1/72 Hasegawa F-14A

[DannyB]

With the F-15 now finished I'm going to join in with this one to fill the gap between now and the F-18 GB. Really looking forward to starting on this after scooping it on ebay.

I picked it up with a few extras including an aires pit for a bargain price.

The resin from aires came already painted grey and with the moulding block removed from the main pit but everything else is as new. The detail on this is incredible, especially considering it's 1/72!

I haven't quite settled on a scheme yet but I doubt I'll be using the box decals as I'm not a massive fan of the grey over white scheme of the early 'cats. Have to keep my eyes open and see what decals I can pick up.

Don't know if I'll get a start on this for a couple of days so here's to waiting patiently!

[Giorgio N]

You're a lucky man ! you have one of the early Tomcat boxes, not that easy to find....

Your box includes the early style beaver tail and gun vents that were typical of the first production blocks. Don't know if it includes the later style tail as well or not.

If you only have the early tail, then your decal choices are relatively limited, although these aircrafts remained in service for a while and in the end used all the various schemes (overall grey and TPS in addition to the grey over white).

If you need any pointer for a suitable scheme, let me know and I'll dig through some references !

Edited April 15, 2013 by Giorgio N

[DannyB]

Cheers Giorgio. It really is a nice kit with hardly any flash and ironically, at first glance, seems to be better engineered than it's 1/48 bigger brother!

The kit actually includes 2 types of tail, both types of gun vents and TARPS.

Might have been hit with a bit of a set back in the pit area. I was going over everything tonight and realised the main body has actually been damaged at some point. The ejection supports just behind the rear seat has been broken off and the throttle is missing in the front.

A bit of googling around to find out what would be possible and found out there can be issues with making this all fit in the fuselage without major work. So, my plan at the moment is to use what I can from the aires set and pimp up the kit pit. I'm thinking of using the seats and IP's with the kit etch to add a bit of detail.

[DannyB]

Well, I've managed to go through the kit with a bit more time, here it is all laid out.

And, unfortunately what was sold on ebay as a complete kit seems to as complete as I thought! Going by Andy Mullen's website of what should be in the box, I'm missing the sprue 'L' that contained the early boat tail that was included in the box, and the parts that make up the later boat tail are missing from sprue 'L' though weirdly I have sprue 'O' which includes the TARPS pod which isn't listed as included in this boxing.

Not too sure what I'm going to do at the moment as the later airbrakes don't fit into the early boat tail.

[DannyB]

Well, after procrastinating on this one with a couple of other fill in builds that I pick-up and work on when I need a distraction, I've now picked this back up and started working on it again.

Still avoiding making a decision on the cockpit I've made a start on the main fuselage with putting the top and bottoms together and working on the intakes. I've also picked up the quickboost FOD covers, which are full of detail and with the included stencil decals are great value! I'll get some pictures of these up later.

The first real job however with the kit is removing the seam on the canopy.

I start off by masking either side of the seam before scraping it off with a new blade, I find doing it this way round minimises the amount of sanding needed.

And after a good scraping with the blade.

After this I broke out the micromesh polishing cloths, working through the grades right up to 12000 all the marks are gone.

This is after I dipped the canopy in the new humbrol clear varnish. It has taken really well and the canopy is now really shiny, my only comment is that it does seem really thick and has is showing a slight run on one side.

Promise I'll get some more pictures up later as I plan to get some paint down this evening.

[DannyB]

I'm persevering with the aires pit at the moment, so it's on with putting the belts on the seats.

I've always held the builds I see on here with a level of awe and aspiration, especially some of the highly detailed 1/72 builds. But now having spent all evening fighting with the belts on 1 seat, I now have a whole new found level of respect!

1 seat done, 1 seat to go and then the rest of the 'pit

(Sorry for the poor picture, took it on my phone before I left for work this morning)

[robw_uk]

nice start... love the resin 'pit

[Shalako]

One of my favorite subjects too!!!

Have you decided which squadron's markings you will apply on the "Cat"?

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Looks great so far, I want to build one of these but my kit has different decals. I would love to take those VF-1 decals off your hands if you are not using them

[DannyB]

Cheers guys, the pit is awesome but in the interest of actually getting this one finished I have decided to use the kit pit but with the resin bang seats. But I'm aiming to get a large chunk done over the bank holiday weekend and actually get some paint down.

One of my favorite subjects too!!!

Have you decided which squadron's markings you will apply on the "Cat"?

I haven't settled on the squadron markings yet but it will probably be either a TPS or all over grey scheme, but there are things a foot at the moment.

Looks great so far, I want to build one of these but my kit has different decals. I would love to take those VF-1 decals off your hands if you are not using them

Cheers Trojan, I don't know if you'll need to get hold of this kit for the VF-1 bird to get the early type beaver tail, only in the 'Wolfpack' boxings. Though this time around my kit decals are already spoken for.

[DannyB]

A good day working on the kit 'pit today. It's also be really useful getting some paint splashed about, can now push on with getting a large chunk of the construction done, with intakes, wheel wells and cockpit sides painted.

Anyway, on with the pictures. I started off putting down a base coat of dark sea grey, then painted the consoles nato black and pre-shaded other areas.

Then on to masking up and the finishing coat of grey.

Then a coat of the new humbrol clear (really love this stuff!) and a wash with nuln oil and dry brushed with rune fang steel.

And finally finished off with a cocktail stick picking up some of the button heads. Just picked up some of them in random order to give some interest, and painted the screens with clear green.

Really happy with it, and especially at this scale.

[robw_uk]

that box 'pit is 100% better than the Hobby Boss blank canvas one ;-) looking forward to more

[DannyB]

Cheers Rob

Well managed to get a good hit at this over the long weekend.

Here is everything coming together as of this afternoon.

Cockpit and seats all but done and nose complete. Fuselage fitted with wheel bays and intakes. I haven't bothered spending too much time on the intakes as they will be getting FODS but they are still the trickiest part of the build so far, but apart from that I really like this kit. It's not quite as shake-and-bake as a tamiya but it's certainly going together a lot nicer than it's larger sibling!

Close up of the bang seats a all but finished 'pit.

Don't know how much I'll get done this week but it's on to landing gear and engines next.

[Parabat]

Looking good, those seats are real nice.

[DannyB]

Cheers mate

They were actually a lot easy to paint than I thought they were going to be!

Got the front joined to the main fuselage and started on the under-carriage so not a huge amount to show but it's really starting to look like a tomcat now.

[Giorgio N]

Very nice, love the work on the seats !

[DannyB]

Cheers Giorgio, it's the first time I've used aftermarket seats and to be honest I think I'm going to be a firm convert to them for future builds. The PE belts were really fiddly but worth it in the end.

[DannyB]

This is still ticking along but I've mainly been working on the smaller sub-assemblies so no big photo update.

But I have managed to nail down the scheme.

I'll be doing one of the vf-102 Diamondbacks jets in all over grey.

Also, need to mention massive thanks to Giorgio for helping to supply the correct tail-boat and decals.

Promise there'll be pictures in the next update!

[AnonymousDFB1]

Nice start

[Giorgio N]

Only glad to help Dan ! Looking forward to seeing more of this build.

[Navy Bird]

The Diamondbacks scheme is a great choice! You've off to a super start, the bang seats are great and will look the part in the kit pit. Looking forward to the next installment.

Cheers,

Bill

[louiex2]

Great start. Pit looks great.

[DannyB]

Cheers guys, this is starting to get somewhere now.

Here's a couple of pics from dry fitting last night before I break it all back down and start painting.

The exhaust cans are done and I've also painted and weathered the landing gear.

This was my first time weathering with oils, and I'm pretty happy with it and really enjoyed it too! The only thing I found difficult was getting the oil paint to run nicely, too much thinner and it just wiped right off on the brush, not enough and I'd end up just swearing it across the whole area.

Also, I'm planning on using the oil-dot technique when it comes to weathering the main fuselage, but I've read conflicted things. Some say that it should be done on a matt varnish coat and others say gloss varnish and I can't find the right answer?! Any ideas or advice will be gratefully received!

[DannyB]

Sorry I didn't get this finished in the end, first time I've missed a GB deadline!

Thanks again to the guys running this one, and well done to everyone that did manage to get their builds finished and in the gallery, the standards been incredibly high on this one!