The Great Canadian Campaign!

Worked on the turret some today. Got all the worts glue on! Then worked on some of the optics. Finished with sanding the PE periscope guards. They are way too tall in comparison to photos. Should finish construction tomorrow




Like the look of the two super tall periscopes for what I assume is hull/turret down scouting

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Cockpit done. Subassemblies done and ready to add to the fuselage soon.

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What a beautiful old school fuselage shape! :heart::slightly_smiling_face:

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Chonker got his chubby cheeks!




I was hoping to be done construction by now but I ran into a fit problem that took some problem solving. The Mexas on the turret attaches to a frame. The way the frame attaches to the turret means some pieces of the frame are fairly unsupported. On the real thing this doesn’t matter as the frame is rigid steel bar, but on the kit this means the Mexas on the turret doesn’t line up. To fix this I put in some reinforcement strips behind the Mexas so it can’t bow out.



These strip seen on part M makes everything right as rain. The two forward Mexas components aren’t glued on as a maple leaf decal goes on the blanking plate behind them.

This guy is an absolute beast and I can see it being a huge morale boost in Afghanistan and absolute demoralizer for the enemy

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Looks very good, and like the way you solved the problem with that frame!

Somehow I imagined this model to be a more modern version of the Leopard, but it almost looks like an old version with just a lot of stuf mounted onto it. Don’t get me wrong, like it, but I suppose I expected something like those modern Leopards with those huge turrets…

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After the Soviet Union collapsed and before 9/11 Canada decided there would never be another war so why keep tanks.

Once 9/11 happened Canada scrambled to get tanks for the upcoming war in Afghanistan. They ended up buying a bunch of old stock Leopard 1’s and then adding MEXAS armor for added protection. The result was that fat leopard 1. In about 2008 or so they moved on to the leopard 2 where again they bought old stock leopard 2 and added upgraded armor in the leopard 2A4M

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And later leopard 2A6M

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I have a 2a4m in the stash I plan to build soon

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Well you’re actually spot on, because underneath all that blubber is a Leopard 1 :wink:

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not quite right. We already had the Leopard C2, just had to bring them out of storage and add the mexas armour. Then we got the 20 2A6M Can. then we bought 100 surplus A4s converting 20 to 2A4M Can near the end of our engagement.

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Thank you for the correction! Interesting the 2A4M came later than the 2A6M

Wasn’t one of the main reasons for the 2A4Ms being sent over the better anti-infantry capabilities of the shorter L/44?

from what I heard the rebuilt A4s were to be built with the L55 until the tankers said that the L44 was better for built up areas

Very nice progress on the chubby Leopard, Mead.

Looking forward to see more. :slightly_smiling_face:

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The CF-100 is getting ready for the skies :slightly_smiling_face:

I just love that early jet fighter look. The big engines on the fuselage and the straight wings. What a beauty :sunglasses:

More to follow soon :slightly_smiling_face:

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Main construction done on the leopard that ate another leopard. All that’s left is the antenna, machine gun and dozer headlights. Overall a really nice kit with great detail!







The smoke grenade launchers where a it of a pain in the butt to get aligned and at the right angles,

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Looks great, Mead. Those rear turret stowage bins are seriously big. I guess to counterbalance the front turret armor to some degree.

Looking forward to see more :slightly_smiling_face:

The NMF coat is on. Quite happy with it.

More to follow soon.

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Hi Everyone!

Jesper, really nice looking CF-100. Really like the NMF, looks quite realistic.

So, when I began this build I was thinking how hard can this one be? After all, it was to be a wheels up in-flight model on an oval stand. Boy did I misjudge this one!

Revell’s 2013 release of the F-104G in 2013 is actually the Monogram kit first molded in 1978. This kit was the best 1/48 representation of the F-104 until Hasegawa released their kit in 2000. It looks like Revell cleaned up the molds somewhat following the purchase of Monogram, and it appears that the raised molded panel lines were greatly reduced to the point of being barely there. For me this would not present a major challenge. My first flyby and test fit showed that there would some fit issues, but nothing I’ve not dealt with in previous Monogram kits. So far, so good! On my last visit to the US in 2018, I was able to pick up some pine wood oval plaques for a steal at 2 USD! So, I had my things gathered to produce a pretty nifty stand model. Additionally, this being a CF-104G complete with decals, I plan to try a new paint to do the NMF finish.

I began with the cockpit, and the decals looked pretty good considering that everything would be closed up.

Next it was time to move onto the fuselage. The insides were painted up, with dark gull grey up front, and metalic burnt iron in the exhaust.

Then it came time to put the cockpit in, I opted to leave the ejection seat and pilot out so that I didn’t have to worry about them while doing the anticipated filling and sanding. This was a straight forward affair, despite a rather poor fit. The fit was addressed with the use of some clamps and gluing in a slow process from the exhaust up to the nose.

Next I moved onto the rear and assembled the tail section. This configuration was done to allow for showing off the rear engine area for diorama purposes. The airbrakes were also molded separate to be posed open, these were cleaned up and prepared for assembly.

The pilot that came with the kit was a bit flashy, but a bit of time with a couple of sanding sticks and he looked acceptable. I started a naming contest for the pilot with the nieces, and that turned into a long process!

The tail halves were then glued together.

I could tell immediately that the tail fuselage join would be a real challenge, so I focused on closing up the gear bays and gun bay, and began the long and arduous task of filling and sanding these areas to smooth things out.

This is when the project went on hold, the bird went back into the box and I rethought this whole thing. So after doing some other fun things I began looking at the stand wood that I purchased and started to work on it. This would also become a project onto itself. One thing that I miss from the US is automotive primer. Here, there’s lacquer primer, though I think it’s really just primer colored paint as it has no real filling qualities.

So I would spray a coat, let it dry and then wet sand with 1500 grit sandpaper. After about 6 coats I could see some progress.

It became clear that some additional filling would be needed, so I gave Mr. Surfacer 500 a whirl.

This helped quite a bit, and following a few more coats of the primer things have improved. I’m thinking that a gloss black base would be a nice contrast with the kit. We’ll see.

While working on a different Monogram kit (TBD), I got the motivation bug to get back on filling and sanding the bird. After repeated applications, things were taking shape without loosing the shape of the bird. I figured that this would be a good time to attach the tail section.

I found that by splitting the underside of the tail I could get a good fit topside, and work my way down, and then add some stock 0.20" and 0.10" width plastic. This actually went very well!

This was followed by more filling, having started with the gap filling marble/acrylic, Mr. Surfacer 500, 1000 and 1500 and superglue, I was getting really good at it! I masked the canopy, and started painting “Bob” the pilot.

Following some base coats, and the addition of verious greens, Bob got an oil wash of burnt umber, and looked ready to join his mount.

My first attempt to get Bob in the bird and close things up discovered that Bob was a bit too tall for his mount, so some sanding on his backside remedied this. The wife commented that Bob’s butt is just like mine, flat! I’m grateful and love that she takes an interest in the hobby, though sometimes her critique can be a little too frank.

So the canopy is drying now, and I’ll be filling gaps around it using some white glue. While it seems a never-ending process, I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel. From the looks of things there’s to be a bit more light filling, and then some panel line restoration, adding the horizontal stabilizer, and then perhaps onto a black base coat to see how well I’ve done. Till then keep having fun, and despite the setbacks, this has been a learning and fun process. I’m starting to get a little perky with the filling and sanding!

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Fantastic work!!! I can’t wait to see the nmf.

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Me too! I’m going to try Mr. Metal Color Aluminum 218, been playing with it and it seems pretty nice, and very affordable!

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Very nice written report, a pleasure to read! Sure looks like you had a good bit of work, clamps from front to end, filling with pieces of plastic…
Glad Bob finally fitted, can’t wait to see the end result. :+1: :+1:

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