1950s movie rocket ship

[kerick]

yuumi2891103 from Starship Modeler sent me a box of parts quite some time ago. (Thanks again Katsu san!) Inside were three fuselage halves of an F-104 Starfighter. I've always thought an F-104 would make a great golden age rocketship. I glued up two halves and used parts of the third to close up the cockpit and landing gear wells. Two halves of the forward part of a 1/48th F-4 centerline tank provided fairings to close up the intakes.



Lots of Aves and Bondo were used to smooth things out.



Extra fins are from the SU-105 build.



A little Perfect Plastic Putty.





When the surface was all smoothed out I first applied a coat of gloss black, then I believe it was Krylon silver. What a mess! The silver attacked the black and made it look like curdled milk! I was so disgusted with this I let it set for ages. Finally last week I decided to give it one more try. I sanded down the silver until all the "curdles" were smoothed away. Down to bare plastic in many spots.



I added some fin tip pods made from 1/72nd F-4 centerline tanks. Each appeared to be from a different kit. One of these was from Katsu also.

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Here's where I'm at now.



The first two tries using Testers "Chrome" rattle can had issues also. The paint seemed to take a long time to dry and some areas formed groups of what appeared to be bubbles. That had to be wet sanded down and resprayed. I'm down to just a couple of runs on the fins.



I'll paint these a different color or put some sort of decal over it. I might just finish this one after all.
I also have an engine bell to add.

[Steel Penguin]

looks good  after all that effort though 
and part of me does want to put on my best Flash Gordon voice for it, so its a certain success there !

[Captain Canada]

Excellent ! How cool would that look sitting on the shelf 

[TheChronicOne]

Awesome. I like it a lot! 

[Old Wombat]

A1+

[kerick]

Thank you for the encouragement!

Now, civilian or military markings? I have plenty of military stuff of course and some airline doors and windows too. Tough decision.

[Captain Canada]

For sure tough call ! I'd go civvy. We're supposed to have all this conflict sorted in the future 

[kerick]

Good point!





Until the aliens show up.......

[Cobra]

How about making Your Rocket a UN Space Reasrch Vessel? Think that would Work? Dan

[usn sentinel]

there's nothing like a chrome silver rocket, that chrome effect is the hardest of all paint jobs to do, looks awesome ,took lots of finishing i bet

[Dizzyfugu]

Sexy!  The NMF is a great choice for the shape. 

[zenrat]

Love it.

I'd go for red and white checks.
Like this but with the remainder chrome rather than red.

[NARSES2]

That finish looks as though it was worth the effort 

[TheChronicOne]

Back to throw in a vote for commercial rocket liner.   

BONUS!

One of our local water towers: 


I like the checks, too. 

[Captain Canada]

The checks look good but that would take away from the already excellent finish