(2) F-104 Star Fighters arrived - Parts laid out for inspection

Today just received my two F-104 Star Fighters from Chuck. Thank you Chuck! You brought a big smile to my face One of the Star fighters is for my friend Mat so either he will be doing a build thread or I will? I carefully detached the boxes and removed each one of the parts and laid them out. This is definitely a very high quality kit. The 1/4" balsa is very nice and pre cut. With a smile I realize that there will be a "high" coming on from the smell of that old school dope. Immediately I checked my supply and I believe I have enough balsa and sanding sealer for this project.

The nose cone, airframe and motor mount tube are from LOC (thick walled) as well as the other tubes that came with the kit. There was a bag of miscellaneous stuff such as plywood center rings, launch lugs, wire and other small parts Recovery looks like two quality topflight chutes, without opening the chutes they look to be 24" and 30" and an elastic type shock cord. The instructions on this kit come in full color and look to be very detailed.

If Mat decides to do a build thread on this I'll supervise and take pictures, but it will also free up some time for me to do an accurate ROCKSIM file for this kit (Not sure if one is available?) and then I can pass along to the rest of you who ordered this kit from Chuck. It would be nice to get some flight data on it and weigh the final assembly.

Since you first got in touch with me, I found that there is a Rocksim out there. Google Fat Cat Rockets F-104 and go to images... its there somewhere. Oh, here it is :https://www.rocketreviews.com/unknown-f-104-project.html

Project463 said:

Since you first got in touch with me, I found that there is a Rocksim out there. Google Fat Cat Rockets F-104 and go to images... its there somewhere. Oh, here it is :https://www.rocketreviews.com/unknown-f-104-project.html

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Awesome Thanks Chuck!!

I love the Keltec CNC boxes. Fun stuff in those often.

Len B said:

I love the Keltec CNC boxes. Fun stuff in those often.

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Exactly

At first I was wondering if I had somehow wandered over to ARFCOM.

Looking forward to this build.

Steve

It should be a fun build. I don't know if I'll be building or my friend but either way it will be documented. For me I don't mind taking the pictures because it lot easier doing that than doing both. I need some more folding stands like the ones pictured and make up some more work stations. I was thinking getting a sheet of plywood and just having it cut down the middle and then carpet the two sections and using those in the garage as work benches to prep and stage parts. Flip it over to the wood side up for gluing up parts etc...I can also transport them without much hassle to launch events and use them there as well. I'll have to keep them to 6' so they fit in my truck bed. The excess 2' I'll make something out of it I'm sure.

I hated to use those Keltec boxes... but they did work nicely.

Say, doesn't Kel Tech make......................... Oh oh, never mind
Very nice kit. Love the missile with the man in it.

Here are a couple different paint schemes for the F-104...curiosity of Chuck. Thanks Chuck!!

I am partial to the paint scheme that NASA used on it's 104's

About the models shown above...Mr Ferg's Flying Circus (named for our cat Ferguson) was originally the camo rocket shown in the catalog. it was also the original testbed. I did the second model in classic silver and made up some (basic) Cold Lake Canadian decals.

I decided to start my kit today. Since Mat doesn't know what to do with his yet. I'll be building mine per instructions, for the most part.

This afternoon I assembled the exhaust, which consist of a 1" cardboard ring and two center rings that fit inside. I used wood glue for this process.

You just glue the two rings inside the cardboard ring until they are flush. My assembly is drying, but afterwards I plan on sanding both sides flush to make it look clean and to bond better to the aft ring.

Project463 said:

About the models shown above...Mr Ferg's Flying Circus (named for our cat Ferguson) was originally the camo rocket shown in the catalog. it was also the original testbed. I did the second model in classic silver and made up some (basic) Cold Lake Canadian decals.

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I'm a huge fan of the Cold Lake decals. I have two different sets of decals for a plastic model version that I hope to build sometime. The three here are my favourites. I think I must have posted something on this a while back and forgot. I see a "Red Indian CF-104" image in my queue. I also love the NASA painted CF-104.

Ya think i'm going to have to follow this one.


TA

Yesterday I was gluing the hard wood strips around the leading edges of the wings. It wasn't until after they dried that I noticed that the hardwood was not flush with surface of the wing. I think maybe the glue warped the balsa or the balsa may have been warped before which may explain why this could have happened? I covered top and bottom with wax paper and had some books for weight?

I'm not going to sand it down flush because it's off enough to where it would make a noticeable difference on both sides and I'm not going to waste my time, so I think I will try and purchase some quality materials for this kit and cut the everything myself or get it laser cut (if you know someone), which right now I don't have the time or money so it goes on the back burner

Also when I came back to trim the hardwood strips after they had been glued to the wings as I reached the last of my cuts, as the piece came off it wasn't a clean cut.

It left a concave shape in the hard wood. It didn't splitter. It hard to explain without pictures. For lack of better description a chunk came out of the wood. I used an XACTO knife with a #11 blade and took about 35 cuts .... I think the wood was bad? Not sure?

Sorry guys!

Warping can occur when gluing two different types of wood together or any number of other conditions (ex. humidity level, glue used, etc). I recently was working on a Madcow Bomarc (beautiful and enjoyable build by the way) where the instructions tell you to glue balsa sheets to one side of the plywood wing...and quite a big wing it is! I glued everything as instructed and had weighted down the wing with heavy weights, but the next day after the weights were removed the wing taco'd up significantly. #!$@~!!. I then researched on the net about why wood warps and there were a ridiculous amount of reasons.

I fixed it by wetting the wood pretty well, then putting them with counter-taco spacers and under weights for a few days, being careful to not try to bend too much lest it crack...a bit at a time was fine. I also had to check and dry every once in a while (even used some newspaper at times) otherwise mold can form, but the wing straightened out pretty well. Good luck!

BTW - Try to not get discouraged...walk away and fume for a bit, but then let the brain juices come out and see it as a challenge to completing a nice build. The biggest rewards sometimes come from the greatest challenges. I was also annoyed by the giant curly wing, but now I'm glad I tackled it and changed the taco to flatbread. (Damn I'm hungry.)

AfterBurners said:

Also when I came back to trim the hardwood strips after they had been glued to the wings as I reached the last of my cuts, as the piece came off it wasn't a clean cut.

It left a concave shape in the hard wood. It didn't splitter. It hard to explain without pictures. For lack of better description a chunk came out of the wood. I used an XACTO knife with a #11 blade and took about 35 cuts .... I think the wood was bad? Not sure?!

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(Forgot to address this part.)

Also of note is when carving the balsa tunnel on top of the Bomarc, I was overzealous with the front end and carved too much off...I simply grabbed extra spare pieces of wood, glued on and sanded down. Wasn't too terrible and seemed worse right after it occurred.

Thanks for the encouragement Ken.

I boxed the kit up put it away and I'll rethink my options. I may recut the parts I need or get them all laser cut. I made templates just for this reason. Or I might use 1/4" basswood and then fly it on a 38. I still need to ROCKSIM that design and see where I'm at. I still have one in the box that I'll probably sell somewhere down the road, who knows??

Everything can be fixed if you have money and time :rofl:

Right now I really don't care either way...I'm done with balsa

KenECoyote said:

BTW - Try to not get discouraged...walk away and fume for a bit, but then let the brain juices come out and see it as a challenge to completing a nice build. The biggest rewards sometimes come from the greatest challenges. I was also annoyed by the giant curly wing, but now I'm glad I tackled it and changed the taco to flatbread. (Damn I'm hungry.)

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Tacos for dinner tonight right? :rofl:

I went ahead and made some changes to this design in ROCKSIM. I changed out the balsa parts and replaced them all with 1/4" basswood and added 2 more ounces of nose weight to bring the total to 4 ounces. With an H250G-10 loaded in the F-104 it comes in at 0.83 Marginal. I figure I could bring that up a little more if needed.

Anyway it boosted to 2266.75 with the chute(s) deploying at 5mph!! Now that's not too bad.

So next up a trip to National Balsa's online store to price some quality wood. I'm thinking I will still use hardwood along the edges as per instructions.

Update: I went on National Balsa's website and discovered that I can get 1/4" x 8" x 36" sheet for $13 and the sheet that is 48" only cost $17

I think 36" is plenty. They also sell the 1/4" x 1/4" x 48" basswood sticks for around $1 so at least this way I will be gluing up "like" woods and basswood is soft enough to still sand an airfoil... just might take a little longer.

I would attach the RS file but I can't upload anything

Anyway I did some test on RS and came up with these numbers. Keep in mind I'm listing everything just some basic stuff. See attached files
F-104 w/ 1/4" Balsa parts as it comes stock.

Weight w/o motor - 34.8473
Margin w/o motor (H250G-10) - 2.19
Margin w/ motor - .92
Altitude - 2557
Velocity @ deployment - 13.94

View attachment oop_fat_cat_f104 with Balsa wood.rkt

F-104 w/ 1/4" Basswood

Weight w/o motor - 42.5963
Margin w/o motor (H250G-10) - 1.86
Margin w/ motor - .84
Altitude - 2268
Velocity @ deployment - 5.24
Nose weight additional 2oz for a total of 4oz

View attachment oop_fat_cat_f104 with Basswood.rkt

I would probably add a little more nose weight to bring it up, but there really isn't much difference for the trade off. A few hundred feet? Basswood easier to finish as well. I'm still undecided yet. It depends what I'll have to spend for laser cutting?

AfterBurners said:

Tacos for dinner tonight right? :rofl:

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Actually the thought of tacos makes me lose my appetite now...could've made my Bomarc into a BoManta.

I need to pick up the build again.

[video=youtube;gOwIdAXlgPg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOwIdAXlgPg[/video]
Starfighter music...

While we're looking at 104 vids - I'll add one - incredible jet turbine/RC model ...02:02 and the inverted low level pass with simulated afterburners (LEDS) at 2:22 is impressive.
https://youtu.be/-rRR5prazcM

[video=youtube;-rRR5prazcM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rRR5prazcM[/video]