Revell 1:48 F-104G

This is an RCAF 441 Sqn CF-104. This aircraft wore this scheme for the 30th anniversary of CFB Baden Soellingen, Germany. I built it using the Revell boxing of the "Tiger Meet" and this came with god awful yellow sprues. I'm building another NMF single seater at the same time and figured this kit would easier to paint black than silver. Boy was I wrong. It took just over half a bottle of Tamiya X-1 Gloss Black to fully eradicate the yellow. I used the Leading Edge CAF CF-104 "Checkerbird" Starfighter 48.11sheet. It doesn't say which kit should be used but I'm going to think its the Hasegawa offering. All of the decals were a tad too long. Having said that, I measure the wing of the Hasegawa two seater I am also building and the underwing stripe decals would have over-hung by about 2mm. I used every decal sol I had to get the decals to conform around all the curves and in the end I won. For some reason Leading Edge gave me two complete sets of decals. I think maybe because there was a small section of the checkers that were smudged. I used a few of the extra checkers to make up for some gaps. Believe me when I say that these are tough decals and can take a pounding. The kit itself went together no too, too bad. Forewarned about the fit of the separate tail sections, I glue each half to the forward fuselage section to minimize the step. I couldn't find a photo of a -104 on the ground with the speed brakes open as Revell would have one make it so I closed them up. It was quite a struggle as the brakes are too long and the inner detail also interferes with the fit. Some filler was also needed to blend in the nose cone. The glass pieces were the best fitting that I have ever come across

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