F-104C Starfighter "Blue Jay Four" by Egilman - Minicraft/Hasegawa - 1/32nd Scale

[CDW]

If you want to avoid the aftermarket jingo bop, read kit reviews before buying. There are a lot of models out there that can be built straight from the box to a very high standard, no aftermarket needed at all.

People complained about the high price of Wingnut Wings kits, but the fact of the matter is, the kits needed nothing more than what came inside the box. Modern Tamiya kits are like that to a large extent, though they still manufacture and sell some kits that are very long in the tooth, and not quite as good as the more modern offerings. 

 

Somewhere, someone mentioned the 1:32 Italeri F-104's...aren't those a rebox of the Hasegawa ones? I do know Italeri did a wholly new 1:32 Mirage, I bought one and it's a beauty.

[Egilman]

6 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

I dont want to deflect EG's  post  but my 10pence worth  - Ken  I have built two versions of the AardVark  an E version  but also  the SparkVark, both 1/72 scale  Hasegawa kits I think.

 

Sorry for the interuption EG.

 

OC.

Well we have been talking about modern American military hardware and some of the history of how we got to where we are..... and I believe that the F-111 is apropos to such..... We are focusing on the F-104 here and it's magical like attributes. But any aircraft built since has the 104 to thank for it's abilities.... There wouldn't have been an F-4 much less an F-111 without the F-104......

 

I appreciate the respect my friend...

 

No deflection/interruption that I can see, Carry on...

 

EG

[Egilman]

11 minutes ago, CDW said:

Somewhere, someone mentioned the 1:32 Italeri F-104's...aren't those a rebox of the Hasegawa ones? I do know Italeri did a wholly new 1:32 Mirage, I bought one and it's a beauty.

There used to be some debate about the Italieri/Hasegawa F-104's, but the newer ones in the last two or so years are all supposedly new tooling... And the consensus of opinion is the Italieri are the better ones.....

 

That's why there is a plethora of AM for them and not so much for the Hase's....

[popeye the sailor]

again I'm late to the party........thankfully no parts have seen any cement yet     I do agree that the aftermarket contributions injected new life into the hobby.   there are still way too many kits out there that are screaming for more detail..........besides the molded on aspects that are the main crux of many inaccuracies as well.   I've found it to be a crap shoot though,  as some of these replacement parts don't really enhance the model.  what I've also seen,  are the instances where major modifications need to be made to fit the replacements.  at this scale,  you'll need to weigh out whether the mod is worth it.........any smaller scale,  and visual aides will be needed,  even for the person viewing the finished model         you got your chops........your no school kid.........you'll know what to do  

 

I'd have been here sooner.........but I had to watch that Star Trek episode    love that show as well!

[Egilman]

7 minutes ago, popeye the sailor said:

again I'm late to the party........thankfully no parts have seen any cement yet     I do agree that the aftermarket contributions injected new life into the hobby.   there are still way too many kits out there that are screaming for more detail..........besides the molded on aspects that are the main crux of many inaccuracies as well.   I've found it to be a crap shoot though,  as some of these replacement parts don't really enhance the model.  what I've also seen,  are the instances where major modifications need to be made to fit the replacements.  at this scale,  you'll need to weigh out whether the mod is worth it.........any smaller scale,  and visual aides will be needed,  even for the person viewing the finished model         you got your chops........your no school kid.........you'll know what to do  

 

I'd have been here sooner.........but I had to watch that Star Trek episode    love that show as well!

Your never late brother, just delayed...

 

I agree with your take on the state of modeling, I think it's for the better as long as you stay within the reasonable with your expectations... (although there are some modelers I follow that make me think like I'm still a beginner)

 

Thank you Denis, you always have a chair at one of my builds...

 

vImuSHa' 'e' loDnI'wI' cha' je toH!

 

Qapla'!!!

[popeye the sailor]

is that Klingon?

[Egilman]

3 minutes ago, popeye the sailor said:

is that Klingon?

The bottom part is.... {chuckle}

[popeye the sailor]

never learned the language...........just like in Game of thrones.........I never learned Dothraki.  besides,  there was subtitles     so the top part must be Vulcan  

[Egilman]

4 minutes ago, popeye the sailor said:

so the top part must be Vulcan  

No the last two lines are Klingon, not enough is known of the vulcan language to get a proper handle on it... (but I can get around in it)

 

Dothraki? I don't think anyone can get a handle on that....

 

I"ll admit, I"m a trekkie, but not a crazy trekkie, there is a difference...

[popeye the sailor]

 ROFL  

[Egilman]

Just to give an idea as to the size of this bird in 1/32nd scale.....

Just the bare fuselage is 16.5 inches long, with the nose and aerospike probably 20 and a half inches long....

 

This is why the discussion on PE and resin details makes a difference...... the larger the model the more relevant it becomes....

 

EG

[Old Collingwood]

Thats a great size   will be a beauty.

 

Found this link to  update goody heaven -

 

http://www.dacoproducts.com/KDCC4802.php

 

OC.

[Egilman]

32 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

Thats a great size   will be a beauty.

 

Found this link to  update goody heaven -

......

OC.

That's a beautiful update set and in injected styrene to boot! it will make any 1/48th scale builder very very happy accurizing their 1/4 scale manned missile... That being said, unfortunately my 3/8th scale manned missile will have to suffer along with resin unfortunately......

 

Thanks for the link brother I"m sure it will give another Zipper "G" modeler exactly what they need to build a real beauty...

[Old Collingwood]

9 minutes ago, Egilman said:

That's a beautiful update set and in injected styrene to boot! it will make any 1/48th scale builder very very happy accurizing their 1/4 scale manned missile... That being said, unfortunately my 3/8th scale manned missle will have to suffer along with resin unfortunately......

 

Thanks for the link brother I"m sure it will give another Zipper "G" modeler exactly what they need to build a real beauty...

No problem at all.

 

OC.

[Egilman]

Well, The decals arrived today from Victory Models.... 

Two sheets, the left sheet have the marking for every F-104C and larger right sheet has the unit markings & serial numbers for the individual aircraft.... the 479th Wings aircraft at one point in it's history were some pretty colorful aircraft, but unfortunately that was discontinued after a very short while so all those gorgeous markings are not going to be used... What would have been better is if the kit decals had carried some variations for individual aircraft instead of just one very very specific colorful bird...

 

But also, I have parts on the way again, this time most of the parts are coming from Florida, (the wheels from Ukraine, ugh) but when they get here I will be able to start right up.... Until then brothers...

[Old Collingwood]

Those decals look impresive mate.

 

OC.

[Egilman]

I just got word from KitLinx that my parts are on the way.....  YAY!!!!!

 

And the wheels from the ukraine is in post office shippin' limbo, they are out of Ukranian customs and in the hands of the shipper... I might have all the parts before I really start....

 

This is a good thing...

 

EG

[Canute]

Hey, the USPS still has a shot to screw that timetable up. I ordered parts from Hannant's, in the UK. It was out there door and shipped out of the UK in 3 days. It ended up in LA ten days later and then took (Slow) Pony Express back to the East Coast.  Took 2.5 weeks. Ordered parts (CBU cans primarily) from the 48ers, on Malta. Took 10 days.

[Jack12477]

1 hour ago, Canute said:

Hey, the USPS still has a shot to screw that timetable up. I ordered parts from Hannant's, in the UK. It was out there door and shipped out of the UK in 3 days. It ended up in LA ten days later and then took (Slow) Pony Express back to the East Coast.  Took 2.5 weeks. Ordered parts (CBU cans primarily) from the 48ers, on Malta. Took 10 days.

Could be the difference between the Maltese Falcon and American Carrier Pigeon 😁  <ok, I'll get my coat and leave now >

[Canute]

Yeah, it's for the birds.

 

Well, usually goodies from the UK seem to get here via SR-71. Stateside mail has been pretty fast from the usual mail order outlets we use. It's getting into our mail system that's the issue. I've seen it before, getting wood from Toronto to Chicago to here. Chicago customs just took forever.

[mtaylor]

5 hours ago, Jack12477 said:

Could be the difference between the Maltese Falcon and American Carrier Pigeon 😁  <ok, I'll get my coat and leave now >

I'm thinking they both ended up on someone's BBQ just because they could.  People are still acting weird even with the quarantine being lifted.

[Egilman]

1 hour ago, mtaylor said:

People are still acting weird even with the quarantine being lifted.

Well our govenuer didn't renew his quarrantine order, but replaced it with a safe and sane business re-opening behavior control order..... 

 

The admiral was ecstatic, she gets to go back to bingo!!!!  except just getting into the place is like entering prison....  they have a guard at the front door, you have to wear a face mask,  your id security scanned, then you walk up the entrance ramp where the use facial recognition software to take your temperature and connect your image to your membership card and ID.... If you are too hot, they move you off to one side to "Cool Down" then are sent back through again, if your still too hot, security sends you home with instructions not to return for two weeks......  If you make it through that,they have you seated 6 feet apart and wives/husbands/children/relatives are not allowed to sit together, you have to maintain that 6' apart... you have to wear masks at all times except when eating drinking or smoking and you will be asked to leave if you don't.  they have put up plastic barriers between people.

 

Everything the Admiral went there for is eliminated...... (she goes for the social contacts, visiting her friends and such) 

 

Of course this is an Indian owned and ran business on reservation property so they are not subject to the govenuers orders, they have come up with this all on their own and to be honest? it is three times as open as the governuer is allowing....

 

But at least we aren't locked down at home anymore.... we just can't go anywhere to do anything....

 

Insane times my friends.....

[mtaylor]

You said it well, Egilman.  These are insane times.

[Egilman]

Well lookie what showed up in the mail today....

My cockpit parts! .......

 

And the Eduard Lockheed C-2 ejection seat.... look like I'm going to have plenty of PE to go in the parts box I didn't realize that they gave you a harness along with the seat... but anyway the seatbelt/harness set is a full complete set of harnesses than the set that came in the Brassin seat package. I'm going to have to figure out what I'm going to use and from where.... 

 

I should come out of this with a pretty complete detailed rocking chair for this bird....

 

Restarting this after a bit more research....

 

EG

[Old Collingwood]

Excellent  bet your like a little kid at christmas  (I would)   cant wait to see these added.

 

OC.

[mtaylor]

You're going to be very busy as well as very happy with all that PE.

[Egilman]

51 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

Excellent  bet your like a little kid at christmas  (I would)   cant wait to see these added.

 

OC.

Well it was kinda like christmas in June brother... Now comes the hard part.... (some of those parts are microscopic)

[Egilman]

31 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

You're going to be very busy as well as very happy with all that PE.

I hope it turns out well, that's a lot of tiny tiny parts......

[Canute]

They include 2 seat kits for the 1 seat? I'm assuming the dark grey widget is the seat rail or some other cockpit details.

[Egilman]

Ok, starting out on the cockpit...

Right off the bat, we have three different sets of parts to correlate with each other representing three different models.... I have the Hasegawa base kit from the '70's and an Eduard resin set from the early 2000's and two Eduard photoetch sets from the late 2010's.... All represent a "C" model F-104.... The photoetch sets are designed for two different Italeri models....

 

Problem, I need to fit them all together into a presentable arrangement that looks sorta like the real thing.....

 

These are the parts that make up the kit cockpit and the first part from the resin seat kit.....

Adding the kits rear cockpit bulkhead and fitting them into the fuselage side shows where the cockpit sits in relation to the rest of the parts. and yes the nose wheelwell locates the cockpit.... (also note that the upper portion of the ejection seat rails is molded onto the fuselage sides easy to remove but that make the locator reference for the aftermarket parts) the rail section in the above photo has to sit in the same place as the molded on part....

The rail section positioned over the fuselage side lining up the upper support section to find out where the floor needs to be located...

And the upper rail support structure looks to be in scale meaning that the rest of it is probably in scale also.... 

With this pic being taken at a slight angle the floor, wheelwell, (which locates fore and aft the cockpit floor) and the rear bulkhead in place, we line up the seat slide tracks and see where the end comes out.... It clearly appears to be longer than the kit parts so, the floor needs to be lowered. While the side panels remain at the current height in the cockpit...

 

First step will be to cut off the cockpit floor and find out just how much we need to add to the sides to get the correct height for the ejection seat kit to fit....

Looks like Hasegawa took a little designers license back in the 70's when they created the kit.... (they did mold the seat cushion into the floor though probably to make the manufacturing process easier) I suppose back in the '70's this was considered acceptable and it was the only game in town, but today, it just doesn't cut it....

 

So I will be cutting it....

 

Next up fitting up a new, rerranged cockpit....