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Scott Owen's "Buck Rogers" Starfighter

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Starfighter:

The Builder's Focus pages will involve a number of member projects from the beginning stages of project development through completion. Here, one of our guys will take you through their diary of building up something special giving a brief description throughout each surprise or bump in the road toward completion.

Scott Owen's Buck Rogers Starfighter

Restoration of Buck’s Starfighter from Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century.

by Scott A. Owen

The Buck Rogers Starfighter was produced by Monogram in 1979 and was never re-issued (Pic. 1). Unlike its companion piece, the Draconian Marauder, the Starfighter has become a collectible kit. Why only one of the two has been deemed “collectible” is a mystery to me. I purchased this model off the internet at a very reasonable price, but there was a hitch…..it had already been built, but fortunately not painted.

Upon receiving the kit, it was clear that it would require a complete teardown and re-build to be presentable. I placed the model in the freezer for a few days and then proceeded to pry it apart at the seams. Fortunately it had been previously assembled with old liquid cement so it broke apart relatively easily. This process would however destroy the cockpit glass.

Once the model was dis-assembled, I cleaned off as much of the old glue as possible and proceeded to re-assemble it using today’s better cements. The cockpit had already been painted and was re-useable as was, (Pic. 2), however I decided to add a control stick, some resin foot petals and other miscellaneous details and decals to jazz it up a bit (Pic. 3). New cockpit glass was made from clear acetate and cemented in place with 5-minute epoxy. The cockpit tub was then epoxied into place in the upper half of the fuselage.

There are a total of four gun barrels in the tip of each fuselage point at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock respectively. The ones at 12 and 6 only needed to be drilled out to be presentable (Pic. 4). The ones at 3 and 9 however looked like squares when the hull halves were mated (Pic. 5). This wouldn’t do so I removed the old barrels here with my Dremel tool and created new ones from short pieces of brass tubing mounted on “pillows” of epoxy putty (Pic. 6).

The rear clip of the fuselage was then glued to the upper half of the fuselage. There was a large seam here that needed filled. Epoxy putty was used to fill and blend this gap with the rest of the fuselage. Masking tape was laid down to protect the surrounding raised panels lines during the sanding process (Pic. 7). The lower fuselage half was then cemented in place with gap filling cyano glue. A similar, but larger gap existed at the rear clip that again required extensive use of epoxy putty. The putty was used not only to fill, but also to build-up the underside of the fuselage as there was a terrible difference in elevation of these parts despite significant shimming (Pics. 8 & 9). The horizontal seam along the length of the craft didn’t match up well either, requiring an extensive build-up of epoxy putty either above or below the seam to even it all out (Pic. 10). Once all this bodywork was done, the kit was primed, sanded more where needed, re-primed and so forth until everything was smooth and consistent. Whew, what a job. (Pics. 11 thru 14)

The engine halves and lower stabilizer wings had already been cemented together, but only required some minimal putty and sanding to clean them up. They did not need to be re-built. All the assemblies were mocked up at this point to ensure everything fit together as it should (Pic. 15).

With all this work done it was time to start painting. The cockpit glass was carefully covered with several coats of liquid latex mask, and the entire model was painted with a couple thin coats of flat white enamel (Pic. 16). I decided to try a new technique I’d heard about called “pre-shading”. This is where you go in with the airbrush and intentionally add shadows anyplace where they would naturally occur with a darker shade of the basecoat (Pic. 17). You then take the original base coat and mist it back over the model essentially blending the pre-shade color back into the base coat. The end result is a slightly darker shade of the base coat in the crevices and along the panel lines. As this was my first attempt at this and it didn’t turn out as well as expected, but this will not deter me from trying this technique on future projects.

Now it was time to turn my attention to all of the detail painting. The Starfighter has various panels that are different shades of color. Some are obvious such as the gray around the canopies. These were masked off with low tack drafting tape and painted a medium gray color (Pic. 18). The leading edges of the wings and other panels around the craft were painted various shades of light gray and tinted whites. The edges of all panels were highlighted with slightly lighter or darker shades of their original color. Careful use of Post-it brand notes was used as masks for this process. Highlighting or darkening the leading or trailing edges of the panels produces a 3-D effect in the painted panel (Pics. 19 thru 22). The engines were painted with various shades of Metalizer paints and weathered with a wash of dark gray oil paint (Pic. 23).

The entire fuselage was sealed with gloss coat Testors lacquer and given the oil wash as well. Doing a small section at a time, a generous layer of oil paint was applied by brush to the fuselage and then immediately wiped away, leaving the oil paint in the crevices. Blending it and softening it with a clean dry brush then further refine this, until only trace amounts of the oil paint remain in the crevices (Pic. 24).

The decals are then added. I purchased aftermarket replacement decals from JT Graphics. The entire kit is then sealed with several light coats of flat lacquer. Be sure to apply this lacquer in very thin layers or the decals will crack and the oil paint applied earlier could be compromised.

At this point I remove the liquid latex mask from the canopy. The final step in painting is to paint the gun barrels and apply some pastel powder in various places to represent blast burns in the gun barrel sockets. Pastel powders were also used for subtle weathering effects on the surface of the fuselage, panels and the leading edges of the wings. (Pics. 25 thru 28)

Overall this was a much more difficult restoration project than I first expected but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I only wish I had taken a picture of the “before” condition of the kit so you could fully appreciate the amount of work that went into this project.