick build was there for a short while, but now I'm kind of stuck in trying to eaven out all the fit problems. The worst one is probably the fit of the rear half of the fuselage on Italeri kit and the middle joint on the Academy kit. Frankly, the much appraised Revell/Academy kit seems to require more putty than Italeri kit.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

[STEN8]

Interesting to see the three in comparison shots. Love the Italeri/ESCI mold Starfighters and have built several.  I have never built the Hasegawa, and look forward to your build, since I have several in the stash.

[Thadeus]

17 hours ago, STEN8 said:

Interesting to see the three in comparison shots. Love the Italeri/ESCI mold Starfighters and have built several.  I have never built the Hasegawa, and look forward to your build, since I have several in the stash.

Thanks! I really have to say I like Italeri kit. The last one was probably my favourite build from Vietnam war GB. And I intend to build it again. I did check, and the fit of the rear piece was much better on the F-104C. Still, It immidiately feels Hasegawa is a "better" kit.

 

 

 

 

[Thadeus]

Ever since my F/A-18 project came to an end I was working on these three. Here is some update.

 

Revell kit (the one with the holes for the IFR probe) seems to rival Italeri (the other one) for the amount of filler neede. Frankly, I didn't suspect it to need so much putty.

 

 

Hasegawa does need some putty on the underside, but I managed to get this lovelly gap on the intake to fuselage joint. Only on this side however. This is probably the joint I feared the most on all three builds.

 

 

Italeri intakes, despite mediocre fit elswhere, fit pretty good.

 

 

 

On the Revell kit, intakes

 

 

There is a lot of info on the internet regarding F-104 fuel tanks. From left to right Italeri x2, Revell x2 Hasegawa x2. The Italeri ones are super skinny. Revell ones are sort of in the middle and Hasegawa seem to be the thickest.

 

 

There also is a slight difference in location of that small fin on the inner intake. I've read that Revell tanks are attached too far forward, so I'll try to mount them a little bit to the aft. And on a different model.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

[STEN8]

Fascinating. Nice work...and the side by side shots are very helpful. 

Thanks for posting.

 

Harry

Lutz, FL

[Thadeus]

I quickly cleaned all the seams - that was actually a few days ago - and went on to apply some paint. Damaging my compressor in the process sadly. So I'm out on the prowl for a new one.

 

Whatever the case, I first painted the Italian F-104G. A lot of thinking went into figuring out some properish shades. Eventually I settled for lightened Gunze H53 neutral gray and H309 with a drop or two of white paint. I don't think it came out right despite really liking the hue on the gray.

 

 

So I went on to apply a bit of darker H53. Not the best job on the demarcation as I was too lazy to properly mask green spots.

 

 

So I repainted the green as well.

 

 

After glosscoating with my favourite H30 I was ready for decals. The entire painting process took me like 5 hours.

 

 

Revell kit was much easier to paint. I did mask a lot of panels - for instance the fuel cell panels - and sprayed them with different shade of silver. Yea, I can't see the difference either. The main colour is my favourite Vallejo Chrome, the other metallics are Vallejo dark aluminium and matt aluminium. Interesting thing, these Starfighters had ADC gray or actually whitened H57.

 

 

And apparently Hasegawa Starfighter was a bad boy as it did not deserve an exclusive pic... Here's my trio glosscoated... Yea... I did try to paint the upper antennae area on the Italian F-104 by hand. With Gunze paints. Not the best idea...

 

 

Only after that I figured to paint all the details before applying decals. Funny thing - F-104C's didn't have that beige/sand coloured antennae on top of the fuselage.

 

 

And with some decals... I have to say, Hasegawa decals were ok. Italeri decals were on the other hand a bit... Revell like. Matt, thick. Weird as I had some amazing results with stock Italeri decals. One thing was... there was only 4 Italian roundels. Not nice....

 

Now... Academy decals. Oh my. Was I scared... Academy decals printed in Korea. I fully expected I'd have to do a 100% repaint. Or I'd throw the model never to be completed.

 

Nope. These were one of the best decals I've EVER used. Thin, resilient, with very little carrier film. They literally fell into panel lines with the lightest touch of cotton bud.

A M A Z I N G. I'm totally in love. I'll buy probably 3 more kits just to have all the options available to build.

 

 

Thank You for stopping by!

[STEN8]

Oh yeah! Looking sweet! Side by side they just look...lethal. Love the Canuck bird..you got the green just right.I don't know why, but the Canadian and Danish birds just look right in green. Great work. Tallyho...Zippers at 12 o'clock high!

 

Harry

Lutz, FL

[Thadeus]

20 hours ago, STEN8 said:

Oh yeah! Looking sweet! Side by side they just look...lethal. Love the Canuck bird..you got the green just right.I don't know why, but the Canadian and Danish birds just look right in green. Great work. Tallyho...Zippers at 12 o'clock high!

 

Harry

Lutz, FL

 

Thank You very much. Actually the mix for the Canadian bird is the one in the Hasegawa instructions... more or less. H64 RLM 71 dark green with H21 off white in about 92% to 8%. I probably made it like 85-15. I've got more dark Zippers in plans - in some more distant future. Hasegawa kit builds up lovelly.

[STEN8]

You got it just right. Lovely.

 

Harry

Lutz, FL

 

[southwestforests]

7 hours ago, Thadeus said:

more dark Zippers

For some reason I really like that phrase.
And the models are attractive too.

[Thadeus]

 

On 11/28/2024 at 11:20 PM, STEN8 said:

You got it just right. Lovely.

 

Harry

Lutz, FL

 

 

On 11/29/2024 at 1:40 AM, southwestforests said:

For some reason I really like that phrase.
And the models are attractive too.

 

Thank You both very much.

 

I'm having some compressor trouble that prevents me from spraying longer than 10 - 15 minutes. It is much better than before since it started working. I managed to open it up and clean some stuff out and it started working, but now. Still it gets some stalls when it stops pumping air. And it heats up like it wants to become a new heater in my apartment. I believe it's finally time to replace it. However 11+ years I managed to get out of it, and lots of models finished is a pretty decent worktime.

 

I did however managed to spray some final coats on two of my Starfighters.

 

Academy / Revell got the semi gloss.

 

 

While Italeri got matt coat.

 

 

Once my compressor stops trying to heat up my place I'll try to finish the Hasegawa F-104. I might even try to do it today. Sure could use some graphite cooling rods or something like that. So I guess it's time to write Santa a letter what this boy wants for christmass.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

[STEN8]

Once again, great work. I particularly like the Sidewinders on the C. Beautiful. 

Risking a wave of ribald jokes, I would say you've got Zippers down!!

 

Harry

Lutz, FL

 

[Thadeus]

So, after some struggle with my compressor, I managed to finish the CF-104. What a lovelly kit Hasegawa F-104 is. I already got two more on black friday sale.

In the background You can see my "in the middle of things" project. I couldn't get better matt, as my compressor got hickup.

 

 

Here's my trio of Starfighters. I have to say, I wasn't fully expecting this to come out this nice. Well, with the Italian and Canadian I kind of did, but not with the F-104C.

The mix of Hasegawa and Revell fuel tanks on the Italeri kit does look particularilly nice. I did have to shorten the Italeri pylons to fit them nicelly though.

 

 

I added the chaff/ flare dispensers from an old Hasegawa F-4 kit. They are too short, but frankly I did this on a last minute notice. Almost got too lazy to do it. The equipment under the rear canopy that came with this modification wasn't installed on my example (by me 😉 ). There is one embarrasing mistake I did on this build... I've put some decals on the sides of the underwing tanks, where they should've been placed on the sides of the wingtip tanks. Luckilly Hasegawa gives You two full decal sheets with their newer F-104 releases (mine was obviosly the F-104J/CF-104 box) so I used the spare Japanese ones. I should build a Japanese Starfighter... or three.

 

 

I find this kit a bit nicer in the outline than the Revell kit. If You replace the fuel tanks, or make one without them. I've still one or two Italeri Zippers. And even a few Esci ones.

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, I was slacking with this one. The nose cone should have been made sharper than it is. Overall however this is a very nice kit. The IFR probe seems a bit too squished. And the clear parts are horribly thick. And kind of hard to cut. And a bit scarry. Italeri kit at least has a ridge moulded between the pieces that You can use as a guildeline for a cut.

 

 

 

 

 Can You see the thickness of the windscreen?

 

I seem to have gotten away a bit with that blunt nose. Yaaaay!

 

Both of these kits, while nice, get blown away by Hasegawa. Nice fit (but not too nice), nice panel lines, nice detail, I even like the rivets on the rear parts - they help with weathering.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank You very much for stopping by! Have a great week!

[phantom]

Nice jobs all around. (104733 looks the best.....Because its Canadian).

[flagon21]

Outstanding results!

[Thadeus]

On 12/4/2024 at 11:15 PM, phantom said:

Nice jobs all around. (104733 looks the best.....Because its Canadian).

 

Thank You! I really like this all green scheme. I hope to build more RCAF birds.

 

18 hours ago, flagon21 said:

Outstanding results!

 

Thank You!