Only Canada would take an aircraft designed as an interceptor and turn it into a mud mover. And what is worse, they did it to such a sleek aircraft as the F-104. But for those of us that want to build an accurate in-service CF-104 with our new Hasegawa kit, we need bombs. Luckily, Belcher Bits has come to the rescue with Set No. 14 CF-104 Weapons Set in 1/48. The weapons pack consists of a large bag of resin parts, one small fret of photo etch parts, one piece of plastic stock, and one square of plastic card. 

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What all this raw material represents is five BL-755 Cluster Bombs, two twin stores carriers to carry all those bombs, a VICON Camera pod, two nukes (a Mk. 28 and a Mk. 43), two wing pylons, a centerline pylon, and the three radar warning receivers that CF-104s sprouted later in their service years. Each Cluster Bomb is comprised of two resin pieces and a photoetched arming vane. The nukes are each three pieces, and with the Mk. 28 you have the option of doing the Mk. 28EX ground burst bomb, or the Mk. 28RE retarded bomb. You will have to make the fins on the nukes from the provided plastic card. All of the other paraphernalia is molded in one piece. The resin castings look great, with nice surface detail where necessary, and I couldn’t find any air bubbles at all. 

Photographers note: Please remember...these photos show the items many times their normal size and for these pieces to still look this flawless is quite the testament to the high quality standards at Belcher Bits. 

The instructions lay out how to assemble everything and have painting guides, but there are no assembly diagrams. This isn't much of a problem as figuring everything out is pretty straightforward. A nice set with only one drawback; you need to build three or four CF-104s to use all the weapons. Highly recommended.

Jim Bates

 

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