Depicted as a aircraft from JaboG 33 Luftwaffe in 1983. This is one of the kit options. it appealed as it has the iconic orange High viz tip tanks and that it has evidence of service with JaboG 31 and both sides of the intake.
The Kit
- 1/48 Kinetic T/F-104G F-104G Luftwaffe - Kit No KI-K48089
Aftermarket
- KASL Hobby Seats
- Wolfpack Resin Exhaust
- Eduard Wheels
- Eduard Mask Set
- Master Model Pitot Probe
- 3DPM Ladder
- CMK Pilot (for a Viggen)
Decals
- Kit decals - Main Markings
- JiraGIO Decal Placards (cockpit and seats)
- Anyz Decals (cockpit instruments)
- Airscale decals (cockpit instruments)
The Build
This is my second Kinetic Starfighter. The first was a F-104J. You can see it here.
The kit cockpit is pretty nice straight from the box. The one let down is a lack of decal for the instrument panel. While there are plenty of aftermarket options available I decided to go old Skool and use some of those decals I'd purchased specifically for this purpose.
The KASL Hobby are excellent and were a lot of fun to paint. Vallejo Acrylics were used for this task.
Noting how much is going to be seen the kit exhaust is probably fine. That said I had the Wolfpack Exhaust so I figured I’d use it. I painted it Tamiya Dark Iron. It needs a dry brush using Model Master Jet Exhaust enamel.
Painting
The underside was painted with decanted Tamiya AS 12 Bare Metal silver sprayed through the airbrush. After masking underside, AK Real Colours Bassalt Grey was sprayed covering its approximate areas on the upper side and fuselage. This went down without issues.
More masking and then it was Mr Color 12 Olive Drab. From the paints on hand this looked the closet I had to the correct colour. References showed a big variation in this colour ranging from green to brown.
A couple of days after pulling the masking off I noticed a
blemish in the underside paint. Closer
inspection revealed it wasn’t a blemish but a missing bit. I assume it stuck to the tape and not the
model when the masking was removed A search didn’t uncover it so I
assume it had made it to the bin. And the
bin men had been.
A quick look at the F-104J I'd built a few years back
revealed the J doesn't have this vent so into the spares box I went.
Result! That is a reason I keep old sprues of subjects I am intending to build multiples of.
Decals
Yet another Hamfisted moment, whilst putting the decals on I noticed I stuffed up where the radome colours are supposed to end. Thankfully an easy fix with some masking and quick repainting.
These are just the Kit decals which were excellent (no surprise as they are printed by Cartograph).They were applied over a gloss coat (unnecessary I know but that's how I roll) with Micro Set and Sol used to help then settle into the recessed detail. I find the Microscale products the best solutions to use with Cartograph decals. After a day or so to dry the decals were sealed with another coat of Gaianotes gloss.
Weathering
Weathering was done primarily with oils. First a wash was applied and then removed with a paper towel. This was then sealed with a flat coat (Gaianotes again) as I wanted the next lot of oil work to really stick to paint.
The ABT 502 oils Sepia, Raw Umber and industrial Earth (not shown), were first put on a piece of card to leach out the linseed oil. The AK oils are much drier so it was applied directly from the tube.
The oils were worked into panel lines and other areas where I could see built up grime on the reference photos. Thinned oil paint was also flicked of a brush using an old airbrush needle and the splatters worked in.
Final Steps
As usual the fiddly
bits like the undercarriage and canopies took way longer than I expect.
The main gear legs have nice positive attaching points and the Eduard wheels are keyed to match the kit legs. That’s a nice touch and I wish more aftermarket wheels were designed to match kit gear.
The attachment of the main gear doors are
less than ideal however. The rear doors attach
to the legs fine but where they attach to the fuselage the joint is just a butt
join with the thin edge of the door mating the thin edge of the main gear bay.
The main gear bay front doors are
also just butt joins between the door and main gear edges. These doors bleed open on the ground so you
need to leave a bit of gap. To provide
some support I used white tac rolled into a sausage shape and placed near the
join. I then used some Tamiya White Cap
Cement on the joins and then pressed the door into the white tac making sure
the joint between the door and fuselage is correct. This takes a bit of care
and patience but works. Once I had everything in the right place, I let these
set up over night
I use Tamiya White
cap glue often as its slow setting and thick so won’t run to places you don’t
want it to. I ditch the white cap brush
though and use a old Extra thin Brush.
The instructions also call out the doors without the bulges but my references showed the doors have the bulges so I used those.
The fitment of the nose gear leg was also problematic. The instructions imply that it sits down on a platform with 2 lugs mating into 2 holes. However, there are 2 ledges on the side of the gear bay in the way. These ledges look like where the gear should sit but I assumed the instructions were correct and removed them.
With the gear positioned as per the instructions the sit of the aircraft looked off so I ended up pulling the nose leg out a bit to correct the stance. It was glued to the side of the nose gear bar, funnily enough this was about where those ledges I'd removed were. Next time I will fit the gear onto these ledges.
The canopies have excellent detail that fits well as long as you fit the right parts to the right canopy. Of course, I misread the instructions and fitted all but the last piece before the penny dropped and figured out that I was fitting the forward canopy parts to the rear canopy and vice versa.
Thankfully I managed to unglue the parts and get fit them in the right place. Tamiya White cap glue was used to secure
these bits as its slow setting and thick so won’t run to places you don’t want
it to. The fit of the canopies to the
airframe needs a bit a fettling but overall, it’s good. Better than the single seater.
The kit also has
some PE for the canopy rails which is a nice touch.
The ladder is from 3DPM. It’s 3D printed and looks great but it took
ages remove the print supports.
The main bit of the
base is insulation foam. Pieces of 120
grit wet and dry were cut to the desired size and then glued to the base using
artists texture paste. A water based putty was used to fill the gaps between
the paper to depict the gaps in the concrete.
The base was then painted using various greys, browns etc. Splatter masks were used to add variation. Oils and enamels were then flicked off a brush onto the model to further dirty the concrete.
The base was lined
with plastic card and these were painted flat black.
The figure is
actually a Viggen Pilot from CMK. I know
the safety equipment is wrong but I wanted to paint him and put him to use.
Conclusions
Despite the issues outlined above with the undercarriage I really like these kits. They are pretty straight forward to assemble, overall fit is good and they are well detailed. There is also a good number of boxings all with nice schemes if aftermarket isn’t your thing.
The other area that could be improved are the instructions. I think there are a few issues in this boxing but I’m not a F-104 expert. The lack of colour profiles for the paint schemes is also annoying. These are supposed to be online but Kinetic don’t appear to have got to these as yet.
All that said there are at least another 4 or 5 in my future.
The Photos
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