Nyhetsflöde

Spanjaard
it seems you succeeded 🙂

Nils Steyaert
and im off, but its been a rocky start.
i was planning on adding some ejectionhandles to the bangseats, but they are to small and i just couldnt get them right. the tinwire im using just didnt want to get into shape. o i decided to drop that idea and just ad 2 pilot figures (from a set of cheap n-scale figures i got online).

also, im filming the whole thing to make a youtube inbox review and build video.

the first main change was the nose, the E-Model nose was removed and replaced with a more fitting nose, salvaged from an old 80's/90's Revell Tornado IDS kit.

Nils Steyaert
Update,

the pilot figures have been painted and added to the cockpit. i have scratchbuilt a new nosewheel legg, using 2mm styrene tube and a 1mm sewing needle (was stronger then the thin plastic). this is to give the aircraft a higher AoA for catapult launch (F-4K nose can extend by 40 inches, which in 1/144 is roughly 1cm). the canopy has been glued on with UV resin glue (transparent curing).

ive also salvaged some Skyflash and Sidewinder missiles from the sparesbox (leftovers from a pair of old Revell Gripens), i will be looking into scratchbuilding some launchrails for the inert pylons.

ive also added a Marconi RWR antenna on the tail.

so far, so good...

Nils Steyaert
Update:

i just finished making the Spey engine exhaustcans, but i rran into a problem with the decals i had. the roundels on the decalsheet were either too small or too big. but i managed to source some correctly sized ones from a Revell 1/144 Hawker Hunter kit. ive also sourced some white bort number from a DACO 1/72 Mirage 5B and (R)F-84F decalsheets.

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat, of course!
(Perhaps the transparencies and propellers from this kit would work:
Soviet Tu-2 Bomber (HobbyBoss 80298, 1:72))

Thomas Kolb
Thank you Robert! The three-bladed standard propellers in the kit are actually fine, it is the transparencies I am a bit worried about.

Łukasz Gliński
Me 2, must watch this - wondering how good/bad this kit is

Dave Flitton
Watching!!

J35J
Me 3, this will be another great build to follow.

Cuajete
Me 5!
I still don't understand why they haven't released a more updated tool for this model yet.

Moreno Baruffini
Thomas, you are a specialist in reminding me the models I started and non finished (yet)! Super inspiring, and a great build to follow for sure!

Thomas Kolb
Dear friends, thank you for your interest. I am a bit curious myself how this model will turn out - I have read some pretty nasty things about it in reviews, but I am not sure it's so bad. It certainly looks very intricately designed, not your usual shake 'n' bake kit for sure.

Gergő Takács
Thomas, you are doing always the same project what I want to do in the future with the same kits. 😀 I'm always taking a seat and save your work for motivation.

Finn
I'm in

Łukasz Gliński
Thomas, your tutorial is priceless! 👍

Mr D
Like this 👍👍
Big fan of soviet n russian stuff, will have to look up history on this one as new to me.
Interesting subject, Nice 😁

Cuajete
Good start, Thomas. Thank you so much for your tutorial 👍

Thomas Kolb
I must say, I am pretty impressed with this kit so far. At first sight it looked like an Amodel kit, but everything is very cleverly designed and all parts fits together beautifully without any problems. The only gripe I have is with the plastic itself - it's very soft and stretchy and definitely does not like to be sanded.

Nicolas
Nice start, joining.

Живко Джаков
I'm here too. I have one in a box and we only see each other with it 🙂

Cuajete
Great job so far, Thomas 👍
I never bought this kit because I thought it would be difficult to deal with.

Thomas Kolb
Cuajete, I must say, I am pretty impressed with this kit so far. At first sight it looked like an Amodel kit, but everything is very cleverly designed and the parts almost fall together by themselves without any problems. The only gripe I have is with the plastic itself - it's very soft and kind of stretchy, and all sanding needs to be followed by polishing to result in a smooth surface.

Cuajete
Thanks, Thomas. I'll have to consider buying the latest ICM box 👍.

Cuajete
Good progress, Thomas 👍

Mr D
Looking good 👍, the canopy is fine, be ok when all printed up, fits fuselage well, the canopy on the Revell FW-190 l did was horrendous!! Would be good for bathroom privacy glass 🤣.
What glue do you use to fix canopy??

Thomas Kolb
Mr D, Thank you! I used regular Revell styrene cement (the blue one with the needle tip). Just added a string of solvent around the fuselage edges and then placed the canopy on. I normallt use water-based cement for transparencies to avoid fogging, but if you are careful, it's not a problem to use solvent based cement.

Mr D
Brilliant thank you 👍👍

Thomas Kolb
Using the precut masks would be so much easier if they actually fit the model... But the flight deck glasshouse parts seem to be designed for a different kit, so I am back to using Tamiya masking tape.

Guy Rump
Looking great! 👍

Cuajete
I agree with Guy 👍

Martin Oostrom
Take your time with the decals. They're a pain in the …

nikfrost
Wheels look really good!

nikfrost
Great job on this, bet it looks really good on the shelf

Robert Podkoński
Wow! This is going to be a true masterpiece... Watching with pleasure and interest!

Ben M
🤯

CaptGPF
That PE work is insane! Gotta watch this!

Michael Kohl
Very interesting project

Pietro De Angelis
😲

gorby
Looks very interesting build.

Desert Marlin
Oh, very nice!

Hanno Kleinecke
Hell(cat) yeah ! 👍

Mr D
Wow 😲 brilliant 👌👌👍

John Thomas
Very nice work

Desert Marlin
Okay, that's getting crazy good!

Guy Rump
Looking great, following. 👍

Ben M
👀

Shar Dipree
Looks good so far.

M0rce
Taking a seat 😀

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

Jan Janssen
Unusual subject wonder how it builds up, #following

Mr D
Thanks Jan 👍will update through build.
It's from the 1990's

Mr D
Thanks for the likes 😁👍 it's interesting to see how a 33 year old kit builds up ??

David R. Meizoso
Beautiful subject, I'm also in!

Guy Rump
Following. 👍

Mr D
Thanks Grumpy Guy 👍👍 bit of a different one..

Skyhiker
Very nice

Ben M
👀

Mr D
Ben👋😀👍

Neil
Really nice work Mr D 💯 Following 👍

Mr D
Great Neil, 👋😀.... Thanks

J35J
Great progress! Following👍🏻

Edouard Carr
Great idea about the watch pins! ⌚ Definitely gonna try this out on my builds. Looking forward to the finished result.

Mr D
Hi Edouard👋😀👍.
Yes l just get cheap ones of eBay, the do different sizes, you can pull ends n spring out for barrel look, or file ends last to have a recoil cannon look.
The gun turret nearly there now....lots of sanding n filling low spot.
Thanks for looking in on build.👍👍

Michael Kohl
Following

Mr D
Thanks Michael 👋😀👍
Good to have you along ✈️

Zbynek Honzik
I'm very curious to see the result. I built this model as a young boy too.

Mr D
Hi Zbynek 👋🙂👍.
Thanks for your interest. Nice to know you had it too, l built X3 the Tu airliner and the bomber. But this was my favourite as l liked the shape and that it had floats n guns.
Got part of tail on this evening.
Keep looking in for updates 😃👍👍

Mr D
Airliner Was the Tu-134

Guy Rump
Looking good, following. 👍

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat here as well 😉

Roland Sachsenhofer
An ambitious project: I am building this TF-104 in Italian colours for a friend. The two-seater starfighter brings a welcome and extremely good-looking change to the currently somewhat corrugated metal-dominated modelling scene! In the cockpit of this beautiful Hasegawa kit you can see Eduard's cockpit interior made from etched parts.

Vincent
This already looks great!

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you Vincent!

Roland Sachsenhofer
I've just realised that it's been a while since my last update here, so here are a few new pictures! This is the current state this morning, but today Gunze H 308 will also be applied over everything as a surface colour for the attractive Italian machine. The build itself, a friendship build for a friend, will be built with the Eduard etched parts out of the box except for the cockpit.

Roland Sachsenhofer
The Starfighter in the smart Italian colours is slowly but surely crossing the finish line: now all that remains to be done is to put the finishing touches to the last few areas that still need attention or correction. These include the position lights, which still need to be sealed with Klearfix, and a few traces of dirt and wear on the underside. Hasegawa's F-104 is still a beautiful kit that forms a good basis. However, I did a lot of upgrading on the seats and especially on the inside of the open cockpit canopies, using wire, etched parts and Tamiya masking tape. At least it now looks better than before! 🙂

Jakub Fiala
It looks perfect, to me 👍

Michael Kohl
The Italians squeezed the last drop out of the Starfighter. Beautiful model you build.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Jakub and Michael, your comments are very appreciated, thank you both!

Juergen Klinglhuber
Boa,.....😉 oder wie die Nicht-ÖO sagen würden WOW
Sehr fesch geworden.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thanks Jürgen, the 'boah-wow' is very appreciated! 🙂
I will send you a few pictures of the now really finished TF-104G later. This was a very nice, refreshing project for me without long sanding and filling sessions but, despite the solid Hasegawa quality, with a certain amount of scratch-built parts. I did the modelling of the two open cockpit canopies myself, as these should not remain empty when they are shown open.
I don't think this will be the last build of this fascinating aircraft!

Mr James
So very good. The last few pics look so realistic. This is excellent paint and weathering.

Robert Podkoński
Awesome photos indeed, and the fantastic model.

Guy Rump
Initially, I thought the photo was the real thing, awesome modelling and photography. 👍

Rui S
Excellent interiors 👍

Anthony Flanagan
Well done! 👍👍👍

Alberto Traverso
thanks!

Trez Mackenzie
Great build but I prefer to see the interior through the hatches

Why is the turret stuck up in the air?

Neuling
Top work on interior. A very good build!

Trez Mackenzie
Not with the turret half blown off. Also author needs to add the expensive cheat Fruil tracks smh. Waste of money

Sebastian Meyner
Very well done Alberto 👍

Alberto Traverso
Thank you Trez, I didn't put the chassis and turret together, I left everything separate just to appreciate the interior's details that can't be seen thru the hatches on the hull and the turret.
Only the spare tracks are friul, left overs from another build. The main tracks are original kit's tracks

Alberto Traverso
Thank you Neuling

Alberto Traverso
Thank you Sebastian 👍

Mr James
Lovely camo paint work.

Alberto Traverso
Thank you James

Guy Rump
Very impressive. 👍

Alberto Traverso
Thanks GuyRump 👍