Belgian F-104G Starfighter. Italeri with lot's of aftermarket WIP.

[PILOTE109]

wow !!!!!! it's really superb Danny work !!!!
The figure is tip top !!!!!!

[Guest DannyVM]

 

 

It is good to see the job you are doing with this model, it gives me hope with the Mirage I'm building. What did you used to weather the wheel bay? 

 

Paulo 

Paulo, thank's for the nice comment mate

 

To be honest regarding the wheelbay, just only a light wash of burnt umber oil paint (about 90% dilution and 10% paint)

 

 

 

I like it!  I like it a lot!!!

Thank's Jonathan, i'm glad you like it  

 

 

 

wow !!!!!! it's really superb Danny work !!!!

The figure is tip top !!!!!!

Thank's PILOTE109 for the nice comment

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[coolboxx]

Fantastic Danny, you make it look easy, some great skills, your work station looks awesome too.

[Guest DannyVM]

 

 

Fantastic Danny, you make it look easy, some great skills, your work station looks awesome too. 

Thank's allot for the nice comment coolboxx.

 

It's not so easy, that DACO paint gives me a real headache

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[timvkampen]

Impressive Danny, that 104 is coming along nicely as is its driver!! How did you make the decal for the helmet?

Best Tim

[Guest DannyVM]

 

Impressive Danny, that 104 is coming along nicely as is its driver!! How did you make the decal for the helmet?

Best Tim

Thank's Tim,

 

the decal came with the DACO Starfighter decal set.

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[Guest DannyVM]

Hi Guy's,

 

a painful update this time.

 

After some thinking i decided to give the Vietnam light green color an extra blast from the airbrush. I wasn't exactly satisfied of the previous result so an extra layer of paint would give better results.

 

The first session gave some very serious problems regarding the dilution of the DACO paint. I was able to dilute the paint, but still there where particles that stayed on the bottom of the jar, resulting in a constant obstruction of the airbrush.

 

This time, i took the proper arrangements to get a smooth working of the airbrush...............i thought......... 

 

First thing to do, get myself a mechanical mixing tool. I made a fondue fork into a mixing tool, and put it on my Dremel 

 

 

 

After mixing the paint, i thinned it with cellulose thinner and DACO thinner, just like DACO manual say's. After mixing and filtering the paint i poured some paint into a jar with cellulose thinner, and look's what happend within seconds.

 

 

 

Ok, second mixing of the diluted paint, about ten minutes, again filtering trough a nylon panty.

 

 

 

Still there's residu on the bottom of the jar........thirt mixing of the diluted paint and again filtering.     

 

 

 

 

It look's it get worser 

 

I did this with two different thinners, first one, the synthetic Humbrol thinner (suited for enamels) and second the cellulose thinner (stated in the DACO manual). Both gave the same result's, so final conclusion........bad paint??

[Guest DannyVM]

After some painstaking moments i still got a nice result.

 

 

 

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[James H]

Watching this with serious interest. 

 

The reasons will become apparent  

 

Super work on this, and you made my mind up to use the Eduard and not the CMK pit. 

[Guest DannyVM]

 

 

That reminds me of my experience using White Ensign several years ago. The stuff just would not stay in suspension and nearly ruined an airbrush as a result. Glad you got them to play nice. 

I know the DACO paint is in fact Xtra color, is White Ensign also from the same manufacturer or is it a brand on it's own??

 

 

Watching this with serious interest. 

 

The reasons will become apparent 

 

Super work on this, and you made my mind up to use the Eduard and not the CMK pit. 

Thank's James. Stay far away from the CMK and Aires cockpit set's, in my opinion use the Eduard PE and Eduard Brassin stuff and you will have a nice cockpit.

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[Guest DannyVM]

Hi Guy's,

 

finally, after some very busy weeks, after my dad passed away, i finally found some time back at the modelling bench.

My dad was also a fanatic modeler in the true sense of the word, so every minute i spend on my modeling bench is a tribute to him for the rest of my life.

 

OK, let's start......first thing i did, was to mask the canopy, inside and out.

 

 

 

For this i used the Eduard mask's, 2 set's

 

Then it was time to correct some mistakes i made in the Vietnam paint scheme regarding the camo pattern. Once this was done i used Vallejo gloss acrylic varnish prior for setting the decals.

 

 

 

 

This worked very well, it was the first time i used this after some good folks over here gave me their opinion about gloss and matt coats. 

 

Now the fun part start's, playing with decals .................DACO decals................ .............first time i use these, so i'm full of excitement.

 

First one in the row, the wing tip tanks, painted in Alclad II to get the hang of it.

 

 

No problem at all.

 

Second, the wing pylons

 

 

Again, all went well.

 

 

And then ................................start of the fuselage, bottom.

 

 

Still all went smooth, but over here i noticed that the DACO decals have a nasty way of setting onto the surface. I use Set & Sol, but it's a real painstaking proces to solve the decals onto the surface.

 

When i started the upper side of the fuselage i noticed some slightly silvering on some decals when i put them onto the dark green surface, when i used allot of Sol, this dissapeared a little, still i was not happy with this happening.

 

So to make a long story short, DACO paint and DACO decals are not my favorite anymore, but i leave the comment's to you, good folk's to see and judge about the result of my work from the last day's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank's for watching

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[JeroenPeters]

You're on a roll now Danny!

Lovely scheme and you handled that paint dilemma well!!

[Guest DannyVM]

 

You're on a roll now Danny!

Lovely scheme and you handled that paint dilemma well!!

Thank's Jeroen, for the encouraging word's, i really need them to move forward with this project, but, i will, i'm not starting anything else before this is finished  

 

Thank's mate.

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[Guest DannyVM]

Today i placed the last decals on the 104. 

 

I made some better photo's which i want to share with you guy's.

 

 

This particular machine was used at the Tactical Air Meet at RAF Wildenrath, Germany held on 5-14 june 1978.

 

 

All participating Belgian Starfighters carried a non-standard letter code on their tails, this particular machine was FX-76 and used the letter A.

 

 

Left side on the fuselage is decorated with some unit markings from other squadron and country's.

 

 

 

 

Upper view

 

 

Again, a close-up of the other non standard unit markings.

 

 

 

A dry-fit of the busy end.

 

 

Right side of the fuselage is decorated with some name's, and our national proud, a pack of Belgian fries.

 

 

 

 

Thank's for watching guy's.

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[Guest DannyVM]

Today, i scratch some extra details on the inside of the canopy.

 

The canopy's lock mechanism has some tubes and wires running along side the defogging tube which are very visible. Because they are not provided in the kit i made them from scratch myself, using some Evergreen plastic card, brass tubing and Ushi's excellent rigging wire.

 

 

 

 

 

Also the kit's mirrors where added to the frame work.

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[wackyracer]

Top work Danny, very impressive.

[Guest DannyVM]

 

 

Top work Danny, very impressive.

Thank's my friend,

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[Wingco57]

Wow that canopy detailing really looks great. No matter how well a model is made the eye always seems to be drawn

to details like this.

Cees

[Guest DannyVM]

 

 

Wow that canopy detailing really looks great. No matter how well a model is made the eye always seems to be drawn

to details like this.

Cees 

Thank's Cees,

 

This is one of those details that are really visible, so i thought it was a must have for this model.

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[Guest DannyVM]

I made a decision today regarding the ongoing problems with the Starfighter kit.

 

At the moment i packed the model with cello foil and put it in it's box for storage.

It go's from bad to really bad with the reaction of the wash onto the paint, so bad that i will have to repaint the whole model. I almost trowed it into the garbage bin.

So time for another project, I've had it with this model at the moment.

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[Beychevelle]

Sad to hear, it all looked so nice 

[JeroenPeters]

Glad you didn't bin it!

Shit happens... Good that you give it a rest.

 

Cheers

[timvkampen]

and did you finish?

[Guest DannyVM]

Not yet. It's still in it's box, shelved. 

 

Greetz

 

Danny

[Guest DannyVM]

I've been back to the modeling table with my F-104G Starfighter. Thought it was time to finish this, still not without problems. Since i used the DACO paint thing's kept going worse, and still today this paint reacts on everything i try to do on the surface. One good advice.....DON'T USE DACO PAINT IT'S ONLY GOOD FOR THE GARBAGE BIN. That said, this model is almost finished, still some thing's to do, but for now i try to tackle the fault's that are visible in the paint surface due to the above mentioned paint. Hopefully i can make something decent of it.