Matchbox 1/72 TF-104G Starfighter

MATCHBOX 1:72 TF-104G STARFIGHTER

Reviewer: Michael Johnson (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 20 September 2002

The Aircraft

The F-104 originated in 1952 to fulfil a USAF requirement for a superiority fighter and after investigating a number of new ideas, Lockheed produced a dramatic and startling design. It bore little resemblance to existing aircraft, having a tiny wing only 2.28m (7’6”) long with such sharp edges that ground personnel had to be protected from injury by covers. This remarkable machine first flew in February 1954 and was in operational service as an interceptor in January 1958. In 1959 the Luftwaffe placed a development contract for a modified version – the F-104G which was to have fighter, bomber and reconnaissance capability. The trainer version is known as the TF-104G.

Preamble

It happens to all modellers at some point in their lives; AMS, a nice little abbreviation for Advanced Modellers Syndrome. Now I had a real bad case of AMS with all its symptoms of indecision, disinterest and drop in standards. I started several kits to try and break the cycle but to no avail. However a return to an old love, painting Battletech miniatures, rekindled my original enthusiasm.

The Kit

Now keen to return to building kits again, I decided to tackle a half finished kit found lurking in the back of my stash. The kit in question happens to be an ancient Matchbox 1:72 scale TF-104G Starfighter. I had decided earlier on, when I first started this geriatric offering, that it was to be “gears up” and mounted on a stick for my office. This being the case, I would still attempt to build the natural metal finish USAF version offered as a choice in the kit.

Matchbox kits conjure up happy and fond memories from my youth. I would ride down to the local newsagency each week with my pocket money, grab a Matchbox kit for $2.50, assemble, paint and decal all in one afternoon without worrying too much about seams and the like (that came much later!). More often than not, watching the whole plane sag to one side as the recently glued undercarriage gave way!!! (OK – off with the rose tinted glasses).

So what is in the box?. There are three sprues within the typical box, one white, one grey and a clear sprue for the canopy. The canopy is rather thickly moulded, but is clear with nicely defined framing. The inherent thickness does cause some minor issues during assembly.

Two decal options are provided, along with an instruction sheet. Painting instructions for both versions are printed on the back of the kit box.

The kit is typical of Matchbox, trench like panel lines abound, dubious shape issues and some badly fitting parts. Well I was not after a contest winner here at all, so I could safely ignore all the shortcomings built into the kit or otherwise. There was no stand or pilot figure provided in the kit. Now this “manned rocket on a stick” needed at least one pilot, so I pilfered one from a Matchbox Sabre kit. The pilot is not from the same era, but this is a “fun” build. The stand came from my diminishing supply of Matchbox stands dating back to those halcyon days of youth.

Construction

Assembly started with the cockpit, what cockpit??? I sprayed the cockpit walls and tub flat black and picked out the bang seat headrests in red to add some colour. The matt black hid the gaping deficiencies in detail. I then painted the pilot carefully and sat him in place on the forward bang seat.

I cemented the gear doors closed, hiding the rather bland and shallow wheel wells, discovering that gaps as wide as the Tasman appeared once the closed doors were in place . I chose not to worry about filling the gaps, keeping in mind that this is a fun build!

The remainder of assembly proceeded smoothly and rather quickly, with only small amounts of filler required to smooth out ill fitting joints. As this was going to be a natural metal bird, seam line removal and silky smooth plastic are mandatory. At this point I cleaned up, polished and masked the canopy. The canopy was offered up to the fuselage and cemented into place with clear parts cement, reinforced with a careful application of liquid cement. A fair amount of reshaping and sanding had to be done to smooth out the join of the canopy windshield to the fuselage.

Painting and Decaling

Now that construction was finished I could settle down to masking fun and painting. I started with a white primer, base coat overall. For white schemes generally I use Citadel “Skull White” spray cans. These cans have 3 times the amount of a Tamiya spray can and cost around $15 from Games Workshop or Games World stores. In my opinion they are the best hobby spray paint on the market, giving a fantastic even coat in minimal passes.

When the base coat dried I masked off the wings and sprayed Tamiya AS12 NM. Masking and spraying continued until all the base colours were on. I then picked out various panels with differing shades of Humbrol aluminium. These paints are a delight to use and paint or airbrush equally as well. Once all the panels had been picked out in their respective shades, I polished the natural metal areas with SnJ polishing powder, this ironed out any brush marks on the picked out panels and gave the whole model a more homogenous look.

Whilst all that paint was drying, I spent some time cleaning and then painting the burner can. Painting burner cans is straight forward, spray a base of flat black and dry brush Model Master metallic paints to give the burner can a weathered, heat stressed appearance. The Model Master metallics are very thin and dry brush really nicely.

Matchbox offer two decal schemes in the kit. One is a USAF Natural Metal Starfighter from the 418^th TFTS based in Luke AFB, Arizona 1976 and the other option is a Luftwaffe Starfighter from Marinefliegergeschwader MFG(1) Schleswig-Jagel 1976. The sheet is made by Revell and the markings are not exactly crisp and perfect in register. They certainly looked fine for the purpose of this build but if I was building seriously I certainly would have tossed the kit decals out and replaced them with an aftermarket sheet.

The decals turned out to be a real problem. Early Revell decals would not react to setting solutions and these were no exception. I trimmed some decals to remove excess film, but this caused the edges of the applied decals to “fray”….Most of the stencils simply disintegrated once placed in water and the bigger ones split on placement. All the decals were bedded in Johnson’s “Future”, once dry this sucked the decals down over the surface details.

I decided to try and seal the decals down as they looked shockingly matt next to natural metal finish. I used Citadel’s “Purity Seal” for this job, misting two coats on. The problem with using sealers with natural metal aircraft is that the metal look tends to disappear. This happened slightly after using the Citadel flat coat. Funnily enough “Future” has no effect on the appearance once applied to natural metal finishes and I have used this successfully in the past. (see my F86D review)

Dry-fitting the Matchbox stand revealed the need to “weight” the base a little as the nose of the model drooped. I fabricated a base for the stand out of plasticard. This was then sprayed light gull grey and epoxy glued to the stand.

All the canopy masking was removed, the modified stand was added and the Starfighter was finished. Should look quite nice next to my PC at work don’t you think?

Overall

I am unsure to whether the Matchbox kit is the only 2 seat 1:72 Starfighter available (Hasegawa have released one, see link below - Ed). However all the major players in the modelling industry market single seat versions in this scale. Italeri have only just released a new variant of an Italian Air force F-104S, which looks very nice indeed.

All that aside, the Matchbox TF-104G builds surprisingly well. The shape looks a little dubious and the decals are poor but this bird is a quick fun build. Total time was only about 12 hours. My other more serious kits in this scale have taken a lot longer.

Good fun!

References

None!!!

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