F-104G / TF-104G Starfighter duo build
Basecoat Tamiya XF-53.
Last dark grey wash and drybrush with a light grey.
Sanded to much, so had to replace the bottom with some plasticard.
Next XF-19 and highlite with XF-1.
Preparing the installation of the intakes.
Inside of the intakes. TF is gone be bare metal, F is gone be SEA camo.
Painted the back black to get some depth when you look inside the intake.
Intakes installed and treated the seams with some mr surfacer.
After sanding and rescribing time for some paint to check the seams.
As the wings of the Hasegawa kit are riveted all over the place I first tried to fill most of the rivets. It worked but not like I wanted it to. So next I bought de Daco sets with the new wings ans some other useful stuff on it. But these wings had no rivets at all. Also not correct. So I decided to scan a wing and draw a rivet pattern on the computer, print this out and do some manual riveting.
This is the pattern printed out. I used panel lines as reference to cut them out and tape them to the wings.
The end result. Must say I'm happy with this. Is used reference photo's to determine which rivets/screws stay visible.
Huge gap around that has to be filled.
Filled the gap with Apoxie sculpt.
Behind the pilot seat is a window. In the kit this has some angels that are there on the real plane. And with the Aires pit, the kit part didn' fit. So made a paper template.
Made a san of the paper template. Traced this in Illustrator. And after some fine tuning cut it out of the plastic container of the Aires parts with my Silhoutte. Also made some stencils for painting.
The new window inplace.
Ready for painting.
First primer coat.
The TF-104G is going to be BMF.
Painting, some brown....
some light green...
and some dark green. Next light grey underside.
Tiger stripes are always good. Scanned the DACO decal sheet, made templates in Illustrator and cut them out with my Silhoutte Cameo.
Side by side. Some more detail painting to do.
Inventory of my metallic paints. Top row = Alclad 2, middle row = MRP and bottom row = Mr Hobby Super Metalic.
Now to choose the right colors...
Now to choose the right colors...
Some minor progress. Working on the landing gear.
I had an incident with the gloss varnish and decided to strip all the paint and start over. Set me back but in the end it turned out alright.
Comments
31 20 January 2021, 15:11
Erik LeijdensVery interesting!! I'm too am busy with a couple of 104s. But the sheer amount of extra stencils I have purchased via the Dutch Starfighter foundation are killing me. Great work so far Eric!! Definitely following off course!
4 February 2021, 18:58
Jose FreireFollowing, since im building two Starfighters at the same time. One will be a Spanish Air Force plane and the other will be probably a Greek one, since i would like to build a Belgium plane but dont have any decals for it
4 February 2021, 19:41
Eric JuvynsThx guys.
Erik, I must say I'm dreading the decal phase. I build the 1/32 Italeri F-104G a couple of years ago so I know all about the number of decals. And now I have to do it twice.
Jose, Daco has some beautiful decals to build a lot of Belgian F-104's 🙂
6 February 2021, 06:30
Slavo HazuchaSome really cool work here - excellent pit, a respect-inspiring wing-riveting job and a really great looking camo! Looking forward to the next steps 👍
18 February 2021, 19:02
Eric JuvynsThx Jose and Slavo.
Next up is some more detail painting, especially the different color variations on the bare metal TF-104G. Luckily the DACO manual provides detailed painting guides for this. Finding the right metal tones will be a challenge for me. I'm going to use MRP and Mr Color Super Metallic paints.
19 February 2021, 13:09
Slavo HazuchaI used MRP metals on my F-104 (all metals used there) - very nice to work with, Chrome somewhat more difficult, particularly in combination with oil-washes.
19 February 2021, 16:10
Eric JuvynsIndeed Slavo, the MRP is very nice.
Small update with the metal paint. After using a lot of masking tape the result is not that bad. For me Mr Color has the best metal paint, followed very close by MRP and then Alclad II. I had some issues with some Alclad colors which I don't have with Mr Color and MRP. But that's just my experience.
6 March 2021, 12:28
Jos JansenIam curious what kind of issues with the metals from Alclad Eric? Its my favorite that's why Iam asking.
6 March 2021, 13:46
Eric JuvynsJos, I'm having problems with paint flow through my airbrush with some colors. I also find that I can't spray as tight a pattern as I can with Mr Color and RMP. With Mr color I can really spray very fine lines. This is not possible with Alclad. Hope this answers your question.
6 March 2021, 17:13
Jos JansenOkay, I know what you mean. I don't know if you've tried to lower your air-pressure, I always use 0.6/0.8 Psi (very low pressure) for the very thin Alclad metals, then I've no trouble with all!
6 March 2021, 17:17
Eric JuvynsI have tried that in the past, but I can always give it another try. Thx for the advise.
7 March 2021, 06:44
Slavo HazuchaGreat progress - especially like the metal & light grey & white panel contrasts - got to try this out at some point on a suitable aircraft!
Also the seat looks top notch, a really nice one with all the harnesses & color variety! 👍
8 March 2021, 14:08
Eric JuvynsFinished them at last. Lost my mojo a bit after having an accident with the gloss varnish on th F-104G. Damned fingerprint. Decided to strip it and restart. Didn't feel like taking more pictures after that. In the end it turned out all right. Not my best work. Now, finally after 35+ years in the hobby I have a couple of BAF Starfighters.
29 May 2021, 05:41
Slavo HazuchaA seriously cool duo - I guess one could only focus on making different Starfighter versions and never run out of great paint variants... Particularly like the camo one with the tiger tanks, really came out superb! 👍
6 August 2021, 20:15
Album info
Duo build of the Hasegawa/Revell kits of the TF-104G and F-104G. Both are in Belgian Air Force colors. One BMF, the other one in SEA camouflage.
