Giorgio N Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 (edited) I know, as 2IC I should have started earlier... oh well, I'll try at least to finish early! Being a slow modeller I knew that the best option would have been a quick OOB build, and for this I decided to look at the hasegawa new mould boxes. Not that I have many, just 4: All of these have been bought at sales or second hand. The most expensive was the VF-154 box that I paid 20 euro... To make things faster, I decided to use a kit for which I had already decided the markings, so that at least I'd not have spent time deciding on options. The box I have chosen is this one: I always loved the VF-21 markings and an aircraft like the one on the box top has long been on my to-do list. The box contains the same parts of the more common "atlantic fleet squadrons" with a new decal sheet: THe original pacific fleet squadron box actually included markings for a VF-21 Cat, but the quality of the sheet in the specific box is much better, with much more realistic colours. Must say I have not decided yet which of the markings included I'll build... but at least the build itself will be the same as the aircrafts are of the same block (one is 161601 and the other 161603) and have been represented very close in the squadron timeline, so there are no detail differences apart from the markings. I have not decided the load yet, although it will be with AA missiles only as these markings were used well before the Tomcat became a Bombcat. One option is a typical "medium" load with 2 missiles per type. Another option is a training load, with a single sidewinder and an ACMI pod... I'll see when I get closer to the end of the build. Edited January 26, 2012 by Giorgio N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Nice one Gipsy! Be looking forward to seeing this come together! Rip-Cord Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev1n Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 go for it..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-32 Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Nice choice, and a great collection Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RNoAF Aerobatic Team Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Just get in the groove;-) Looking forward to follow this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted January 30, 2012 Author Share Posted January 30, 2012 On with the build ! Well, at least with the little I've done.... First of all I looked at the nose gear well. it's quite nice but I felt that a couple of bits could be added, mainly to the front wall (where the brake controls are located). A cople of plastic bits reproduced some more controls and some wires replicated the most visible hydraulic lines. A couple more lines were added to the well side parts. There should be more, but some will need the well to be assembled before being inserted I also separated the PE consolles and attached these to the cockpit The consolles are quite accurate, and I'm thinking of a closed canopy build. This will mean no additions in the cockpit and a quicker build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev1n Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Being a slow modeller you think you're slow? try me.... altho' I keep finding things to add where they arent on the kits so I want to add them.... like the nose gear bay.... (in the case of the airfix kit I have to build a bay first...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Great choice Giorgio. Looks good so far and I'm keen to see what you do with this. Cheers, Andrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted February 6, 2012 Author Share Posted February 6, 2012 Again, this is moving slowly. One of the reasons is that I'm trying to finish the Mustang I' building for the STGB and that is giving me plenty of troubles.... Fortunately the hasegawa Cat is a much better kit than the Italeri P-51 although some parts are not perfect. For example the pilot instrument panel is not 100% the right shape, being narrower than the side consoles while in reality it overlaps them... anyway, I'm not going to correct this on this build. Some of the PE parts in the cockpit are also larger than where they should go. The Aires cockpit set will solve this on my next tomcat, but for this one I just trimmed the two panels behind the WSO seat. Work done during the weekend involved painting the grey on the cockpit area using lifecolor FS 36231, lightened with some 36440. Tonight I hope to paint some details. I also started attacking the exhausts: Iin the picture above you can see that the inside of the exhaust cans were painted white and then some dark streaks were drybrushed on. These streaks follow the position of the afterburner nozzles... and two will go over the junctions between the two halves, hopefully hiding this. A washwith black and raw umber il paint will follow after the halves are joines. The rear part of the turbine was painted with humbrol polished steel metalcote. I love this paint for exhaust areas because if not polished it stays dark, almost opaque, but a bit of polishing reveals a nice dark metallic tone. I'm not sure this can be seen in the picture, but seen from real it looks great. A black was helped give a sense of depth. The compressor faces were painted with olished aluminium metalcote and then received a black wash. As I was moving books to a new shelf, I also took the chance to take a picture of some of the books I have on the Tomcat. They are not that many, but still quite a few... Some distraction was caused this morning by the postman that brought two hasegawa tomcats, a decal sheet, a verlinden detail set and an Aires exhausts set, all 1/48 scale. I'm tempted to start one of these too, but I have to keep focused on this one first.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev1n Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Again, this is moving slowly. One of the reasons is that I'm trying to finish the Mustang I' building for the STGB I'm not the only one then.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Looking good Gipsy, like the tips on the inside of the A/B cans,will use your idea on my build. I have just bought another Tomcat too... Parabat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
periklis_sale Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 good start mate :clap2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted February 10, 2012 Author Share Posted February 10, 2012 Small update: the cockpit is almost completed, just needs the throttle to be added. In the meantime, I completed the instrument panels: IMHO the hasegawa parts are inferior to the fujimi ones and on my next tomcat I might use a resin copy of the fujimi parts. For this one, they will do. I added a few instruments in decal form, coming from a hasegawa F-104 sheet. They can hardly be seen, but at least are there. Now some will wonder why not use the hasegawa decals... reason is that I want to keep these to improve some other kits. The exhaust nozzles are progressing too, with the main cans being completed. A black oil paint wash was added to make them dirtier. Not that much can be seen of these parts and unfortunately hard to see are these: Now here hasegawa has done a really great job ! The afterburer rings are beautiful, much better than what they offer on their 1/48 kits. As I said, very little will be visible once they are glued in place. The weeked should bring more progress. The weather is going to be bad anyway, so no reason to get out of home. The only distraction will be on satruday afternoon: the 6 Nations Italy-England match is on, and even if Italy will be hammered by England, it's still worth watching the game !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev1n Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Like that ^ Not sure how I'm going to tackle mine but hopefully I wont mess them up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted February 13, 2012 Author Share Posted February 13, 2012 Well, Italy was not hammered by England after all, and without a couple of stupid mistakes we could have won this one.... Still the progress on the Cat was slow again, mainly because the Mustang provided plenty of troubles with its natural metal finish. So while others here have already completed their model, what did I complete ? The nose gear well !!!! I only added a few cables here and there actually and some of the boxes on the front wall. Doesn't look great in pictures but for some reason it's better in real life... I'm not sure the brown wash was the best option, probably I should have used a grey wash. Anyway this is nothing compared to the main wheel wells: they are bad ! Maybe it's me, but the parts don't line up well at all, I'm contemplating rebuilding them !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 So while others here have already completed their model, what did I complete ? The nose gear well !!!! The story of my life!! The wheel bay does look very good though Giorgio! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Mullen Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 Cracking job so far Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 Back at work on the Tomcat ! I had to leave it for a while as the Mustang GB was approaching the end and I had a lovely F-51D I was building. Unfortunately I lost a couple of parts and could not complete the modell.. I hate these things when they happen !!!!!! So back to the Tomcat ! In these weeks I have actually done some work and the cockit is almost ready: You'll sure notice that I did not glue the rear. The reason for this is that a dry-fit showed that the fit with the rear fuselage might not be great, and not gluing the parts together yet should allow me to force out a bit the front fuselage halves to improve the situation. There is some paint that wore off the instrument panel tops, but I'm not touching up until I am sure I'll not be handling the parts anymore. As I HAVE TO FINISH THIS ONE IN TIME, I've decided to carry on building from the box with no fancy additions. However I had to do something in the main wheel wells ! These as they are would have too many bits missing, and I don't mean cables but really parts of the wells walls ! I have completed one, the other will follow soon: In the meantime I've also prepared the wings, glued the airbrakes shut and done a few small things. I'm also trying to decide the nose sensor: pictures of aircrafts of the same unit show both the TCS and the earlier IR/ECM pod, so I' have some doubts on what I'll be using. Maybe the best thing to do is to ind a picture of the same aircraft depicted in the decal sheet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Great progress Giorgio, your painting looks really good. Lovely work on the forward wheel well, looks great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 Let's be clear: it's all your fault guys ! The tomcats I've seen built in this GB are all so good that I could not stand the main gear wells as they were and decided to add some detail. One pic only, as the camera battery needs recharging first: More pictures will follow later. The few cables I added were made from very thin copper wire coming from an electric relais. This wire is very thin and it's quite a pain to work with this. Still, a bigger wire would have looked out of scale in 1/72. It took me a full afternoon to add the desired detail in both wheel wells and at the end of the day my nerves were wrecked. Of course the details I added are something like 1/10 of the cables and pipes that can be found in a real Tomcat wheel wells.... The intakes are also almost completed. Hopefully I'll be able to have the main airframe parts together by the end of the week... at least the painting scheme will be easy enough to do quickly ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Like it a lot Giorgio! You're doing better than I am. Keep it up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted March 19, 2012 Author Share Posted March 19, 2012 As usual, updates from me come after the weekend ! First step over the weekend was to buy new paint: I hadn't realised that my supply of tamiya flat white was gone ! I first tried to use other paints I had, but nothing for me beats tamiya in terms of cover when it comes to white. I took the need for paint as an excuse to visit a shop I'd never visited before and found a very nice and helpful owner that unfortunately is mainly into figures, so the shop had little for aircraft lovers... but it had the paint ! After watching Italy avoid the wooden spoon for this year (sorry my Scottish friends !), it was time to finally paint the air intakes and wheel wells with the new bottle of tamiya flat white. I had little trouble with the intakes, and they went on quite fast: With the intakes on it was time to glue the top and bottom of the rear fuselage part. Now hasegawa suggest to glue these first and add the intakes later, but I wanted to be sure the intakes went on well and I find it easier to do it on the lower fuselage part. The fit was not great here and I had to resort to the e of clamps: Even with the clamp, thwere were some gaps that needed filling with some plasticard: It was only at this point that I noticed I had taken no picture of the wheel wells ! Here's one, showing the added detail and the fact that the wash I used didn't really highlight much ! I think I have to resort to a darker wash, like the one used on the nose gear well. Now that the rear fuselage parts are together, I feel the build is going to speed up ! In the meantime I've started spraying the wings and tailerons in light gull grey, hopefully by the end of this week the model will have all the main parts together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabat Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 Looking good, shame about the gaps, but looks like you'll get them sorted! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted March 19, 2012 Author Share Posted March 19, 2012 Thanks Rip-Cord, I've sorted the gaps now, pictures will follow. In the meantime a couple of pics of the work done on the exhausts: I was not happy with the inner detail on the petals, so I've decided to add some small strips using the thinnest plasticard I have (0.13 mm). Some trimming of the strips brought a decent result: Now the inner parts have been painted white, ready for a good heavy black wash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Navy Bird Posted March 19, 2012 Share Posted March 19, 2012 Coming along very nicely, Gipsy! That last photo of the open and closed nozzles reminds me that I should do that on my F-14D. It's my understanding that when taxiing after landing, one engine would be throttled way back, which always left one nozzle open and one closed once they finally shut down. I love your choice of markings, too! To me, there is something about yellow trim on an F-14, it just looks great! Cheers, Bill "CREATURE" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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