There Has To Be Titanium Right?

The F-104 Starfighter uses three types of metal on the tail of the aircraft. Aluminum is the most prominent as you would expect but there is also a large stainless steel panel on either side of the fuse and a number of titanium panels as well. Since this plane will be in the polished metal finish I must treat the titanium panels differently by airbrushing them with a water based translucent paint that will hopefully look like titanium.

To do this I took a piece of flight metal and placed it on a plastic sheet. I sanded it with steel wool to mimic the panel treatment on the plane and then masked off a number of sections for the experiment.

I tried spraying a number of colours and mixtures of colours onto the individual strips to see which one compared closely to the pictures.

                                      Once I decided I started to do the airbrushing a little at a time until I got the effect that I wanted. 

                                     The afterburner area was the first one I tried and it came out fairly decent so I moved on. 

                                          You can see the various panels on the tail section clearly on the tail section photo.

There is one more titanium vent panel that is not on the tail section but on the main fuse just in front of the tail section. I needed to first cut the vents open, they just don’t look right as it comes from the factory, and then flight metal and then paint them the titanium colour. 

Last note on this is I found out the hard way that these painted panels now need to be sealed with a clear coat or if any tape touches them it will lift off some of the paint. Oh that dam learning curve strikes again!

Metal Zipper

I have now completed the flight metal on the tail section of the Zipper. While waiting for the light lens to arrive from Alex in the UK I decided to get the tail hook done and also to start on the drag chute compartment and mechanism.

Also at this time I need to identify the panels on the tail section that were titanium. Fortunately I got the name of Steve Pagot in Winnipeg who is restoring an F-104 for the Canadian Starfighter Museum. Here is a link to the site. http://www.canadianstarfightermuseum.ca/museum-news.php

If you click on museum news you will see their progress on #703. Steve was able to identify these panels for me and is a wealth of knowledge on the F-104. I know I will be talking to him again throughout this build.

I have decided to build this model as # 703 one of the first five F-104 built in Canada  (Straight flush) and the first to be test flown in this country. 

This plane has Canadian significance and I would like to honour all the pilots and crews that are in the association with this particular aircraft. More on the history of 104703 later.

F-104 utilized a tail hook “just in case” as well as a drag chute. I did not have very clear pictures of this area so I improvised a bit.

As mentioned there are a few titanium panels on the F-104 as well as a stainless steel panel. I must treat these different from the aluminum. The stainless was highly polished so that one is easy. What I will do at some point is clear coat it so that the aluminum (stainless steel) will not tarnish in this area leaving the rest of the aluminum to weather as per the full size. The titanium will need to be tinted a darker greyish black to simulate the real metal. To do this I will take some steel wool and carefully brush the surface in two different directions prior to the tinting. This will help the colour adhere and more importantly take away some of the reflective properties of the flight metal. I will use a practice sheet to see if I can get it right first of course.

I have got a chute on order and until it comes in I cannot move forward with the containment box as I need to know the size of the chute folded up. Lots more to do in the meantime.

Hatches, Lights, Speed Brakes And The Tail

To make the various inspection panels look more realistic I have masked them off and then takes some 00 steel wool and carefully swept them in one direction. If you do this do not go back and forth but only in one direction. If when done you do not like the direction you can start over and go in another direction.

Holes for light lens.  I have some lens to go into the 4 locations on the tail and have cut out the holes for them prior to the flight metal going on.

Speed breaks.  Before I can flight metal the speed breaks I first need to paint them. I will also paint the inner workings of the speed break system as well.

Tail section. I am waiting for the flight metal to arrive from the US so I can complete the metal work on the tail section.

Tail hook. At this time I might as well do the tail hook so I have cut out the hole in the bottom of the tail and have started to build the tail hook compartment and spring system that will allow it to move downward slightly when the chute compartment opens as the real one did.

Panel Screws

To detail the panels I have taken some inexpensive screw drivers and ground them down and sharpened them a bit to simulate panel screws. A few different sizes will make the panels and screws look more to scale. 

Using a little pressure creates a realistic screw head on the access panels. Just another detail that is required to give the project the scale appearance that it requires.