The Base Model
The base model was a 1978 Monogram 1/48 F-104C #5409.
This was not a great model to begin with – the Hawk (1964?)
kit #504 was much better in most aspects.
In addition, this kit had already been started to kitbash something
else. (Probably a spaceship, since the wings and tail had been broken off
flush!) Not only that, pieces were
missing or damaged.
On this model, the fuselage is split horizontally rather
than the more typical vertical split.
And it was a poor fit. Also the
surface detail on this kit is lower than the Hawk. (Based on a couple of leftover Hawk pieces to
compare.) I glued the wings and tail
back on, fortunately with little mismatch or distortion in the breaks.
Missing Nose Cone! Arguably one of the most distinctive and
irreplaceable features of the F-104 “Lawn Dart”! I turned the cone on a lathe out of nylon. The fuselage had a step in the firewall. At first, I couldn’t figure out how to hold
the cone to machine the recess to match the step on the front of the
fuselage. My wife pointed out the
obvious – cut the step off! (I was
hesitant to remove more from the fuselage than what I was already
missing!) With the fuselage flat on the
end, all I had to do was turn a relatively straight cone. (It only has a slight curvature.)
Pitot-Static Tube. I was now faced with the challenge of drilling a
hole in a sharp point. Gluing the kit
boom onto the nylon was never a remote option.
And, at that scale, even a few thousandths off is really obvious. The smallest steel rod I had was 1/16” (not
too terribly out of scale). I drilled a
1/16” hole in a 1/4” thick scrap of aluminum and countersunk it with a sharp
pointed Dremel bit. Then I was able to
just hold the countersink of the aluminum block on the sharp point of the nose
cone and use it for a drill jig. Painting
the candy cane spiral required 1/32” wide masking tape (and I thought the standard
1/8” tape was small).
The main landing gear was very delicate and had some missing
or damaged struts. I managed to find and
reglue one microscopic strut. I made the
one on the other side out of a single strand of 18 gauge copper wire.
The front gear was incredibly delicate. Just from handling the model, I broke and
reglued it several times.
The engine inlets were a very poor fit.
The arresting hook was very small and delicate. After carefully holding it and painting it, I
accidentally brushed against it and lost it in the carpet! I saw the glint as it flew through the
air. I had to make a whole one from
scratch out of 1/32” square stock.
The pilot, for some reason, had a clipboard – and one arm
was separate (in order to position it on the joystick?). Of course, the arm was missing. (Good.
I hated the clipboard anyway.) I
found one suitable pilot of reasonably similar style and vintage but it
wouldn’t fit into the cockpit. The F-104
has a sizeable hump in the center which the pilot straddles with very little
room to spare for the feet. I had to cut
the legs off and reposition them to fit.
Sidewinder missiles. The model had two close-mounted launch rails
for center mounted Sidewinder missiles.
This was a bad location. They
were so close to the ground that the seeker heads would be damaged by dust or
debris. Besides, this was where the Mk
43 nuclear bomb had to go. Most F-104’s
had to choose between wingtip tanks or Sidewinders. This model had to have the tip tanks. I discovered an example of an F-104 with
Sidewinders in a position I had never seen before – underwing pylons just
inside of the tip tanks, not instead of.
I used the center launch rails with additional flat stock to make
pylons.
The pylon mounted tanks
really are supposed to be angled down that much – apparently to insure them
cleanly leaving when they were dropped.
They probably emptied so fast that the additional drag didn’t matter.
Wingtip Tanks. The wingtip tanks were high quality – much
better than the Hawk! I wanted both tip
tanks and underwing tanks but wasn’t sure they were similar enough. The tip tanks were almost all I had left of a
Hawk F-104 model – probably because they were so ugly. They were split horizontally (which would
have fit poorly on the wingtip) and they had separate nose cones (why?!?). Not only that, the fins were really wrong. They had two small symmetrical fins. The real tanks have three fins – all
different! I had just about decided that
they would be ok for underwing tanks when I found actual drawings! The Hawk tip
tank fins looked like the underwing
tanks were supposed to look! I made pylons out of flat stock.
Mk 43 Nuclear Bomb. DB-127 is on static display at Bundeswehr Museum of Military History – Berlin-Gatow
Airfield. The bomb on it is NOT a Mk
43. It is probably a dummy or practice
bomb of some sort. (I guess, for obvious
reasons.) I made one from something WWII
German. I cut it to length and made fins
from 1/32” stock.
ZeLL Launch Mods to the Model
Rocketdyne Booster. The tube shell, end bells, and nozzle were
adapted from misc. Shuttle pieces. The
Rocketdyne logo was painted by hand with a #70 brush. The booster framework was scratch-built from
flat stock with 1/16” steel insert pins.
Launch Pad. The launch pad display base was cut from a 2 x 10. The 1-1/2” thickness was required
for the trench which enclosed the hanging booster. The concrete surface is scale 2m squares of
vinyl floor tile.
The concrete support pillars were cut from nylon stock. The sign (seen in one of the pictures at one
of the US launch sites) reads “World’s Shortest Runway.”
The control box pushbuttons are the tiniest available
decorative fingernail rhinestones. Why
is there a control box that close to the launch exhaust? I don’t know, but it was really there, you
can see it in one of the pictures.
Rolling Ladder. The remarkably tall rolling ladder was
entirely scratch-built using Plastruct O scale ladder #90673, 1/32” square
stock, sprue, and misc. wheels. The
one-piece handrails are the same ladder, split into two halves. The upper handrails were formed with a heat
gun.
The crewman was a mechanic from a Monogram P-61. The Lockheed Flying Star logo on the back of
his uniform and the “World’s Shortest Runway” signs were inkjet printed on
plain paper applied with Testors Clear Parts Cement & Window Maker.
Until the booster is attached, the F-104 can be towed normally on the landing gear. It was backed up to the pillars and lifted onto the stirrups with a small cart. Notice the nose cone doesn’t appear to quite touch the ground.
Finished F-104 ZeLL Gallery
