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Last few shots before proper submission into GB gallery later. D - Here we can see mirrors and grab handle I added. Also kit bashed/re cast RIO ‘fishbowl’ TID for this early 90’s D. Added the streaks off the walkway as per the reference pic. Also think that the decals in the footstep wells are quite effective now. Wasn’t a fan at first of this representation of the panel lines in there. Also note the slightly sunken area of where the glove vane canards were just visible but not a panel line anymore as its a D(R). Were puttied over and sometimes just visible on these rebuilt A’s. Added a wash to bring out the rivets and painted the silver (mig ammo oil brusher) ring on edge of shrouds before installing the cans. Happy with the blue and purple heat discolouration tints at base of cans (ak xtreme metals) Overall tint is quite golden/brown but thats just the light. Nose bung with its bungee and rbf added. Note streaks on UC doors. Plenty to see here looks busy enough. Same for the top, nice variations quite pleased how it came out. A couple on the Italeri base - The A - Added the Probe from some streched sprue as had to remove it to place decal. Also not pleased with the rescue arrow. Too thick and visible. It’s because I had to improvise and layer it on some light grey scrap decal to get the pale border and text that it had. Busy enough. Was thinking of adding some chips and scrapes to the interior of the flap and slat area but may be too much in this scale? Quite a prominent gap around the canopy. Not as fine as the other panel lines. Happy with the light grey/off white of the ceramic radomes. I used FS36495. Sometimes too overdone if ones uses gull grey or radome tan. The crew. These came out nice, misted metallic blue, purple and burnt metal over a titanium base. Ak xtreme again. Nozzles are a mix of jet exhaust and burnt metal. May put another layer of kleer over to give them some more sheen. On the same base - Thanks for following. Tony

Tweaked it a bit more, one in natural daylight, other with desk lamp. Hopefully proper RFI pics later with the pair of GWH cats before the GB deadline... Desk lamp (bit over contrasty) Daylight (bit murky out this morning)

Lovely project 👌🏽

This has inspired me to buy one! Cheers Tim mate.

Yikes forgot about this again! I still need to photograph the things I did too. However have a weekend full of glossing ahead! (House, 1/1 scale, doors and skirting boards 😂)

Nice. They should do the gpz 6/900 from the first film too.

Absolutely awesome 😎 That’s the GB winner for my vote! Following this build has made me want to buy one of these again. Had one in the stash a few years back, sold it on, but been browsing for one again 😂

Nice! Fancy doing one of these Italeri F-4S as a quick build. Mainly because I have the paints for this scheme from the AK air US modern set 1 and will never use the blue or light sea grey on anything else 😂

Nice job on that old tool kit mate however the grey you have used is too blue and reminiscent of the TPS style ghost greys. She should be wearing the paler and creamier light gull grey. Tony

Just realised if you had waited I could have sent you some modded Hasegawa cowls and fairings I mastered to fit hboss kits and aires nozzles. Separate parts to facilitate painting and all the panel line details. As featured on my vf 2, 21, & 103 A jets. Perhaps for the next one hey 👌🏽

That’s a gorgeous build. Good to see its a line bird too and not a ubiquitous CAG or CO jet. The steel beach vent looks a bit coarse though? Whats the quality of their parts like? Tony

Hi Mate, what I have done in the past is glue the two ‘outside’ areas together with superglue (as in your first pic in post #11) The cowls and nozzle are tacked to the airframe with white glue for painting so that the camo matches on the side shrouds. Then pop them off and paint the metal areas. The tubing I paint separately then add to the cowls at the end. I use pva/white glue to place them and back fill and help ‘centre’ them to the nozzle. Once set the cowl with tube in it is permanently attached to airframe at the end of the build. (I use foam wrapped skewers up the back ends to hold them to minimise handling) Hope any of this is some help.

That made me spit my coffee out 😂 I do fancy one of these kits too.

With my recent Academy A Plus build. Deck looks too dark?

Hmmm this is tempting. An early wolfpack tomcat - check. Or Eduard mig-21 pfm vietcong - check Or Airfix new mig-17 - check. Loads to choose from in the stash...

Great job!

I half fill the nose cone with Liquid gravity on all my F-14 builds mate. Not had a tail sitter yet. Perhaps use that as a measurement/weight reference if you’re set on using a boxed section? Although the more forward it is the less you need so if you’re bringing it rearwards will have to increase by a guesstimate 😂 I’ve not had a nosecone break off with the weight if that’s what you’re worried about. Even when a gust of wind blew my GWH D halfway across the shed and cracked its canopy off the corner of the tool chest during a lull in painting 😂 Place nosecone in some blu tac like a vase. Half fill with with LG. Then cover with pva/white glue/kristal kleer. Leave over night and then attach to fuselage section. Ta da! Tony

Angry Dogs! Main halves assembled for posing. Decided to use one stand for both. Also instead of the cradles provided that looked naff holding them I decided to drill them and mount straight onto the rods. Some clear rubber o-rings hold them at the desired length and not slide all the way back, especially the one with the rod up its end. Finished assembling with all the teeth, eyebrows, spikes, bolts and fins. Primed with mr 1200 to speed things up as want these done by the end of the week hopefully. Tony

Sorry for the long pause. So I couldn’t get it level enough with a trowel and the texture was very coarse for 1/72. What I ended up doing was filling and sanding back, filling and sanding back. In the end it looked like cork board a bit. Had to buy a tub of the ‘asphalt’ to finish it off. Same product and texture just a different colour. Meant I had to paint it as lost the concrete colour. Lastly was to scribe some expansion joints. Base colours for concrete going on. That satisfying moment pulling the masking off... 😬 Checking the colour of the groundwork against the jet and reference pics (GWH ‘D’ sticking it’s nose in) I have a very understanding wife by the way. This has been on the ironing board most of last week 😂 Some weathering of the base and make it ‘interesting’ This will be mainly for this jet In the cabinet to ‘set the scene’ however as a generic concrete standing/taxiway it will come in handy for photos and displaying of other builds at meets/shows etc. Once the Covid is gone obvs. Now I just need to get that flag sorted...

Good spot! I didn’t bother scrolling through all of the images. There is a lantirn too on its own sprue.

Update: Cat track done and then had some washes and grime added. Tyre scrub marks added alongside the track with some pigments. Used a ruler to keep them straight-ish. Thanks for looking. RFI next when I set up the photo booth to snap at a few other bits too.

Well for people to help you mate you need to let them know what kind of painting you intend to do (Detail or general or both) and with what kind of paint as well (oil enamels or acrylics etc) That will determine what gets recommend in terms of size and what the bristles are made from etc. Tony.

So now these are about done here are some thoughts on these kits. Bit of an epic but there is actually quite alot so share for those interested. Will add this to first post too for anyone who comes across this thread and get the lowdown on the nitty gritty. Great wall cats Well these are a bit of a ‘two faced’ jekyll and hyde type thing for me. On one hand they are great and then on the other not so much. Some bits are really well thought out and seem to have been made/designed by modellers for modellers. And then in others it makes you scratch your head. Like they ran out of time or budget or two separate people were working on different parts and then combining them together was a compromise or designed by a third person. Good points - (well more like stand out features or things better than other current tomcat kits) 1. It looks like a tomcat! 2. Joking aside one of the best features of this kit it the way the parts are attached to the sprues. It is all on the edges/bottom or mating surfaces of parts, rather than the ‘sides’ so removal and clean up is a breeze. This makes things like the UC doors a dream as they can all be painted and detailed on the sprues so you don’t have to get creative when trying to hold them during painting. They can then be snipped off and placed as all their attachment points are on the hinges (which then insert and are hidden inside their respective holes in the bays) Speaking of UC doors this brings me onto another good point about this kit. There are practically zero visible ejection pin marks that need filling. (I hate trying to fill pin marks on the inners of UC doors) There are some on the ‘floors’ of the main intake trunking but these can’t be seen. The D kit has a few on the rears of the inner exhaust petal bits but are easily dealt with without compromising detail. So in general ejection pin and parts placement are well thought out. 3. There is a separate insert part for the RIO step and its reinforcement plate. Something missing from all major kits (apart from Hboss -which is moulded on so just sand off if not required) 4. The leading edges of the wings have that subtle curve/chink in them. Not seen on other kits so far. 5. Missiles are slide moulded and have good details on the rear. Aim 54’s and 7’s are great but the 9’s are let down by chunky front fins. I know that doesn’t seem like alot of good points, that’s because most of it is very good anyways as would be expected for a kit of this age and tooling. Bad points Here we go. Some of these may seem harsh or over critical but they are frustrating nonetheless and stop it from being perfect, especially when some parts are outstanding Most are general for both boxings, others are A/D specific. 1. It’s not a beginners tomcat kit. You need to know your way around them or have good references to work from. Which ties into point number 2 below. 2. The instructions for both are a joke. In general very poor/lazy and just parts with an arrow of the general location of where they go. Loads of correction / errata sheets too. Poor explanation over the use of optional parts. The ‘A’ sheet still has ‘D’ CAD drawings in some areas. 3. Most major parts locate with a ‘butt’ join. So a 1/4mm off on a few parts here and there can soon compound into a 1mm step somewhere else later on. You almost need to do all the assembly in one sitting to get it all to line up. 4. Yes this kit has flaps slats and spoilers but their attachment points are very chunky, especially the slats. Fujimi & Hasegawa’s kits from almost 30 years ago both have alot more finesse here. Also spoilers are one long piece when they should be 3 separate bits. 5. The cockpit floor has some nice detail with panel lines and fine raised rivets if you wanted to do a seats out maintenance type display. OH WAIT YOU CAN’T because whoever designed the seats put two massive tabs on the bottom of them and that means two huge rectangular holes in cockpit floor for them to locate in. Good luck filling those and reinstating the detail. 6. The undercarriage legs are way over engineered. Too many parts make them up and this can lead to errors getting them all straight and lined up. Definitely use the fuselage as a jig to get all the parts perpendicular and lined up. 7. Decals are ok, very thin but stiff and ‘crinkly’. I used them for one cockpit and both sets of missiles I didn’t use the main markings on the builds but did play around with them on some scrap. 8. Speaking of decals they give the rear view mirrors for the inside of the canopy as tiny decals. They are to be placed on the ceiling of the canopy framing looking down. How are they meant to work?!?! 9. Also the cockpit sill and canopy interior piece are very well done. There is just no locating tab/hinge or similar to ‘clip’ it into the spine to help hold it open in the correct position and angle. Frustrating. The acad and Finemolds kits both have ways of doing this which are very secure too. 10. The main wheel tyres have a fictional pattern. Only one type of late hub moulded in said strange tyre. They include the D wheels in the Early A kit so no good there but you’re probably going to replace them due to the tires anyways. 11. The front fuselage halves have some sink marks on the outside corresponding with the interior location sockets for the cockpit tub. 12. Seats lack harness detail (don’t they all) but they don’t even give face curtain handles in plastic for the gru-7’s in the A kit. Really? 13. All gun vent panel inserts have the grill at the lower rear corner. Just the NACA one should have it. 14. TCS chin pod in A kit is poor and clunky. 15. Early tailfins in the A kit have very soft stiffener plate detail. 16. The P&W Tf30 nozzles of the A have some nice detail as do the tubes with some ribbing, however again there are two large tabs to join nozzles to tubes which are very difficult to conceal. 17. Both the A and D kit share the same exhaust tubes which have an unrealistic and inaccurate taper to them to give the perception of more depth. (The new acad kit does this too by the way) 18. Pitots and probes. They are all moulded well and attach to the sprues at their bases, similar to the new acad kit. This makes painting, clean up and installation easy (take note Finemolds thats how yours should have been!) however the nose tip AOA sensor is overall too large and its base is too big which should be part of the radome so the ‘join’ is in the wrong place. Similar to hboss kits. Plans for future GWH kits will be to glue it in place and eradicate seam. Then snip off the correct amount to be replaced by a brass probe at end of build. 19. The D kit is ‘bombcat’ only out of the box. (In terms of the following details- PTID screen for the RIO, lantirn joystick and GPS dome for spine. However two of the markings are pre bombcat. The boxtop artwork option was a bombcat but may not have had the PTID in 1997. There is no bombcat loadout just a lantirn pylon but no pod. Just air to air loadout so the D kit kind of contradicts itself. 20. Speaking of air to air loadouts they got the phoenixes wrong. They released the D kit with Aim-54 A versions (4 Bumps behind its radome) and the A kit with Aim-54 C’s (smooth). The decals for them are then also wrong. In reality a D bird would have only carried 54’Cs but the F14A was in service long enough to carry both the A and then C 54’s. What you get - D kit - A missiles with C decals. A kit - C missiles with A decals. What they should have done - D kit - C missiles with C decals. (And possibly a bombcat loadout) A kit - A missiles with A decals (and possibly C missiles with C decals if they give a marking option of an A jet late enough to carry them (1987-2004) 21. Surface detail is very fine however too fine in some places and gets lost under paint. 22. They missed off the formation light on the right hand waist below the wing bladder. All others featured with panel lines for the decal strips Thats all I can think of for now. In closing For me there is still no clear winner for best tomcat kit although the most recent three over past few years are all very good in their own way. Acad, Finemolds and this the GWH. The ultimate kit would be a collaboration of all three - Take the breakdown of parts, buildability and multi options of the academy kit but use the sprue attachment and ejection pin points of the GWH kit. Then have it moulded with the finesse, crispness and consistency of detail across all parts that finemolds uses. Sorry for all the waffle. Tony.

Fantastic stuff so far Jonathan! All those scratched and added details make my hboss builds look plain and boring in comparison...

Fantastic build, paint and photos 👌🏽