1/32 F-104C, Puerto Rico ANG

[jgrease]

Time to get started on a new project - moved to a new place 1500 miles from our last home. It took a while but we finally got the house furnished and I got my workbench set up:

My last house gave me a full attic for storage and a huge work area. We've downsized since our daughter is in college, so I had to scale back and share the spare bedroom in order to get a workbench. I've selected a secretary-style desk from Ikea so that when we have overnight guests I can fold away the table. I also got a portable Master Airbrush spray booth that can also be stowed when company comes. The new desk still gives me enough room to work on 1/32 projects, so I'm quite happy. Another side-effect of the move was a severe downsizing of my stash - I reduced my total kits by over 50%, forcing me to keep models I was definitely going to work on. I took advantage of the move to buy myself the Italeri F-104 A/C kit - I've always liked the lines of the Starfighter, and the Victory Decals upscaling of the set including the PRANG made it a must-have. So after a little shopping, here's what I have for the project:

Working towards building this:

Besides the kit itself, I've purchased the Eduard Brassin Early-Style Exhaust, Victory Decals set VPD32006, Eduard F-104C gun bay PE, and Hobby Decal F-104 pitot tube. I might be purchasing the Airscale instrument decals later today - I'm using the kit parts for the cockpit. The instrument panel and the seat look pretty good to me, and Italeri supply PE belts for the seat. I'm also going to try the Hataka paints for Vietnam-era USAF planes. I've heard mixed things, but the guy at the store told me that good results can be had with Tamiya X-20A thinner. So I've started out by priming everything in Tamiya white surface primer from a spray can. Good coverage and gives everything a clean look. I don't have photos yet of the ejection seat assembly as it is still being assembled and I'll probably have shots of it this weekend. While I wait for glue and putty to dry on the seat, I've gone ahead and started removing material from the gun bay to accommodate the Eduard PE:

And a test-fit of the rear gun bay wall:

That is the state of play as of now. I will post more over the weekend as work progresses. As always, I welcome observations, criticisms and I accept the occasional pat on the back. Please feel free to post here - I welcome the exchange of ideas and do not take offense easily. Thanks for stopping in!

John

[jinmmydel]

I'm watching with interest. I'm thinking of picking one of these up. I'm anxious to see how it goes together.

[viking73]

Looking good so far John! I am not much of a 1/32 builder but with that being said, the ancient Hasegawa 1/32 F-104C has been in my stash for about 25 years now :)

I do like the F-104 and the PRANG markings will be great so I'll be watching this one.

-Derek

[kellyF15]

I am thinking about buying this kit so I will be watching closely!

[Marcel111]

Nice to see this project, something very int rsting, I will definitely be following.

Cheers,

Marcel

PS I used to model on that exact Ikea desk

[jgrease]

Happy Monday to all - I made a bit of progress on the cockpit over the weekend. I finally set up my spray booth and airbrush, and I couldn't have been happier. The Master Airbrush portable booth features built-in LED lighting, and it quite sturdy - everything snaps into place in a minute or so, and the fan actually pulls paint spray from the inside of the booth into the exhaust like it's supposed to! Yay!

So anyways...I gave the cockpit parts and seat a coat of Model Master Neutral Gray after looking online for a definitive cockpit color. Neutral gray seemed to be that color, so off I went:

Yes - I have to sand down that putty spot...As far as being accurate, I know that the real F-104 cockpit floor is much different, but I don't think enough will be visible to get overly worried about it. I plan to give the entire cockpit a dark wash and drybrush for the worn floor areas around the rudder pedals.

The instrument panel also got a gray coating, as did the pedals which will wind up silver or aluminum. Or something. Aside from painting the bang seat gray, I painted the seat cushions with MM Olive Drab. I then drybrushed them with Medium Green and Light Green. The headrest was initially painted Rust and then drybrushed with some straight red. I really want to give the cushions and head rest a worn look, and I don't think I'm there yet:

The bottom of the seat back chipped when I was trying to dry fit the parts together. Again, I think there needs to be more "wear" done to the cushions. If anyone has ideas, please post them here. I also applied the faintest drybrushing of aluminum to the ejection seat itself. I don't think it's visible here, but I didn't want to go overboard. I still have a lot of weathering to do to everything involved - by the time the PR ANG got these planes, they looked really beat up. The final thing I have to work on is the rear wall of the cockpit. I know most of it will be covered by the seat and rails, but I have no idea what the real thing looks like. Unless I'm just not looking the right way. This is what you get in the kit:

And a final shot of the cockpit parts cobbled together:

Again, much more work to do here - panel painting, washes, and more drybrushing. I also ordered Airscale instruments for the panel since Italeri gives you absolutely nothing. As I mentioned before, please leave your comments, critiques, and suggestions - all are welcome here. Thanks for stopping by.

John

Edited October 12, 2015 by jgrease

[Joel_W]

John,

Just saw your build blog. Welcome back to the bench and your new one looks great. Glad that the move is finally over. Interesting choice, as I have to confess that the F-104 is another personal favorite of mine, especially in a camo paint scheme, so I'll be tagging right along with you.

Nice work getting that large PE plate to fit so snuggly at the rear of the gun bay. I hope you do decide on the Airscale decals for the IP. In 1/32 scale they really make a huge difference to detail the stock IP. Nice start to the seat. All that detail will really pop with a few washes.

Joel

[K5054NZ]

This looks like a great project - SEA Starfighters look really good - so I'm keen to follow along. Best of luck with the build!

[jgrease]

Thanks Zac, Marcel, Derek and Jimmy - I'm looking forward to actually building something! Joel - thanks for dropping in - I hope to do this kit some justice. I may not be the most prolific builder but this is one I've wanted to do for a while. I'll be sitting at the bench later on today. If anyone reads this before I hit the bench - I want to form the kit-supplied PE brass seat belts to fit the seat. Will the heat from a match be enough to anneal the brass to bend easier?

John

[Janissary]

Thanks Zac, Marcel, Derek and Jimmy - I'm looking forward to actually building something! Joel - thanks for dropping in - I hope to do this kit some justice. I may not be the most prolific builder but this is one I've wanted to do for a while. I'll be sitting at the bench later on today. If anyone reads this before I hit the bench - I want to form the kit-supplied PE brass seat belts to fit the seat. Will the heat from a match be enough to anneal the brass to bend easier?

John

Looking very good, I love the camo you plan to use. A match might be enough but I usually use a small candle for more control during PE softening. The white desk lamp you use caught my interest, what brand is it? I need something like that.

[jgrease]

Looking very good, I love the camo you plan to use. A match might be enough but I usually use a small candle for more control during PE softening. The white desk lamp you use caught my interest, what brand is it? I need something like that.

I believe this is where I got mine:

Lamp

John

[Joel_W]

John,

It doesn't take much heat to anneal most PE. I just use a birthday cake candle.

Joel

[jgrease]

Thanks Joel. I'm looking at the back wall of the cockpit - I can't find much on the inter web, and I'm wondering if I should really go crazy trying to make it look "detailed". Most of it will be covered with the ejection seat and rails. Thoughts? Opinions?

John

[Joel_W]

Thanks Joel. I'm looking at the back wall of the cockpit - I can't find much on the inter web, and I'm wondering if I should really go crazy trying to make it look "detailed". Most of it will be covered with the ejection seat and rails. Thoughts? Opinions?

John

John,

There is some wiring back there, but I haven't really looked. Here's a really good video of the F104 cockpit. You can take it from there.

Joel

[jgrease]

Joel - Thanks for the video link! I'm kinda convinced that the area behind the seat is mostly hidden and I will just work on what is there. So before I do any more cockpit painting, I decided to work on the next area that needs to be done - the main landing gear bay. I gathered up the pieces needed, and the main gear legs have to be attached to the bay because of the central support that goes over them. The first thing that struck me was the molding of the leg unit - such nice molding and such a horrible seam:

Ugh - it was like a complete step that passed through the entire piece. You can see the difference on one side as opposed to the other untouched side of the part. Lots of detail sanding and I made it look like one piece again:

The next step was assembling the leg into the bay itself. The piece for the bay is nicely detailed for a kit part, certainly passable with paint and some dark wash:

The one wall of the bay has openings for the intakes, but it makes no sense since there is no trunking that I can see to go from the outside of the plane to this point. So this nice touch:

Is really useless. Did someone at Italeri forget to mold the rest of the intake trunking? That is really obnoxious, and considering the rest of the work on the plane's detail it makes no sense. Very disappointed. But onward - the next item I'm looking at is the engine. It really is nice. Look at the detail on these pieces:

This has got to be one of the nicest engines I've seen in a kit, and it might be worth my time.

That actually looks great! I am starting to consider using the Italeri stand for the tail assembly and display it open. I'm already opening the gun bay and avionics so why not the engine? Opinions? As I always say, please leave feedback (good or bad) and suggestions are always welcome. Thanks again for looking in!

John

Edited October 14, 2015 by jgrease

[Joel_W]

John, 

The main landing gear does indeed look very nicely molded with enough detail to not require any AM parts. I took a look at some kit reviews, and it seams that the intakes goes around the wheel well to that bulkhead. As far as displaying the F104 with the tail off on the dolly and engine exposed, that's just not my "cup of tea" so I vote no.

Joel

Edited October 14, 2015 by Joel_W

[jgrease]

Looks like I'm putting this on hold until the end of the month. One of my fellow club members has the Daco book and I'll be borrowing it for a spell. Meantime I'm working on the Fujimi 1/72 A-6 to keep the creative juices flowing.

[Joel_W]

Looks like I'm putting this on hold until the end of the month. One of my fellow club members has the Daco book and I'll be borrowing it for a spell. Meantime I'm working on the Fujimi 1/72 A-6 to keep the creative juices flowing.

John,

Now there's an excellent reason postpone the build. I do recall many, and I mean many years ago building this kit. It certainly was cutting edge back in the last 80s or so when it was released.

Joel

[jgrease]

Well it's certainly been a while - I have in fact been working on this plane in dribs and drabs but it can get frustrating. Let's start right out with the current state of assembly for the -104:

It's certainly getting bigger every day - the only other plane close in size is my 1/32 F-14D which has it beat by about an inch and a half. So this is a bit more than the last time I made an update. I decided that the engine was NOT getting displayed - the lines of the -104 are too good to do an open-engine display (maybe another one if I find it at the right price). The engine was assembled and installed into the forward fuselage - I cut off the rear of the engine to accommodate the Eduard exhaust (which fit very well, BTW). For the moment the exhaust is painted (strangely enough) Testors Jet Exhaust. This may change over time - Magnesium is a strong contender to replace that color. After installing the engine I added on the rear fuselage. This is what I got in return:

After resisting the urge to use this plastic for a distance throw into the dumpster, I decided to forge ahead. I'm still sanding the joint down - if you're building this closed please learn from my mistake and connect each side's front and rear sections to each other and then join the halves together to avoid this travesty of fit. Words fail me in terms of the frustration this poor fit has caused me - I will do my best to get things at least appearing level. So the other section that got attention was the cockpit and electronics bay:

Overall I'm pleased with the look of these areas out of the box. The electronics bay got additional decals from the Airscale placards set:

Once the fuselage painting is done I will go in and paint the black gaskets around the bays. A friend of mine gave me a couple of resin parts he had left from his last -104 build. I am guessing these are CMK. Here's the seat, which I will be happy to replace:

Kit seat is most obviously on the left. It was almost too plain considering the amount of work done by Italeri on the other parts of the plane. I've also got a replacement for the forward section of the instrument panel:

I've cut the IP shroud off of the kit part, and when the time comes I will paint and attach the shroud and this part before attaching the windscreen. I'd like to get some of the fuselage painting started so I will be sanding away on the foul section I showed you earlier - I'm going to try and at least give the appearance of it being a clean join (not my forte, but I will try). Once that area is sanded I want to get the wings on and probably keep the tip tanks off until painting is done. I have a lot of masking to do between the cockpit/electronics bay and the landing gear. I should have an update soon. Thanks for looking in!

John

Edited May 6, 2016 by jgrease

[kellyF15]

Glad to see this one going again!

[jgrease]

Thanks for the kind words Kelly - the more I work on this the more I remember why it's been in the closet for a few months. Well, anyways... So I've gone ahead and added the speed brake doors onto the fuselage and I've done some sanding and describing of lines around the joint between the front and rear fuselage sections. Here's what that looks like:

I believe this is as good as I am going to get this area - the step was significant, and I've tried to get it down as much as possible without completely destroying all of the engraving. All I can say is good thing this one is camouflaged - kudos to anyone who builds this as a bare-metal plane! You can also see I've added on the rudder - it's a nicely cast part, but why it was done in three pieces is a mystery to me. I've also added on the inner sections of the intakes so I can get them painted white before adding on the outer portions:

I sanded down the portions where the parts meet the fuselage, and I've made sure to tape them down tight - you can see where some filler will be needed on top and bottom. Speaking of filler, I've also installed the fin on the lower fuselage:

This was a flimsy part with little contact area, except at the front of the fin. In the rear it doesn't even touch the lower fuselage, hence the gross application of Mr Dissolved Putty along the joint. I am just not happy with the fit of this kit, even when I make an effort to get the parts lined up. But it's a poor craftsman that blames his tools, so I'm sure that if I had put a lot more attention into my build sequence and triple checked parts fit, this may not be the annoyance that it has become. I really want to have a cool-looking plane, but man it will be quite a challenge to get there. Well, thanks for looking - more to come shortly. Some painting and then more assembly. Thanks for looking in.

John