alxzinbox Posted August 27, 2016 Share Posted August 27, 2016 (edited) Hello everyone! My next build is the F-14D. Easily one of my favorite aircraft, it's been on the build radar for a while now. I settled on the hobby boss offering as the I already own a die-cast F-18F in the VF-2 CAG scheme. The Hobby Boss kit is a pretty well balanced kit. There's a reasonable amount of well defined surface detail which stands up pretty well to reference photos. Despite this, it has a relatively low part count (as compared to the Hasegawa offering) and hopefully should come together with minimal fuss. The kit is lacking or could use some sprucing up in a few key areas. I see this as a +plus as it offers a good opportunity to scratch build. Armed with a healthy bunch of stretched sprue, thin cement (chloroform) and styrene card, my intent is to detail the aircraft to as close to the real thing as possible. I have added links below to the various build milestones crossed so far for your quick reference. Main Landing Gear: Part 1: Torsion Link weight reduction depressions Part 2: Hydraulic Lines and adding missing elements Part 3: Hydraulic Lines (contd) Part 4: Paint, decaling and weathering (Coming soon....) Ejection Seat: Upgrading the stock Ejection seat Ventral Fin upgrade: Scratch building the Ventral fins with the NACA ducts Cockpit: Part 1: Console Hood Canvas using tissue paper, and installation of the DreamModel cockpit PhotoEtch Part 2: Cockpit errors Part 3: Cockpit corrections Nose Gear Bay: Detailing the side walls on the Nose Gear Bay Weathering Test Painting and weathering test on styrene card using Vallejo paints, acrylics and oils Nose Gear: Hydraulic lines and details added using stretched sprue and styrene card New! Kit sprues and close-ups: Since a review of the kit is missing here on Britmodeller, I took the liberty of posting sprue shots and close-ups for anyone interested. (Pic heavy) Box Art: My choice of livery for this build. The kit also comes with two other options including the low-vis version of the same livery. Upper fuselage: Fine recessed lines and riveting detail. The airbrake is moulded in the closed position, but for this build, it isn't a concern. Lower fuselage: Sprue A: Front Back LHS front fuselage RHS Front fuselage Nose gear bay and MLG bay door detailing Nose gear (RHS) with option of catapult bar raised and lowered Nose gear LHS MLG detail MLG Wheels Nose gear wheels Lower hull surface below cockpit area Sprue B: Control surfaces. The great advantage of the kit is the possibility to pose the wings extended or withdrawn. Unfortunately, there's no option for dropped flaps. Upper wing detail Lower wing detail Vertical stabilizers Elevators Sprue C: Sparrow Missiles and fuel tanks Sprue D: Phoenix and Sidewinders Sprue G: Exhausts etc Sprue J: Pretty detailed Ejection Seats. Will spruce them up a bit nevertheless. Sprue E: Clear parts Decals: Pretty comprehensive with almost all stencils provided. Weapons stencils: Dream-Model PE for the cockpit: DreamModel Brass Pitot: That wraps up the introduction to the kit. In the next post I plan to start detailing the Main Landing Gear. Your feedback, suggestions and comments are much appreciated. Thanks for watching! Cheers, Alex. Edited November 16, 2016 by alxzinbox 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 Nice to see one of these F-14D's being built, I think they are great kits for an easy build and offer a lot of detail in a great package. Just remember, for a D model, remove those ECM bumps under the wing glove. I think the 1/72 model sufferes from the same over sight as the 1/48 kit with regards to the nose pitot. Both seem to have the base too far back. If you want to use the metal pitot (I would), glue in the plastic one, then sand it down until you get the same diameter as the metal one, then drill a hole and glue it in at the end. Have a look online at some close up pics of the F-14 pitot and you'll see what I mean about the kit part extending too far to the rear, resulting in a 'fat' looking conical base. The Dream model PE looks really nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxzinbox Posted August 28, 2016 Author Share Posted August 28, 2016 (edited) Nice to see one of these F-14D's being built, I think they are great kits for an easy build and offer a lot of detail in a great package. Just remember, for a D model, remove those ECM bumps under the wing glove. I think the 1/72 model sufferes from the same over sight as the 1/48 kit with regards to the nose pitot. Both seem to have the base too far back. If you want to use the metal pitot (I would), glue in the plastic one, then sand it down until you get the same diameter as the metal one, then drill a hole and glue it in at the end. Have a look online at some close up pics of the F-14 pitot and you'll see what I mean about the kit part extending too far to the rear, resulting in a 'fat' looking conical base. The Dream model PE looks really nice. Both points duly noted Parabat Thank you for the tips! Since the brass pitot has much smaller diameter than the nose tip, your suggestion seems most logical. ----------- Breaking with tradition, I decided to start the build by detailing up the Main Landing gear. One of the first minor niggles of the kit is the awkward placement of the very thick attachment points. I found it pretty challenging to do especially on the cylindrical parts. The MLG has very basic detailing. My first port of call was to replicate the weight-reduction in the support arm. The kit offers no surface detail on this part. scooping out the plastic accurately would be beyond my technical capabilities. So I decided to create the detail using 0.3mm plastic card. I first removed excess plastic to make space for the new insert. I then measured drew and cut out the shape while still attached to the main sheet so that the fine edges didn't deform It fit snugly to a reasonable error, and looked fine after a bit of filler and sanding. The black marking was to determine which side faced up. Still not too happy with the result, I decided to redo the part entirely by creating two sheets of the cutout, and sandwich a 1mm piece in the middle. The bonus is that I am also now able to replicate the depression on the side of the strut as well. The smaller parts are for the suspension which is again lacking any details. With the new parts installed. A little thick on the borders, but it'll get covered up with the hydraulic lines later on. Cheers, Alex. Edited August 28, 2016 by alxzinbox 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxzinbox Posted August 28, 2016 Author Share Posted August 28, 2016 (edited) Straight out of the box, the MLG looks pretty basic. It also misses some pretty obvious bits like hydraulic lines, the actuator spring connecting the MLG to the fuselage and some other parts. I managed to achieve some pretty amazing results scratch building the Martin Baker Mk-10 Ejection seat and nose gear on my Sea Harrier build. Stretched sprue and plasticard worked wonders. I started off with the actuator spring, using 0.3mm styrene card and stretched sprue of various diameters. Stretched sprue is pretty maleable like copper wire, with the additional bonus of welding perfectly with the plastic. The spring was made by wrapping copper wire around a stretched sprue core for easy installation. For the hydraulic lines, I glued one end first. After it had dried completely, I used thin cement to attach the other end and intermediate points. The finished result (back half) v/s the original: The next update will be the detailing of the front facing half of the MLG, which has the bulk of the hydraulic lines, as well as the PE tie-down handles. As always your suggestions for improvement are always welcome and appreciated. Cheers, Alex. Edited August 28, 2016 by alxzinbox 14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 Wow, that's impressive work, it really shows off your skills! I honestly couldn't suggest anything more! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gene K Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 (edited) Beautiful workmanship!! So the HobbyBoss kit is worth expending such outstanding effort on?! If so, I need to look into that kit, having dismissed it as HobbyBoss. Gene K Edited August 28, 2016 by Gene K 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel.H. Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 Thanks for the inbox review, the kit looks good, I was looking for a Tomcat in 72nd scale seems like I found which brand to chose! And your detailing is amazing, especially for such a small scale, congratulations! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S5 modeller Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 That's lovely detailing work on the landing gear. Really makes a world of difference. Matt 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxzinbox Posted August 29, 2016 Author Share Posted August 29, 2016 (edited) Wow, that's impressive work, it really shows off your skills! I honestly couldn't suggest anything more! Thanks Parabat! My main reason for doing the WiP is to not work in isolation. More eyes are better than two. You have a much more in-depth knowledge about the aircraft than I, and I would highly appreciate any inputs for improvement from all of you Far from being an expert, I'm just studying references and moving along one step at a time. Beautiful workmanship!! So the HobbyBoss kit is worth expending such outstanding effort on?! If so, I need to look into that kit, having dismissed it as HobbyBoss. Gene K Thanks Gene! That's what I mean in part by calling it a balanced kit. It has sufficient detail to create a decent looking Tomcat OOB, yet offers opportunity to the modeller to add their personal detailing touches if they so please. My only other experience with Hobby Boss was their Sea Hawk FGA6, which was a joy to build. I'm hoping that this kit will live up to the expectations I have of it. Thanks for the inbox review, the kit looks good, I was looking for a Tomcat in 72nd scale seems like I found which brand to chose! And your detailing is amazing, especially for such a small scale, congratulations! Thank you Daniel! The inbox review was my small token of giving back to the community. That's lovely detailing work on the landing gear. Really makes a world of difference. Matt Thank you Matt! It's all the little things that bring the model to life, so the time spent on doing them are absolutely worth the effort. Cheers, Alex. Edited August 29, 2016 by alxzinbox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victory-is-in-the-Kitchen Posted August 30, 2016 Share Posted August 30, 2016 HI Alex, I've built a version of the HobbyBoss kit and wish I'd paid as much attention to the detail that you have! Amazing effort so far. What decals are you going to use? Good luck with the build. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirageiv Posted August 30, 2016 Share Posted August 30, 2016 Lovely work so far, this looks like it will be one of those 'wow' builds. Thanks for pics of the kit too, looks great. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxzinbox Posted August 31, 2016 Author Share Posted August 31, 2016 (edited) HI Alex, I've built a version of the HobbyBoss kit and wish I'd paid as much attention to the detail that you have! Amazing effort so far. What decals are you going to use? Good luck with the build. Thanks Victory-is-in-the-Kitchen! There's always your next build that will provide plenty scope for detailing I'll be building the Hi-viz CAG scheme. Lovely work so far, this looks like it will be one of those 'wow' builds. Thanks for pics of the kit too, looks great. Thank you Mirageiv Kit pics are my pleasure! -------------- A small update in the detailing on the left MLG. Continued adding hydraulic lines and additional details on the main strut. As further details are added, the probability of breaking off work on the opposite side is dramatically increasing. It's pretty fiddly work- this little detailing took around two hours along with plenty redos due to uncooperative bits refusing to cement properly. The stillness and quiet of late night is perfect for this kind of work. Nevertheless, when compared to the kit piece, it seems to be time well spent. The macro-lens does highlight the blemishes, but I dare say it looks pretty decent at scale. Will be using microfiller/ primer to fill in the gaps between the lines and the terminators.The primer coat will also hopefully smooth out the results that look pretty rough right now. It's almost unthinkable to take sanding sticks to the part. Will probably take it to paint and decal application in the next update as some hydraulic lines might run over the decal and make it's application much more difficult later on. As always, critique, suggestions and tips are welcome and appreciated. Thanks for watching! Cheers, Alex. Edited August 31, 2016 by alxzinbox 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rom1 Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 hi that is quite a interesting build! I like you scratchbuild skills. very nice improvements to the kit. Meanwhile, this kit seems to be a very nice one. bye 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Air-to-Air Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 Shaping up very nicely. Looking forward to seeing more. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 Great detailing job on the landing gear, looking forward to more pictures ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxzinbox Posted September 3, 2016 Author Share Posted September 3, 2016 (edited) On 1/9/2016 at 3:03 PM, rom1 said: hi that is quite a interesting build! I like you scratchbuild skills. very nice improvements to the kit. Meanwhile, this kit seems to be a very nice one. bye On 1/9/2016 at 6:49 PM, Air-to-Air said: Shaping up very nicely. Looking forward to seeing more. On 1/9/2016 at 10:21 PM, Giorgio N said: Great detailing job on the landing gear, looking forward to more pictures ! Thank you Rom1, Air-to-Air and Giorgio! ------- Ejection Seat Detailing As I wait for the arrival of some consumables needed to complete the landing gear, I decided to start on the SJU-17 Ejection seat. The kit offering is devoid of any representation of the rocket motor systems, as well as missing the very prominent canopy smasher horns on the headrest. I started off by making a small cradle for easy manipulations during detailing, paint and decal application. The seats are held on by blu-tac The lower portion of the EJ seat seemed to be pretty well detailed to not require any upgrades. Also, I didn't want to spend time on something that would be hidden inside the cockpit. I sawed off the top half, and decided to redo that portion. I used 0.3mm styrene card to fashion out the canopy smasher horns. Instead of cutting two sets for either side, I glued a piece of card over another using water soluble PVA glue. I could then cut out the shape and end up with two identical parts of the same. A quick dip in water is sufficient to separate the parts. The bulk of the head rest was made from three 1.3mm styrene cards stuck together, cut and sanded into shape. These are the parts for the first assembly. The rails and rocket motor was made from 0.5mm strips and a 1mm thick stretched sprue. The headrest support was made from 1.3mm styrene card, and shaped using a round needle file. Stretched sprue was used to make the rest of the parts on the rear and sides of the seat. After finishing the detailing, the seat looks like a pretty good improvement over the kit's offering. After paint Decals and Dream-model PE. There is a considerable gap between the PE head-rest plate and the head-rest. Realised it only after transferring the photos from the camera. It's going to be difficult to fix as I have liberally applied CA glue in multiple places around the harness etc. A bummer for sure, especially as it fit well during dry-tests. So that's the result from a labor of two days. I didn't work on both the seats simultaneously, as I didn't want to make the same mistakes twice. Hindsight is 50-50 and lessons learned on the pilot's seat will make the RIO's seat all that much easier. Atleast, that's the theory. Thanks for watching, and as always, your critique, suggestions and tips are welcome and appreciated. Cheers, Alex. Edited September 29, 2016 by alxzinbox 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArmouredSprue Posted September 4, 2016 Share Posted September 4, 2016 fantastic WIP. I'll be following since I love this cat. Cheers 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelglue Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 Awesome model, the scratch skills are strong with this one! I would love to have a pair of 'D's in both high and low viz for this squadron. Looks like the box art shows low, and the plate show high. Am I wrong in assuming this kit carries both options? If so I might need a pair. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Val Posted September 5, 2016 Share Posted September 5, 2016 WOW! That is some serious super detailing!! Top work! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxzinbox Posted September 5, 2016 Author Share Posted September 5, 2016 Thank you ArmoredSprue, Modelglue and Val! Awesome model, the scratch skills are strong with this one! I would love to have a pair of 'D's in both high and low viz for this squadron. Looks like the box art shows low, and the plate show high. Am I wrong in assuming this kit carries both options? If so I might need a pair. Yes, the kit has both the high and low vis schemes, with separate stencils for both. There's also a third scheme for a VF-31 Tomcatters, you can have a look at the decal sheet above. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Navy Bird Posted September 6, 2016 Share Posted September 6, 2016 Great work! And you made the perfect choice for the markings - VF-2 in high-viz is one of my favourite F-14 schemes. I have a question about the kit - does it correctly reproduce the NACA ducts on the port side of both ventral strakes? I read somewhere that Hobbyboss mucked that up, but it might have been their other kit in the unmentionable scale. Cheers, Bill 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted September 6, 2016 Share Posted September 6, 2016 Great work! And you made the perfect choice for the markings - VF-2 in high-viz is one of my favourite F-14 schemes. I have a question about the kit - does it correctly reproduce the NACA ducts on the port side of both ventral strakes? I read somewhere that Hobbyboss mucked that up, but it might have been their other kit in the unmentionable scale. Cheers, Bill Hobby Boss did not get the NACA vents on the strakes at all. See the ongoing six Tomcat build for more info, the chap is casting another manufacturers ventral fins to put onto the HB Toms. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelglue Posted September 6, 2016 Share Posted September 6, 2016 Thank you ArmoredSprue, Modelglue and Val! Yes, the kit has both the high and low vis schemes, with separate stencils for both. There's also a third scheme for a VF-31 Tomcatters, you can have a look at the decal sheet above. How did I miss that? (rhetorical) Thanks for the answer though, be awfully tempting to do a tomcatters jet now too.. Jeff 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxzinbox Posted September 6, 2016 Author Share Posted September 6, 2016 Great work! And you made the perfect choice for the markings - VF-2 in high-viz is one of my favourite F-14 schemes. I have a question about the kit - does it correctly reproduce the NACA ducts on the port side of both ventral strakes? I read somewhere that Hobbyboss mucked that up, but it might have been their other kit in the unmentionable scale. Cheers, Bill Thanks Bill. As Parabat mentioned, it's missing in this HB kit as well. It would have been nice if they provided the fins as a separate piece instead of moulding it to the fuselage. Then again, lots of details that one would take for granted in a Hasegawa offering are missing in the kit, thus all the scratch building. Hobby Boss did not get the NACA vents on the strakes at all. See the ongoing six Tomcat build for more info, the chap is casting another manufacturers ventral fins to put onto the HB Toms. Well, that's a viable alternative. A friend has the Hasegawa kit. Will attempt a similar procedure on this build if scratch building a fin from styrene sheet doesn't work. Resin Casting seems to be a very handy skillset to have in the inventory. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alxzinbox Posted September 13, 2016 Author Share Posted September 13, 2016 (edited) Ventral Fins with NACA ducts: Thanks to the discussion intiated by Navy-Bird in the comments above, I decided to reproduce the NACA ducts using styrene card instead of going down the complicated route of casting it from the Hasegawa kit. I started off with the basic dimensions and hand drawn outline for the ducts on 0.3mm styrene card Using a new blade, carving out the duct was pretty easy. I further refined the shape after detaching the fin from the rest of the card. I then glued the fin on to a 0.5mm card. As per the kit dimensions, the base of the fin measured 1mm in thickness. So the final thickness of 0.3 + 0.5 = 0.8mm should look reasonably passable in scale. I made the blunder of gluing the first card the wrong way the first time. Fortunately steps 1,2 & 3 were pretty simple to replicate (took around 5 minutes each time), so no love lost. After the cement had completely cured overnight, 15 minutes of sanding the edges to a keen edge (with reference lines drawn on to the fins) and the result was looking pretty good already. And finally here is the end result (not attached to the fuselage) with the original for comparision. Added the panel on the inner starboard fin, along with riveting. Some filler will still be required along the tips, which will hopefully be solved by the Mr. Surfacer 500 (which is still in transit over surface mail- also required to complete the landing gear) Building both the fins took little over 2-2.5 hours in total (including mistakes, stretched over two days), and adds a nice additional level of detail to the build. Thanks Navy-Bird once again for bringing this detail to my attention! Cheers, Alex. Edited September 13, 2016 by alxzinbox 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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