The kit…
So let’s have a quick look in the box before we start. We have 10 sprues in light grey styrene and one sprue of clear parts, all separately bagged.
Detail in the main undercarriage bay is quite nice.
Surface detail on fuselage and tail has riveting, which at first glance looks a bit deep, but with primer and topcoats I believe it will finish up reasonable.
Riveting on the wings is a similar story.
Although the afterburner ring and ejection seat in the kit are ok, I will be replacing with resin aftermarket items. The seat needs to revert to the old style Stanley C2, as the kit only supplies the Martin Baker Mk7Q.
Clear parts are nicely detailed, especially around the windscreen.
As I mentioned I won’t use the kit supplied insignia decals, which depict the Anime scheme, plus a set of German Luftwaffe for an F-104G, but we will use the stencils where appropriate for a NASA airframe.
The instructions are typical Hasegawa, printed in grayscale, exploded view format.
One thing the kit lacks is decent cockpit instrumentation, so I have wanted to try these new 3D printed decals for a while, so am giving them a go here.
nicolas keller says
Beautiful model!
Mick Stephen says
Thank you for your comment Nicolas, this was a fun scheme to do versus the standard Starfighters.
StefB says
Nice work!
However, the canopy opening on aF-104 is left, not right ;-)
Mick Stephen says
Stef, you are perfectly correct. That’s what rushing too finish gets ya, lol.