F-104C Starfighter "Blue Jay Four" 1/32nd Scale, Italeri #2515, by Egilman

[Egilman]

20 hours ago, mtaylor said:

That engine definitely looks like it just came out of overhaul...   cleaned but also discolored from the heat. 

Thank you Mark, that was what I was hoping for, I have put it in the case next to the F-4J so it is out of the way and kinda fits the presentation... (I know it's not the correct model for the airplane though)

 

Man that is some rough training, but required to stay proficient...

[Egilman]

20 hours ago, king derelict said:

The finished engine is superb. It would be a sin to hide it in the aircraft. The subtle colour variations on the casings makes it look very real. Exactly how they look when they come off the test stand

Alan

Thanks Alan, I've gotten it off the bench and into the display case to keep it from getting damaged... now figuring out how to mount the other tail cone into the tail when the time comes... Probably going to use the engine from the old one as the support for it so it sits in the right place... I'm happy with the way it turned out...

[Egilman]

15 hours ago, lmagna said:

Mostly they seemed most interested in filling the right back door with a warm body. Pretty much the way everything went in the Army I guess.

A lot of it was like that back then, sign on the dotted line and we can do whatever we want with you...

 

The thing is, given what they advertise today, a lot of it back then was OJT, "Hey we gots this job to fill here it's pretty dangerous who's the next guy in line?;, does he have any experience?;, Nooooo.... well stick him in there any way and educate him on it!;, YES SIR!!! ... "Hey son, come over here,, You have been assigned to me,, have I got a job for you......."

[Egilman]

3 hours ago, FriedClams said:

Very nice progress Egilman - the engine looks great, and I like the way the landing gear turned out as well.  Keep it up.

 

Gary

Thanks Gary, my luck is holding for now....

 

Will do my best...

[Egilman]

3 hours ago, lmagna said:

Oh come on Ken. You know you miss SOME of it. People pay perfectly good money to do many of those things.

Yep, thousands of dollars a pop... and will travel halfway around the world for the opportunity... all on their own dime....

 

But I imagine doing it 4 times a year can get to be old quickly as well...

Edited February 21, 2022 by Egilman

[lmagna]

39 minutes ago, Egilman said:

But I imagine doing it 4 times a year can get to be old quickly as well...

Four times a  year! Hell, we didn't even qualify with our weapons that many times! I think I requalified with my .45 pistol once while I was in country, and never with my M-16 or M-60. It was during monsoon when we had more than the normal no fly days and they had no idea what to do with us. Heaven forbid a little extra sleep or warm chow on time would have been on their minds.

 

I was lucky I guess in that I arrived in country after Tet and door gunners had taken it a little heavy at that time and there was a shortage. Someone figured that it was just like a gunner on any vehicle except you flew. How hard could that be? They were asking for volunteers and the idea of flying interested me. I gave no thought to the landing part. The common joke of the time I found out later was "How long is the life expediency of a door gunner from the time they take off to the time they ALMOST land?" I personally never found it all that hard and never regretted my impulsive choice. I am certain that others may have found it a case of YMMV. The other joke, "Taking off in a normal manner is required, landing intact is only desired." Did hold true.

[Canute]

Ah, but did your landings match your takeoffs? Luckily for me, mine did.

 

We figured it was small price to pay, doing all the egress/life support training. Uncle Sam was paying us to fly the top of the line fighter in air to air training.

 

We rarely fired missiles (6 deployments for weapons system evaluations), although we shot  both radar and infrared when we dieployed, And I did shoot an anti-radar missile in SEA, during Linebacker II. Whoopity doo.😉

[mtaylor]

Some things back then really didn't (and still don't to me) make sense.  Like strapping enlisted into the Dunker.  Enlisted never flew sitting in an ejection seat.  I can see the parachute training (I had to actually do one successful ljumpfrom an cargo bird along with the rest of the Aviation class (all enlisted) in Memphis.   Had to qualify on our T.O. weapon... M-14 until I got to Nam.  Do that once a year.   Pistol? Machine gun? Other weapons?  All OJT.  I was able to dial in my pistol and rifle at the beach range over there.  The .50 was "pull the trigger and watch the tracers while returning fire.  Some never got to figure it out.

 

Hell, they were sending us out on perimeter patrol without anyone ever sighting in their weapons.    I've heard today's troops get more gun time and training on their weapons.  I hope so for all their sakes.

[lmagna]

3 hours ago, Canute said:

And I did shoot an anti-radar missile in SEA, during Linebacker II. Whoopity doo.😉

If you fired an anti radar missile it would indicate that you were flying Wild Weasel, in which case it was a big Whoopity doo. At least in my book. The idea of intentionally playing flying target always seemed counter intuitive to me.

 

3 hours ago, mtaylor said:

  I've heard today's troops get more gun time and training on their weapons.  I hope so for all their sakes.

We got plenty of practice with our M-16s here in the states prior to deployment, (I only fired an M-14 once in basic) but then we left them here and were reissued rifles when we were assigned to our duty stations in country. Luckily I never relied on mine all that much. It was beat to hell already when it was issued to me. Functioned OK I suppose, but looked like it had been through the wringer. Which it possibly had. Never did much of anything with the .45 except carry it and clean it.

[Canute]

Lou, I was in a Hunter-Killer team during Linebacker II. Mostly carried CBUs, 2 Sparrow air to air missiles, 2 jammer pods and a fully loaded gun. The Shrike antiradar missile (ARM) was to make the North Vietnamese (and their Russian SAM trainers) think a Weasel had expended one of his rounds. I think we may have done it twice? The crazier idea was dropping flares over Hanoi at night to see the SAM sites.That place was so lit up from their air defenses that the flares were redundant. I don't think the proposer ever flew up North, so had no clue as to what he was doing. I remember the team leads telling him we would need 8 extra jets to do it and that was enough to convince them not to do it. We were pretty maxed out with maintaining 2 sets of crews for both day and night ops over the North. And the USN was faced with similar issues, so we couldn't beg for their help.They were hitting targets an hour or two either side of our strike packages going in. That's when the NVA finally relented.

 

That was cathartic. 😃

[Baker]

Nice work 👍

Great stories 👍

And learned through google what "OJT" means 😂

 

[Egilman]

One of the great things about this forum, the living history...

 

Thank you all for your service...

[Canute]

It was an honor to serve. The fast jets were a bonus.😁

[lmagna]

17 hours ago, Canute said:

That was cathartic. 😃

Nice choice of wording. Is it anything like the feeling of tightening posterior muscles and everything slows down to a crawl?   If so I think I have had a few cathartic moments as well! Possibly without the added bonus of the high speed............ Well over 120 knots anyway.

Edited February 23, 2022 by lmagna

[Canute]

Do you mean cutting donuts in the seat cover, Lou? And yes, speed is life, at least in flying combat aircraft.

 

We sat on a piece of cloth on top of the ejection seat kit. No padding because the little amount of padded space would allow the seat to accelerate beyond what a human tailbone could withstand. Broken hips anyone?

[mtaylor]

6 hours ago, Canute said:

 And yes, speed is life, at least in flying combat aircraft.

Very true.  And if you don't have speed, have maneuverability.  Preferably both. 

[lmagna]

1 hour ago, mtaylor said:

have maneuverability.

We did have that, and 120 knots seemed fast when you are five feet or less from the tree tops, or better yet below the tree tops cutting grass with the main blade!

[popeye the sailor]

Wow.....the engine looks really good     yep....agree.......shame to hide it in the fuselage.  progressing quite well!

[Egilman]

10 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

Wow.....the engine looks really good     yep....agree.......shame to hide it in the fuselage.  progressing quite well!

Thanks Dennis

 

Yep I've decided to keep it outside since they give you a very nice and accurate engine stand as well... It's already on my display shelf next to my F-4J....

 

I'm using the old Hase engine to support the tail cone so it looks right in a closed up fuselage....

 

Still working out which direction I need to go from here, I have to depart from the instructions build sequence cause to prime the fuselage flat black would mean having to mask off a ton of already completed fine detail... If I follow the build sequence... So I'm working out a way to get them primed before I assemble the fuselage... flat black should be easy to fix if I damage any of it before laying down the finish... (I have individual clear formation lights to tint and install as well before assembly, so it would be easier to prime it first...

 

It's not going to be as easy as the Hasegawa fuselage for sure...

[Egilman]

Hey Brothers...

Today the weather got warm enough so the Shop could be successfully heated by the wood stove sufficient for painting...

 

I took all the major parts that will need a metal finish and primed them with Testors Flat Black....

 

It went down very smooth and even...

 

Getting ready soon for the first major construction...

 

Onwards...

[Egilman]

Ok Brothers, I'm still here..

Was a bit under the weather again so I took the opportunity do so some research into F-104's and Paul Coudyrette's Rub n Buff Technique... 

Found a lot of pics of his models especially his Bare Metal birds... It appears to me that he's built most of the various manufacturers bare metal aircraft models, in his 50+ year modeling career, including the B-58, the B-25, the B-17 and all the various fighter aircraft... He was a master of brushwork/fingerwork, never used an airbrush, in fact he didn't even own one... You will see why I want to learn this technique...

These are all Paul's builds... Yeah, that's what I said as my jaw was breaking when it hit the floor... Unfortunately there is no tutorial on his technique and he passed some six years ago...  Of the numerous requests in the forums he frequented was to do a tutorial, he would always say he explained his method in other forums/threads, occasionally giving a hint of what he does, but never in detail... I did find one post where he outlines his technique, (probably cause he got tired of answering the questions over and over) but then when you spend decades figuring out how to do something like we see above, it is time to admire and not question... (I also found a post on what he uses for those colored heat stains on RnB and pretty much all his tinting for BMF's)

There is a video of his technique being demonstrated but it is in French and although it does show the finish as applied in basic technique, it doesn't go into a lot of detail in what was happening while doing it or how to finish it off...

 

So I need to do some more testing... I want to make sure I understand his technique fully and that was his advice, try, try and more try... He was willing to point the way, but he stated more than once that the best way to learn it was to try it and experiment, just like he did over 60 years of modeling...

 

I think that is why you don't see very many models done this way (almost none except his) No one is willing to do the work to learn and perfect his technique...

 

Paul Coudyrette, A master modeler, maestro with a paintbrush.....

 

Anyway, This is my next step...

Yeah putting the main fuselage halves together without doing too much damage to the painted finish... This is alternative 2 because I'm leaving the engine out, in fact I'm thinking through how I want to present this plane again... Feeling a bit uncomfortable with the everything open look, it's not my style... So I think I'm gonna go back to the image of what she shows in the video and let it be that....

 

Like she returned from a successful mission...

 

Anyway onwards, testing won't take too long... and I'll probably do a few simple parts first like the wing tanks just to make sure I got it right...

 

 

 

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Egilman

[Egilman]

Ok Brothers, my first not so scientific test... Remember the old turret top I used the last time? well I used it again cause the top was un touched and the ideal is putting RnB over bare plastic...

The section covering the hatch & behind the cupola, back to the storage bin... The half behind the cupola to the end of the turret, (not including the bin) was daubed with a q-tip dunked in Future and allowed to dry...

The coloration did darken a smidgen not enough to really notice and the reflection remains..... That semi test came out well so I figured I would try it on a plain white scrap of model plastic....

In real life, you can read the lettering in the reflection... That's straight Rub N Buff took all of two minutes to apply... 

 

It seals with Future and it produces the exact same polished surface on plastic you see in Paul's pics of his models...

 

Excellent!!!! Need to practice a few more times to get a better feeling for it, but what is said about it is true, you want a natural metal finish that actually looks like metal in real life this is the product to do it... There is no paint that will do this...

[Egilman]

Another small update... Testing continues...

 

Two things I learned, you get a nice soft reflection off flat paint, you get a shinier reflection off a shiny coating...

That is .020 styrene sheet with a brush on coat of future allowed to dry completely... This is close to the finish on a standard issue bare metal bird... and what it tells me is shinier finishes work better for shiny metal, flat finishes work better for unpolished metal.... Now future is not a super shiny smooth finish, it is a smooth semi gloss finish... So what I'm going to do tomorrow is split the other side of this sheet and paint half of it with high gloss black over Tamiya grey primer from rattle cans and on the other end rattle can a diamond finish after smoothing the surface down to as smooth as possible... Glass like I hope...

 

The smoother the surface the shinier the RnB buffs up is what I think happens....... The reflection above, I can see myself in it from about two feet away, just a blur mind you but you do know it is you when you move around... You can tell and arm is an arm a hand is a hand, but you cannot pick out details...  From about a foot away, I can see my face, blurry, but you can see it... Better the second time around I think...

 

Now I'm beginning to wish I didn't prime the plane parts flat black... cause I might have to change them to gloss...

 

Till tomorrow brothers...

Edited March 3, 2022 by Egilman

[Canute]

Guys painting bare metal finishes from Alclad favor a dark gloss gray rather than gloss black. But definitely a smooth gloss finish under your selected metal finishes.

[Egilman]

Thanks Ken, I'm still trying to follow Pete's method and learning some of what he said in his brief notes on his technique... And yes he does say black gives a greater depth of color than lighter colors for polished aluminum, Grey works for unpolished aluminum.. He also wrote that once you've put RnB down and buffed it out, if you put a dull overcoat over it it looks like raw aluminum. and if you put a gloss coat over it it looks like aluminum paint...  there is a few other things like future, (he called it klear) will seal it with minimum discoloration, (good for decals and painted details) Although decals will go over RnB directly, setting solutions don't bother it...

 

I did find out one thing...

Hand and finger oils will take it off after repeated handling, and it doesn't take much handling as you can see above... So I'm looking at handling with nitrile gloves and sealing with future, once your happy with the finish, being mandatory...

Here is the other side of the sheet which I've prepped with gloss black and testors ultra clear over tamiya grey primer....

This is for the second step of the initial testing which I will report here... then I will have to test this on an actual model... So I went to HL today and purchased a fairly inexpensive kit to test this on...

This kit has been out a while cause I built it several decades ago... Not so expensive as it will hurt if I screw it up but presentable if it comes out right... and fits the scale of my other builds so it won't be out of place on the shelf... Once this last sheet test is done and reported I will be shifting to it as an OOB test of the method on a complete model, I do not want to screw up over 200.00 worth of F-104 cause I don't really know what I'm doing...

Second test coming up...

 

Onwards...

 

EG

Edited March 4, 2022 by Egilman

[Egilman]

Ok I think I'm ready for my first airframe....

Natural light....

High Flash...

That's over Tamiya Grey Primer... you do want a smooth finish before you apply it and you want to apply it very very thin, a little bit does the trick, AND once you have applied it and buffed it up stay off it... You do not want to add more cause it will muck it up... That's sufficient for an inservice bird that receives a modicum of maintenance every once in a while...

 

So I'm going to give it a shot on the Revell P-51 OOB... A quick build just to validate the system I have in my mind... 

I'll start a new thread and handle the 51 in it's own thread and link from here to there and back when done.... (understanding the point of the 51 is to test this and not produce a finished model, although I will try to make it as good as I can) I will cover what I'm doing with the 51 in it's thread...

 

I like it... Right now Silver Leaf Rub n Buff put down real thin with a gloved finger and rubbed in, on a glossy grey smooth surface, then lightly polished with Tee Shirt cloth then overcoated with Future... that the technique I'll be doing...

 

See ya there...

 

EG

Edited March 4, 2022 by Egilman

[Canute]

Nice work, EG. And Klear is/was the name for Future on the other side of the Pond.

[king derelict]

Looks very promising Egilman. The test pieces look great.

Alan

[Old Collingwood]

Same as our other brothers have said  - it looks  really  good   like a mirror   - looking forward to see that on the Star.

 

OC.

[FriedClams]

Thanks for walking us through the testing and trials on the simulated bare metal finish Egilman.  You've done your due diligence and I appreciate your sharing the formula with us.  I look forward to seeing it applied to a model.  Wise choice to test it out on the sacrificial P-51 - because you just never know what can happen.

 

Gary