I obtained this kit as a Christmas gift in 1999, not long after its release earlier on that year and at that time Frems was a completely unknown entity. This kit was released along with the MB.339PAN version as flown by the Italian Air Force display team and since the release of these two kits Frems have not released another plastic kit, despite announcing a 1/48 F-104S on their website (this may have been killed off by the Hasegawa F-104 series that was announced a little later). I understand Frems is not just a plastic model company, but they are also involved in industrial mold making so there is always a possibility that they will come back with something new (An AMX would be most welcome!) or even a re-release of this kit, which is now hard to find.
There is a little point in me going over the box contents as you can find a nice inbox review over at Modeling Madness (Inbox Review Here). I started building the model sometime over the summer of 2000 and after painting the cockpit and assembling the undercarriage I put the kit away for a couple of months. At this point I left home for university and (sensibly) figured I'd be too busy drinking and stealing traffic cones to do any modelling in my first year. My next effort at this kit was during the summer of 2001 and I started to make some progress by getting the fuselage and wings together and removing any resulting seams.
At this stage I also decided to tackle the seats; I had two options here, one was to detail the kit seats with foil seatbelts and PE parts from previous projects and the second option was to replace the seats with resin items from Paragon. However the cockpit tub was about 4mm too shallow to add the resin seats (resulting in the kit seats are too short and "stumpy") so I decided to detail up the kit seats. This was done with foil from No.11 scalpel blade packets and plastic rod to simulate the seatbelt QRF. While painting the seats I also painted the landing gear, speed brake and associated wells.
At this point the model took another long break in its now dusty box as I returned to university, however this time I was living in a private house (as opposed to university owned accommodation) and I had a large bedroom, so I took several models including the subject of this article with me. My progress here was slow due to constant distractions, however over the following two years I managed to get the kit into a state where it was ready for painting. The seams were all cleaned up, the elevators dropped, weapons pylons attached and some minor detail pieces added. I also removed the outer wing fences which are found on the PAN and later CD/FD models only and took some time to decide on a colour scheme from the several provided in the kit and finally settled with the UAE/Dubai desert scheme. After a few hours searching I came up with only three low resolution pictures.
I was now entering the final stages of the model (after a mere three years) and I was confident I'd finish it before completing university. I spent some time deciding what weapons to mount, however I couldn't find any pictures showing anything under the wings. I did have a large profile showing the carriage of 6 Mk.82 bombs and I initially intended to model this loadout however after messing around with the weapons and pylons for several weeks I scrapped the idea and decided to model my Mb.339 as per the available references. I therefore removed the pylons and filled their mounting holes. The next stumbling block was finding the correct colour as the Frems instructions called for two very unlikely sounding colours (grey and brown if I recall correctly) and after buying these I concluded they were not correct. I considered several times switching to one of the Italian schemes however after some thought I didn't want to "wimp out" so I decided to have a go at mixing colours. You can see from the in-progress pictures that the aircraft's colour changes several times as I experimented before finding mixes I was happy with.
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After painting the lightest camouflage colour I then put the model aside to write my dissertation for university however by the time this was complete, along with my final exams and plenty of post-exam drunkenness it was time to move away again and therefore further disruption to my modelling. A couple of months later I was working shifts and found time in between to get some modelling done. I applied Blu-Tak "sausages" with masking tape and paper masks and again mixed a custom brown for the aircraft's top sides. The photograph below shows the aircraft just after the masks were removed.
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I then went away for seven months travelling around the Southern hemisphere with my girlfriend therefore another huge pause for the progress of this project. When I returned I was desperate to get modelling again after being without any form of aircraft related stimulation for seven months. The remaining tasks were quite simple and only took several hours in total, including masking and spraying the underside blue which was a custom mix and also applying Future/Klear as a gloss coat. I then applied the excellent and thin Frems decals which I would thoroughly recommend. The image below shows the model just after the decal stage.
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The decals were sealed in with another layer of Future/Klear and some light weathering applied in the form a dark grey enamel wash; however my pictures showed these aircraft were kept really quite clean. I added some canvas FOD covers from tissue and white glue mixture and painted these dark green with two similar covers added over the HUDs in the cockpits. I added some RBF tags (Eduard PE on the FOD covers and kit decal RBF tags applied onto kitchen foil for the HUD covers). The model was mat coated with Humbrol mat varnish and the various aerials on the nose and tail added with plasticard, as the kit ones were "removed" during handling.
In conclusion, it is an excellent kit, with hardly any faults except the cockpit being too shallow and the multi-part instrument panels and tiny HUDs being hard to assemble. Having said that the excellent detail and fantastic decals easily make up for this. The decals are some of the best I have ever used and were very easy to apply using future as the setting solution. I apologise for the lack of in progress pictures, however when I started this project I didn't have a digital camera (It was so long ago I'm unsure if they were even invented!). I'd also like to apologise for not being able to give much information about the model, such as the colours used as it was so long ago that I mixed them I have no recollection at all of the colours I mixed let alone the ratios. I would advise however that you do mix your own colours and don't go by the FS numbers given by Frems. Overall I'm really pleased with this kit and happy with the colours after all that effort.
Below are a series of thumbnails; Click on each one for a larger picture of the finished model.
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