Vietnam Air War GB - Extended!

Well no more work is due up for this weekend because of the Weekend Madness GB here. Gonna work on a Hobbycraft Hurricane for that. The only black on my F-104 is in the cockpit- Humbrol matte Black (33?). The kit itself is molded in Monogram's old standard dark OD plastic.

c'mon stickpusher, im dying to see this finished. what black paint did you use ?

More progress on my 104: I added the ventral strake and emergency landing tail hook to the lower rear fuselage

and I added the stabilator to the tailplane

and I glued the wingtip tanks together- they are only placed on the wings for this photo, I will need to  add some strip styrene to fill a gap where they attach

and I rescribed the panel lines in the tip tanks

So I got back to the Navy F-4G.

Rebuilt the fuel dump that broke off and disappeared.

Preshaded

Painted some green.

got a bit more (significant) work done today. Finished painting up the gun bay- a metalic overcoat on the Vulcan, and a dry brushing of Steel on the ammo chute. Then some touch up of the Satin White. Then I glued that in place.

Next I glued the fuselage halves together. I found one small panel that will probably be saned away during seam clean up, so I got out my scriber and template and headed off that issue.

and that I glued the rear fuselage halves together

and now it is starting to look like an F-104.... Such a gorgeous bird!

Yeah, that is what happened to my bang seat. I spent a couple of days looking for the kit part with no luck after I lost it. After those two days of searching, I placed the order. Then of course, once the resin replacement seat arrived, I found the kit part. Isn't that the way the fates always work?

cant find the resin weighted front wheel for the MF im also building. its around somewhere, prolly on the floor under all the accumulated bumf  its NP ill find it eventually.

thanks for the kind words on the 104. looking forward to seeing yours.

TL, last night I went thru all the pages of this GB from the beginning. I think that I dropped out of watching this GB in this past winter when I was  moving. I completely missed your F-104. All that I can say about that one is wow! No sucking there. Thta is gorgeous work and your take off display is very innovative! What do you mean that you need a front wheel?

I am currently trying to find a front wheel myself, so frustrating. The cmk seat looks nice. Painting those things is one thing i hate (cos i suck )

Todays update on the F-104: sometime between my post on this build here earlier in the week, and gluing the cockpit into fuselage, I misplaced the ejection seat. Not to worry, a bit of web searching and I found an AM resin replacement seat (actualy two in the package) Since I have more F-104s in my stash, that's perfect. Ordered on Tuesday, and arrived in my grubby little mitts today courtesy of USPS. Gotta love the superb service from Sprue Brothers and the Post Office. Of course after the new seat arrived, I found the kit seat part in my paints bin.... dont know how it got there, but I suspect it may have something to do with the evening cocktails consumed at my workstation after work had been done for the day last Saturday evening... anyways here is the kit part next to the CMK Resin replacement seat... BIG improvement...

As you wish...

Earlier this week, I glued the cockpit tub in place on the F-104's upper fuselage half



and I did some detail painting in the gun bay

Thats a new one on me. Keep the pics coming :-D

talentless

What make is this kit? Is the gunbay aftermarket?

This is the kit boxing I am building- but I will be using some AM decals

It is the Monogram kit. The boxing I have was issued in the mid 80's with decals for USAF in SEA camo or NMF. It was just recently re issued with the F-104G version by Revell in Canadian markings. The gun bay is part of the kit, not AM.

What make is this kit? Is the gunbay aftermarket?

Looking good, Stik!

So looking back here, I realize that I had not posted any photos of what I am starting with here on my F-104C... so here goes:

aftureburner interior secion painted

cockpit components painted (except ejection seat)

cockpit interior areas painted

And today I primed then painted the gun bay area- I still need to do all the detail work in there

more to follow soon...

Thank you sir. Yes it looks much better now when test fitted in place.

that looks much more convincing. nice job.

OK, recently while checking in on this, I realized that I had signed up on here and not posted any work. So yesterday while I was at my storage unit, I decided to pull out my F-104C from out of there and resume work here today. All I had done on this kit so far was a small bit of gluing in the cockpit and and most of the basic paint work in there. As well as a bit of painting on the afterburner interior. Unfortunately for this kit, after I did this work I had to put this kit in storage due to a move (followed a year and a half later by another move). At some point on this storage, the grip on the pilot's control stick was broken off and disappeared. Prior to my last move I trashed a Monogram 1/48 RF-101B- after salvaging various parts that I thought might be useful on other builds- especially in the cockpit. The Voodoo rear seater had a nice joystick on the right console that I took from there and grafted to the stub on my Starfighter control stick mount, so here is how it looks now... unfortunately not focused very well (EDIT-new better photo)

Then I examined the afterburner nozzle, the interior is nicely detailed, but the exterior face had only come finely scribed lines that did not look very convinceing to me for the petals. So slowly I followed the recessed lines with my needle files and filed them to better represent the petals

and after the petals have all been filed in place

look forward to some pics!

Finally got around to finishing the canopy masking and will be pre-shading soon.

It keeps me from getting bored.  I'm always doing something a little different so I don't totally lose interest.  I have the room under the bench so I just put the parts back in the box so I hopefully don't lose them.  Then I grab a different box.

Dont know how you manage to juggle so many builds at once, 68gt. Im doing two and its driving me round the bend to the extent that one has stalled completely.

Looking forward to seeing this phantom completed.

Painted the radome yesterday.  I'll have to mask the windshield and canopy next and do some pre-shading.

No, sorry!

Been working on finishing a X-29 and this one.

cheers dave :-)

68gt - any progress?

Great job there on the Starfighter, Mr. Talent!!!  Well played sir!..........

 I haven't posted in a while but here are some shots of my Navy F-4G.

Thanks for the kind words chaps. Now i need to decide whats to do next, i want to do EVERYTHING in thestash o_O