Brigbeale

The Tomcat had the stabilators fitted and the airframe received a couple of shades of shading/weathering. That was given a day to dry and then a coat of Galeria flat varnish was airbrushed on. Once that was undercarriage and the doors were fitted and supported in the stand to allow the TET to fully dry. The outer weapons pylons were fitted as well. The AIM-7 and AiM-9 missiles were painted and fitted as per a photo found on the internet, while the previously painted painted Phoenix missiles were attached to their pylons and tail hook was painted and fitted. Some small additions with the paint brush were done and the canopy unmasked. So that’s three completed now. What to do next??? And with the other two Tomcats

I like your thinking. I did think of something similar for my hawks, but the way things are in my house, I don’t have enough wall space😕

Decalling the Tomcat started tonight which I decided to do numerically. Some of the call-out decal numbers are wrong, so close attention had to be paid The diagram for the upper surfaces is incorrect as it’s mirrored to what it should be (it shows the insignia on the starboard wing where we all know it should be in the port wing). I also went against the port wing insignia being painted upside-down (back to front) and fitted as it should be. I’m aware that photos exist of this F-14 in flight showing the oddly painted insignia, but my inner self wouldn’t let me fit it that way. I’ve seen 163 with the insignia the right way up, so I’m having mine as the insignia being corrected. Also the 164’s on the flaps do not look right in the diagram, so I swapped the position to the opposite side for each decal. The decals themselves went in very well, but I ran out of time and had to stop at the ‘No Step/Push’ stencils for the stabilators (I also forgot to apply floor polish to them,so I will add a couple of coats before I finish the decalling tomorrow. I’m happy with the progress so far….

I masked up the aforementioned areas for the application of black paint using a 1mm strip of Tamiya tape for the demarcation line around the nose/cockpit area. 10mm tape was used to overlay the 1mm tape and also around the upper and lower fins. Once that was done, cheaper household tape was used to block off the surrounding exposed surfaces to keep black overspray off. I went to airbrush Humbrol Acrylic Black paint onto the appropriate areas, but then I changed my mind and used Mr Color H55 Midnight Blue. I’ve used it before and it’s is practically black. The areas were unmasked once the paint had dried off and it certainly looks sticking against the grey. A couple of minor touch ups were needed where the paint bled under the tape in two places and I also went round with the paint brush on the engines, recessed wing fold panels and navigation lights (painted aluminium to receive the red/green paints).

I went to Model Railway Solutions (my local model shop) this morning and bought a fresh pot of H-308. When I got home, I gave the paint a good stir and watched as the colour lightened as the lighter colour pigments detached from the bottom of the jar. I gave the paint a quick test by applying some to the side of the under-nose pod. There’s quite a difference in shade, which confirms the previous coat came out too dark, so a repaint was in order. Tonight I applied the replacement coat of H-308 and also painted the fuel tanks which got left out last night due to paint shortage. It was quite warm tonight, so the paint didn’t take long to dry. This enabled me to mask where needed and paint H-307 onto the upper surfaces. Then came the time to remove the masking tape and thoughts of the Airfix de-masking catastrophe came flooding back. But, the tape came off cleanly leaving the previously applied paint and primer where it was. The primer was painted on by the previous owner of this particular Tomcat, so I had no idea what primer was used). Next up, is masking the nose/cockpit surround and spine, both fin/rudder assemblies and both ventral fins to paint them black. I’ll wait for the paints to dry fully before pushing my luck too far.

Due to other events today, I didn’t get to my local model shop to get the paints I mentioned in the last post. I looked in the H-308 pot and thought that it would be enough and it was - just. It was already thinned for airbrushing, which led me to the wrong conclusion that I had plenty, thinking I could thin it to go further. Still I got together the parts that would need painting and proceeded to lightly airbrush the H-308 onto the undersides of the Tomcat. I managed a suitable finish showing off the pre-shading and painting the extra parts (stabilators, gear doors etc). Ive mislaid sprue E somewhere along the line which has one of the nose-gear door halves on it. I have the other one which still has the closed version on, which I could use if push comes to shove. I still need to paint the external fuel tanks though and I think I also need to add a little extra paint to the port side of the nose to ensure the demarcation line is met when the black cockpit surround and nose are painted along with the upper and lower fins. I’m also wondering if the H-308 looks a little too dark and needs lightening up a shade or two. I’ll see when the upper paint goes on. Tomcat no. 8 showed up today. It was listed as an Italeri F-14 but I unboxed it, I immediately recognised it as an Airfix F-14A. I could contact the seller but frankly, I can’t be bothered, and it’s still a Tomcat. The nose gear wheels were broken off so it looks a little like the Tomcat that Maverick and Brewster liberate in Top Gun Maverick - the scene where they take off from the very short taxi-way and catch the fuel storage railings ripping the nose-gear off. Pilot and Rio are on board. It needs work on the seams and the fins are loose.

I’ve just had a quick look and found a Hasegawa call-out which shows two colours for the fuselage. H-308 for the lower/underside panels of the fuselage and H-307 for the upper main panels. Actual photos of 163 and 164 both confirm that the nose and main underside surfaces appear to be the same colour, so I’ll partly ignore the Revell call-out.

The dried Mr Surfacer was sanded a the seams checked to make sure they were smoothed out. All was good on that front, so the panel lines were restored using the Tamiya Scriber II. Rather than set up the airbrush to refresh the pre-shading, I just used a brush to paint them back in and fill in some shading in the panels The fuel tanks were sanded to clean up the seams and it seemed familiar to me at I’d been here before. Reading back through my previous posts I found that when I purchased this F-14 and the IRIAF Tomcat, this one was already in primer (which is why I don’t remember priming it). I was correct that the ventral fin was broken off in transit. It did surprise me though, that that was over a year ago - where does time go??? In another one of the posts, I wrote that the fuel tanks were also warped and needed clamping to pull the ends together while the cement set. It’s slowly coming back to me. I made sure I had the correct colours of paint and according to the colour call-out, I do, I checked the state of the paints inside each pot and lined them up according to pot number to make sure the colours were correct. Wait a minute…….. The lighter shade for the bottom is called out as FS36375 (H308) which is fair enough. The nose section, which appears to be the mid grey colour is called out as FS36320 (H307). The darker upper main surfaces are called out as FS35237 (H-337). The paint in the pots look like the H307 is darker in shade than the H337, so I did a patch test on a piece of the same kit sprue. In the picture, there’s three tones of grey - left to right are H308, H337 and H307I put the sprue over the colour call-out and the latter two greys appear to match the image. I’m sure the printed call-out is exaggerated to highlight the different tones (which is why the underside H308 is completely different). I have a fresh pot of H-307 and that matches the already open pot. I will however get a fresh pot of H337 (and 308 as I’m getting low on that one) and compare them again tomorrow. If they match then I’ll probably just swap the two paints when I airbrush them on. I’ll also check images of the two F-14D’s painted in this scheme.

With the A-7A/B built and in the cabinet, my eye was drawn back to one of the Tomcats which was in primer and pre-shaded, but I couldn’t actually remember where I actually got to with it. Looking at the built fuselage, it appeared (on the face of it) to be near enough ready for painting, but upon closer inspection, the nose section centre seam was quite visible as were the seam lines on the under nose pod and the side seams lines behind the swing wings where the upper and lower sections joined. more seam lines were visible on the tail section between the fin/rudder assemblies. A look at the parts showed some parts were painted (I vaguely remember painting the wheels and undercarriage legs but not priming the fuselage). The previous owner of one of these Tomcats had painted some parts on the sprue with a brush (external fuel tanks and ordnance racks). The other Revell Tomcat is painted up as an F-14B in the Black Aces livery. I think I used parts from both kits on that build, hence some painted parts not done by me. This evening, I re-commenced work in this Tomcat by sanding back the seams a bit to level them out a bit and sanding back one of the fixed glove vanes which was slightly protruding from the fuselage. I also had to fit the two forward Phoenix missile racks. Luckily the two rearmost location pin hols were just visible as they hadn’t been drilled out yet. I drilled them but couldn’t locate the exact whereabouts of the forward pins, so I simply snipped the forward ones off and used copious amounts of TET to fit the racks in position. One of the underside fins had been broken off in transit (as far a can remember), but it was present and re-cemented back on. I assembled the two external fuel tanks and missile pylons. The paint will be sanded smooth as the seams need to be dealt with anyway once the TET has fully dried. The kit Sidewinder and Sparrow/Skyflash missiles were cut from the sprue and a hole was drilled in the exhaust end to accept a cocktail stick for painting. The sidewinders have ejection pin marks on the rearmost fins which will need tidying up. Mr Surfacer was run over the seams to fill them in. Once it’s dry I can sand it back to a smooth finish.

I bought this kit cheaply off eBay as it was started but abiandoned. It arrived in its box with the original instructions and decals. Scalemates suggest it’s from around 1968 which makes the moulding as old as me! The fuselage was built but slightly misaligned at the front and the main wing assembly was also built but the outer folding sections had been attached but later broken off. No paint had been applied anywhere, so that saved me a job. I took the fuselage apart to get at the air intake, cockpit and exhaust. The WIP is here I re-scribed the panel lines and replaced the pilot seat with an adapted spare from one of my Tomcats. The cockpit was also brightened up with some Edward photoetch (which was for the A-7E but I used it to add interest to the cockpit and nose gear. The re-build needed a few tweaks to get the fuselage back together but for an old second hand kit, it wasn’t too bad. The kit main gear had one strut missing and the main gear wheels were terrible, so I 3d printed replacements. I replaced the kit bombs with 3d printed M82 Snake Eye and smaller Mk 83 bombs sourced from Thingiverse. The decals are Esci aftermarket but as I applying them I found someone had goofed and printed two port side rudder decals. I had to take a photo of the extra one, reverse the image and print it on decal paper. A couple of attempts finally resulted in a usable replacement. With everything fitted and painted, the A-7 was given a coat of matt varnish. The decals are for an A-7B from VA-67 aboard USS Roosevelt, but the time period is not mentioned. I could not find a picture of the actual A-7B in this livery, but I did find the same aircraft in VA-15 livery. The last photo is of the A-7B accompanied by my early moulding F-14A Tomcat.

The story comes to an end on this A-7 Corsair II with the finishing touches being done. The Mk82 Snake Eye bombs were painted as per the previous post and it worked well. I opted for a an Olive Drab colour as that seemed to be the colour in a few online photos. I also 3d printed some Mk83 bombs to replace the kit ones for the outer ordnance rails (they’re tiny in comparison to the 82’s). They were also painted Olive Drab. The bombs were fitted to their racks using superglue and the racks were fitted to their locations under the wings (where else would they go??). Once they were all secure, the bomb fuses were painted as well as the refuelling probe tip. The tail hook was fitted (although it was too long for the hole provided so I just snipped about 1/2mm off the front end). Navigation lights were painted onto the wing tips. The two defensive Sidewinders were fitted to their rails and the tips painted silver in an attempt to replicate the clear nose. The other option would have been to paint them black. Once I was satisfied that everything was fitted and wasn’t going to fall off when I wasn’t looking, I gave the A-7 a coat of Galeria Matt Varnish, which further improved the look of the model as a whole. When that was dry, I removed the masking on the canopy and found some errant dust inside. I dare not try to get the canopy off to clean it out with the steps I had to take to get the canopy stuck on. This is another model which I’m very happy with. The RFI is here

I had an attempt to re-create the starboard rudder flash, but when I went to apply it, it stretched one way and then another so I took it back off again. As I always print more than I need, I concluded that I hadn’t put enough varnish on, so more clear varnish was added to the extras. I applied the rudder flash first time this evening and it looks ok - not quite as vibrant as the other side but hey - ho. The panel lines received a wash yesterday and they are just enough to lift the look of the fuselage. I also painted the 3d printed wheel centres white along with the tips of the Mk82 Snake-eye bombs (in order to paint the casing tips yellow before the main colour goes on for the casing. The extendable fins will be painted an aluminium colour). I think I’ve found a way of easily masking off the top of the 12 Mk82’s by standing them nose first in a piece of cardboard box. I must remember to keep the air pressure down when I paint the green colour on. Tonight I painted the tyres with Mr Color H-77 Tyre Black and while they were drying, I used Mr Color H-327 Red to paint the inner edges of the wheel bay and doors. A couple of slips will need touching up with white but they also look ok. Once the tyres were dry, the 3d printed main gear wheels were superglued onto their axles while the kit original nose-gear wheels were fitted using TET. While the glues were setting on the wheels, the ordnance pylons were cleaned up and the racks fitted. The defensive Sidewinder racks were fitted to the fuselage and then the gear doors were superglued in position using the photo for their relative angles to each other. I fitted the fuel tanks to their pylons and let them cure for a while. Once they were semi-dry, I fitted them to the inner stations under each wing. I found Revell have made the locating slots and tabs longer on one wing than the other (the pylons them selves are the same length). I was able to adjust the pylons to vertical and move the fuel tanks so that they were fitted properly and not off to one side. The refuelling probe was next to be fitted, but that was broken in two. The business end was loose in the box when I bought the kit luckily. I fitted the probe end first and then the tube section. Using TET and tweezers the broken ends were coaxed back into position. I’ll paint them once the TET has fully cured tomorrow. The A-7 is beginning to defy its age kit wise and look like a later release kit. I’m very happy with the progress so far.

The A-7 had the forward windscreen framing painted black and a blue stripe was added to the antenna area of the fin. I also gave the nose cone a second coat of white as I wasn’t happy with the coverage earlier and it had grey overspray on it anyway. While I had the white in the airbrush, I gave the parts on the sprues another coat where necessary. Earlier today, I designed a pair of replacement main gear wheels taking inspiration from the Aires set and using online photos to get the shape of the wheel. They’re printing in my Elegoo resin printer alone with some better looking Mk82 bombs (which I added slots to to copy the kit original ones so they should on the kit ordnance rails). Tonight, I set about decalling the A-7 using the USS Roosevelt decals. I started off with the port side as the images show only that side. The starboard side should be a mirror of the port side. Note I said ‘should’! The decals themselves performed flawlessly and only one split, but that was my fault for trying to adjust the position after Microsol had been applied, but it went back together very well. Happy with the port side, I went to apply the starboard side ones. Starting with the tail markings the VF, build number and OO went in with no issue. Now is where the ‘should’ comes in. A mistake was made during the printing and there’s no starboard rudder decal (red with white stars). There’s two port ones (look at the image if the decal sheet). I will have to photograph the rudder decal, reverse the image and print a correct decal for the starboard side. With that little wrankle noted, I carried on with the rest of the starboard side and they went on well but both air intake decals will need some painting in the gun recesses as the decals split in them (which I expected anyway). While I was doing the main gear wheels, I printed some decals for the upper starboard wing. Obviously AE would be present but what number. The aircraft number is 300, but the fin top has 00. Searching the internet for 154492, I found an image showing the A-7 with a different livery but from the same unit. The fin leading edge is painted blue but the top of the starboard wing is visible and it reads 00AE, so I took photos of the decal sheet and made my own ones matched to the size of the Kit original decal for that area. Looking a whole lot better now with decals on.

The A-7 was masked up over a couple of nights modelling. I would have got it done in one, but I found the colour call-out and it showed the fin tip being white, so that had to be painted (which I did by hand applying thin coats to build it up). That meant waiting for the paint to dry. So, tonight, I masked up the fin top and also the underside of the leading edges of the stabilators. Not 100% sure if this is correct, but it adds a little interest. Right, where’s my Mr Color H315 FS16440 Grey. Couldn’t find it. I know I had some because I painted the Airfix F-14A with it (you remember - the one with the primer that kept coming off in places when masking was removed). After nearly emptying the paint drawer looking for H-315, I found H325 which is FS26640. I remember now that H315 is Gloss and H-325 is Semi-Gloss. Good, I can carry on now. Cheaper masking tape was used to further mask off the lower fuselage but I did use Tamiya tape for under the wings as it sticks better. Hopefully, it leaves the paint where it is this time. The upper fuselage was airbrushed with a fairly even coat of H325 as well as the fuel tanks, defence Sidewinder rails, stabilators and the refuelling probe. I plan.a trip to Model Railway Solutions tomorrow to get some MIG Ammo panel line wash as I still have my gift card from Christmas, but I saw they had an Academy SR-71. Hmmm- decisions decisions…… Another Tomcat Arrived yesterday. This time a Hasegawa kit. So that makes 7 that I own now (2 built and painted as I want them, one Revell still in primer and pre-shading awaiting continuation, a Monogram one bought kinda mid build and some bits missing, another Revell special boxing of the previously mentioned kit with different decals, an Italeri one in Iranian colours (that’s going to be ‘returned’ to US markings and the most recent addition as new in its box but the decals are trashed). Can you guess I like F-14s. Anyway, tonight’s photos. The picture behind is purely for the placement of the stars and bars as there’s two sizes and it appears that the larger ones go on the fuselage.

Thanks. I agree with the philosophy that once some paint goes on, there’s a finish line on the horizon. Thanks Chris. Apart from a few stiffness aches, my back is more or less back to normal. When we last spoke about the Puma, I was determined to get one - I just didn’t realise it would take so long though. I’ve found some 3d printable parts to upgrade the kit a little.