"Century Series" #4 F-104G Kinetic (Gold)

I had a shelf for this, but it was not large enough, so I added another, and another. Over half of the closet is now dedicated to my ~10 works-in-progress, the ~5 that are truly shelved and might not be dealt with, and the entire stash.

Honestly this one was never given up on, I just lost one of the wings.

Yeah.

More on that at a later date, but suffice to say this kit is 100% Kinetic except for the wings which are Hasegawa ;-)

Definitely a long story and it moves into what Littlemarten was asking.

However, I cannot answer which kit is better. This is my 1st and only experience with Kinetic, overall very positive, but is that because it is a "gold" edition, is it a newer one and older kits from Kinetic are shoddy? I cannot say. The Hasegawa wings are very nice, 4 parts each, which is amazing since these are more like fins than wings (if you ever get to touch an F-104, the wings are super-thin and sharp-edged), but they also show rivets which the Kinetic kit sorta declined to bother with.

To solve my missing wing situation I bought two partial kits off egay for ~$30, interestingly one of the two was also missing a wing, the same one in fact.
So you are building on a wing and a prayer … :D
 
I do not envy the stash. But I stand in amazement that you can live with one build at a time. My near-deadly combo-disease of OCD & ADHD cause me to have several in action at once. But staying busy/active is part of my medicine!

Technically I can spend many months, or a year building a kit, and still do 10-15 a year.
OCD and ADHD are nothing to sneer at, and anything you can do to keep them at bay is a good thing!

10 to 15 a year!!! I'm lucky to do one or two. This is due to other demands on my time, both "non-negotiable" medical stuff, other obligations, other important pursuits, and partially to perfectionism. (I'm a retired scientist. "Good enough" does not exist in my world until it reaches the fifth decimal place, at least. My form of OCD.)

So I salute you, sir, both for your abilities and your adaptability—which is the key to life, itself. Sierra Hotel!
 
I'm slowly getting up to speed with these new brands, new to me since I did not buy a kit from about 1997 to 2024. Used to just be Revell, Monogram, and Tamiya. At least that was all I'd built.

The Trumpeter USS Texas is pretty crappy. Seeing all kinds of fitment issues, some tied to the molds I think. Flash is not too bad but the instructions are trash and there's ZERO information about the ship.

Similar story with the Hobby Boss F-105. The intakes are just hollow holes, the two main ones at the wing roots, but also the one on the tail. Just big holes that show the insides of the fuselage. The cockpit tub fit into the fuselage well enough, but there's a huge gap between the side consoles and the side panels, like 3/16 or 1/4 inch! Surface detail was good. But even basic stuff like the ordinance mounting system was not accurate with the subject matter.

This is my first ever Kinetic kit, and it is really nice. I assumed that was because of the "gold" label and that it was retooled in 2019.

I acknowledge that I make a mistake to assume all kits from these brands are the same. But these three are the only examples I have to know from experience where they fall in the quality scale.
Your IP looks good to me. I built a Kineitic 104 as a YF-104A; and it is one of my favorites!
 
Made some decisions today, they'll irk the super-realism types, at least a little bit.

I've been pouring over photos of the 104 for a few days, I'm really liking the bright orange on the wingtip fuel tanks. But the specific aircraft I have the stickers for (22+39 from JaboG 34 "Allgau" 1984-87) I could only find a few pics and none of them had the orange. So I figure if I'm gonna fake that accuracy-detail with what I think is cooler looking, I'm leaving the underside bare metal. It seems about half of the Luftwaffe 104s had that, and the other half (including my subject) used a light blue-gray.

With that in mind, I laid down some surfacer-1500 and AK Extreme aluminum paint. I do like the way it sprays!

1745272423405.png

1745272442488.png
 
The green turned really dark with a gloss coat, gray is raw and will darken considerably.

1745461139308.png

I tried mixing an orange, but ended going with the old square bottled Testors, I think it works. Definitely a better color than what I was making.

1745461232538.png
1745461274848.png

Just stuck on there, no glue.
 
When doing the splinter camo on WWII birds I typically painted the entire aircraft in the lighter color then oversprayed the pattern with the darker one. Looking back I do not remember why I decided to not do that here, guess I'd say I'm just trying all sorts of new things. But...I can see some black MLT showing through small gaps between the two colors. Do not think this dude can abide.

1745527938250.png

I'll do what I always do, put it aside for a day/week/month while I decide on a direction. I usually come up with solutions at 2-4AM lying in bed awake after one of my frequent nighttime trips to the john :)

You can see what I mean in the pictures above, so if you have suggestions, I'm listening.
 
When doing the splinter camo on WWII birds I typically painted the entire aircraft in the lighter color then oversprayed the pattern with the darker one. Looking back I do not remember why I decided to not do that here, guess I'd say I'm just trying all sorts of new things. But...I can see some black MLT showing through small gaps between the two colors.

I'll do what I always do, put it aside for a day/week/month while I decide on a direction. I usually come up with solutions at 2-4AM lying in bed awake after one of my frequent nighttime trips to the john :)

You can see what I mean in the pictures above, so if you have suggestions, I'm listening.
Paint the lightest color first, no masking, just make sure it covers the complete area that is to be that color. Cure it thoroughly. Mask for the next darkest color so that it overlaps the first color by a very small amount, like 1/32 inch or less. When that is fully cured, mask the same way for the next darkest color, again leaving a very small overlap. Because you are applying darker paint each time, the overlaps should not show.
 
Looking good! I'm also interested in that B-25!
The Mitchell has been a love-hate thing for me. Kit is from the '90s, made by Accurate Miniatures, I bought it for like $15 at our local IPMS show. I do not think I've posted much of anything here because of the problems I've had. Many of the issues were my fault, but the kit has the worst fit on major components I've seen in a long time. I'm gonna put a dullcoat on it (and the Starfighter) today to seal the stickers.

Stickers have been a real issue for me lately, working through old or cheap/shoddy kits. See the JU88 thread for an example. I was worried about the B-25 since it is both old and from a bankrupt manufacturer who appears to have cut many corners. But the decals were okay, a bit thick perhaps, but also very sparse, only a few to apply, which might be accurate for North Africa, I have not spent a lot of time with that theater or medium bombers in general.

Here's the 104 after finishing the stickers. There were no issues whatsoever with this one from kinetic. I know it is wrong to come to conclusions about a manufacturer based on one kit, this was the first Kinetic I've ever built and it was splendid. Upon closer examination I understand why the stickers were so nice...Cartograph!

1746291585963.png
1746291606067.png

1746291623040.png

How well they setup can be hard to photograph, I think I can show it this way, look how well they adhered to the surface!

1746291713164.png
 
Nice model! I can only see one small problem with it from a realism point of view, though. Compare it to this photo of a real German Starfighter in its natural habitat:

2705_accident_1979_newspaperNLX.jpg

This was TF-104G No. 27+05 that crashed on 13 November 1979. The caption for the photo reads:
Pilots saved • The tail section of a wing [sic] is all that remained of a West-German Starfighter F-104 G, after the plane buried itself in a field near the base in northern Germany. The two pilots managed to save themselves using their parachutes. One of them broke a leg in the process.
(source)

There apparently used to be a joke in Germany: "What's the quickest way to obtain a Starfighter?" "Buy a piece of land and wait for one to crash on it."

Also, I found your subject on the site that comes from:
14 August 1986F-104G22+39JBG34GAFwritten offpilot ok

This Starfighter encountered an engine failure (compressor stall) South of Hopsten and managed to reach Hopsten Air Base where it made an emergency landing using his arrestor-hook. The pilot requested to land on "01" but the runway was open on "19" so he had to move to that direction to approach for landing. It landed high speed (BLC not working) and took the barrier after his brake chute failed with 200 kts. The pilot could step out of the aircraft unhurt. Afterwards it was declared damaged beyond economical repair on 8 October 1986 mainly because the end of the F-104 operations within JBG34 was near. The aircraft stayed at Hopsten where it was used as BDRT or fire-practise airframe. In 1995 it was cut in three parts and damaged heavily due to CFE agreements and sold in parts. In October 1995 it arrived with PS Aero at Baarlo where they tried to weld it all together again, but the challenge was too big and lots of good F-104 fuselages were obtained via VEBEG soon after so they decided to have the 22+39 being scrapped by a local scrap dealer in May 2003. Beneath a photo taken in a bit shed at the PSAero location after the remains had been welded together.

22+39_BaarloX.jpg
 
I just bought the F-104A/C from Kinetic Gold. The stars in the US insignia are incorrect, too small and aligned with the bottom of the blue roundel—and they are from Cartograph! What's up with that?
 
I don't think the decal manufacturer has anything to do with that — they just print what the kit manufacturer gives them.
 
I don't think the decal manufacturer has anything to do with that — they just print what the kit manufacturer gives them.
That may be true, but Cartographic is supposed to be one of the best (or was). Yes, I know the kit is made in the PRC, but they probably know better than some in the US, what a US insignia looks like. I wonder if it's worth the time to try to contact them.
 


Write your reply...

Latest posts

Back
Top