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George Schembri
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F-104G Luftwaffe Starfighter – Hasegawa 1/72

February 11, 2021 · in Aviation · · 24 · 2.1K

I finally found the missing gas tank behind a book shelf!

I actually completed this build about 9 months ago but could not find the starboard wing gas tank which was found just a few days ago as I did some rearranging of shelving.

This was one of my first full acrylic paint project when I was getting back into the hobby in the last year.

The kit is the great Kit # 1002 F-104G Luftwaffe/Marineflieger with excellent recessed panel lines, great part count and excellent fitting.

I chose the Olive/Grey camo scheme of JBG31 has always been a scheme that I have always liked.

This was a 'used' kit I purchased which had most of its fuselage assembled, I figured it would be great practice and if things did not work out I'd have a few spare parts.

Using Tamiya X-11 Silver, XF-58 Olive Green & XF-53 Neutral Grey for paints and thinning with X20A.

Also used XF-21 Sky for the front radome. I had to mix my own Orange, mixing Insignia Yellow and Italian Red to get the required tone.

All sprayed with my ancient Paasche external mix airbrush ( I did get a new H-1 tip after this build)

I did notice the rear stabilizer is actually painted backwards as I accidentally flipped the symmetrical piece while I did the masking - oops!

The kit decals were THICK and had some yellowing, sun bleaching helped reduce the yellow tint.

Future before decaling - I had some of the decals pull the paint, I must have applied the decals too early on the water based acrylic. I few touch ups corrected the hairline cracks and then used Micro Satin to finish.

I also did a little update on my old ESCI Kit 9044 - Getting too close to an incandescent bulb one day resulted in the ESCI plane having its stabilizer being warped. Having an extra part meant I could get that painted and replaced.

The two F-104's now sit together.

Reader reactions:
9  Awesome

9 additional images. Click to enlarge.


24 responses

  1. Very nice 1/72 missile with a man in it !

  2. Great looking Starfighter (and what a cool name, yes?)! I've got that same old kit, and want to do it in the same scheme. I really like the modern Luftwaffe schemes.

  3. This is such a superb build, George @georgeswork!
    I love the splinter style camo a lot!
    The underside "white aluminum" turned out magnificent, too.
    It's so nice to see good kits (as the Hasegawa kit deifnitely is), built in such excellency.
    Well done!

  4. A fantastic result on this 104, George. @georgeswork
    Those 104's are bringing back some great memories.

  5. Nicely done George, they look good.

  6. Great job on both kits!

  7. Nicely done George, had several Luftwaffe 104's do some mock strafing runs on my unit during a NATO exercise while stationed in Germany in the 70's. Quite an impressive bird to say the lease. But George, I have to ask, how in god's name did that tank end up on that book shelf?

    • Thanks Tom.
      ‘Startling strafing starfighters’ - now that’s a tongue twister!
      I had all the final bits in a small Tupperware when something flipped it over and sent all the pieces in the air, I found them all except for the wing tank - I never would have guessed it was behind the book shelf.

  8. You can never have enough Starfighters! Very nice builds on both of yours.

  9. Nice ! I built four of these within a six year period, all in Canadian markings. Good kits for the price.

  10. That’s where I always keep my gastanks... behind the book shelves ?
    Anyways.. superb build and paintjob on the ”one-man-missile” ?

  11. Very nice work on this one, George - and the F-104C! That "classic" Bundesluftwaffe scheme always looks good.

  12. 🙂 ... Greetings ... 🙂 :
    This is surely a very pleasing and elegant model George.
    Clean job and a spectacular paint job.
    Looking at both models, one can only imagine how impressive it would be too see
    a Starfighter collection, in the same scale, different schemes and national markings.
    Nice work, thank you for sharing these images.

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