It’s just annoying, like having to cover for someone else’s mediocrity. Lack of follow-through isn’t charming like fighting with a short run or resin kit. Especially in a kit that I’m paying over $100 for. I don’t want Cartograf decals that are actually shitty Cartograf decals. I don’t want to be installing gear doors late in the game that have zero location aides. I don’t want to be fondling tiny antenna parts trying to remove tumor-like molding blobs from them. Now, I can hear whining about “some modeling skills required”. With a kit like this…it feels like they had a good kit going, got about 75% of the way there, and said “fuck it, let’s go get lunch”. The decals were also a mess – allegedly printed by Cartograf, but obviously from their “extra thick” value meal. What did bother me was the sloppy molding, which left separation lines on every damn thing, the sloppy fit, which is easy enough to hide with massive pieces like wings, but becomes apparent late in the build when antennas and such are 1) tiny, 2) in need of cleanup and 3) too big to fit in their damn holes. There’s a lot of grumbling about the trench-like panel lines and all…honestly those didn’t bother me that much. The kit has just enough charm to pull you through the early stages of the build, and once you’re closing the fuselage, you’re kind of committed. That’s pretty much how I came to start Italeri’s F-104. But sometimes, for whatever reason, some kooky subject just hooks into your brain and demands to be build right fucking now. And honestly, it’s nowhere close to finding its way into my favorites list. Us Americans, always the imaginative bunch, called it the 104. The Canadians called it the Lawn Dart, the Aluminum Death Tube, and, saying what we’re all thinking, the Flying Phallus. They also called it the Widowmaker and the Ground Nail. The Germans called the F-104 Fliegender Sarg. ![]() Aftermarket: Eduard ejection seat | Eduard exhaust | Eduard wheels | Zactomodels AIM-9L Sidewinders | Master pitot tube.Markings: 4-11, IX Gruppo, 4 Stormo, Grosseto AB, 1998.
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