1:72 Hasegawa F-14D Super Tomcat VF-31 Last Flight

[Giorgio N]

I see that I'm not the only one with flash on a 1/72 hasegaa tomcat. Guess the moulds are not becoming old.

Your model is moving well into the production line ! Should not be far before it's ready for the paintshop !

[Andy Mullen]

Looks great so far Bill

I then started work on the engine nozzles and afterburner. I decided to use the ones that came with the kit rather than buy an aftermarket resin set. The design is interesting in the kit, as the individual exhaust "petals" are attached one a a time. This is required to get the interesting shape they have. Much to my surprise, on the inside of each petal were two small holes that serve no useful prupose!! Are you kidding me??

And of course in addition to the two holes, there is also a big honking ejector pin mark on each one as well! Well, the holes will have to be filled, and the ejector pin mark sanded off. Arghhh. Maybe I should buy the aftermarket set!

After doing this a few times back in 2006, I managed to buy a few of the Dr Pepper Resin sets #72-GE

Cutting of thin plasticard into strips (12.5mm x 1.7mm x 0.3mm)

These cover those nasty punch holes and strengthen the inside seams

Then cut down to size

Hope that helps

[Navy Bird]

That's a good idea, Andy! Do the small thin strips represent anything that's inside the actual GE110 nozzle?

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Andy Mullen]

That's a good idea, Andy! Do the small thin strips represent anything that's inside the actual GE110 nozzle?

Cheers,

Bill

Bill, if you check out this walkaround over on >> Prime Portal <<, you can see some very thin strips detailing the inside of the nozzles. If I had some thinner styrene it would probably be more representative, but that was the thinnest I had.

Andy

[arnobiz]

You actually need two layers of thin plasticard strips if you want to represent the nozzles Here is my take on it: link. Still a bit thick but better than the Hasegawa original parts as you can see

Good luck,

Arnaud

[Navy Bird]

arnobiz said:

You actually need two layers of thin plasticard strips if you want to represent the nozzles Here is my take on it: link. Still a bit thick but better than the Hasegawa original parts as you can see

Good luck,

Arnaud

 

Thanks, Arnaud. I can't see your pictures here at work, our firewall must be blocking them for some reason. I'll have a look when I get home.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

No updates this weekend, as I find myself in the "krankenhaus" again with back problems. Can't stand up, can't lay flat, but I can sit - as long as my pain meds are doubled up. I'm hoping this doesn't lead to back surgery number eight. I thought seven surgeries were just fine, thank you.

 

Hopefully my neurosurgeon will prescribe more modelling to go with the narcotics. At least I have my phone so I can read what you guys are up to, and can post some comments.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Parabat]

Hope you feel better soon bud, your Tomcat build is real good.

[Giorgio N]

Bill, hope your health problems are sorted soon ! The Tomcat can wait !

[Navy Bird]

Thanks, guys. They let me out of the hospital, now I just need to take it easy and try to recuperate. No surgery necessary as no disc problems were found! That is really good news! They gave me a new-fangled electrical stimulation machine that sends electrical impulses to my spine and mask the pain signals. It doesn't seem to work that way, now it seems like I have the pain and a bunch of electrical shocks at the same time! Progress!

 

I hope to be able to sit at my workbench later this week. For now, I get to write these comments on my phone!

 

Prior to heading to the hospital last Thursday, I did get the Tomcat painted in the 3-tone TPS, with the black tails and skunk stripe, as well as the inflatable bladders and white wheel wells and landing gear. When I get a chance to work on it again, I've decided to try the dreaded "salt weathering" technique which I've never done before. The finish on the Cat needs to look like the one in Parabat's signature (above). It may work, or the Cat may end up in the bin! Stay tuned!

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Parabat]

Hey,

Welcome back! Glad it wasn't too serious then, back surgery ain't fun. Your Cat's finish sounds good, just check it out before you leap - I always thought the salt method was used to get the chipped effect seen on WW2 Japanese planes. I may be wrong though.

Good.to.have you.back, hope.you're able to get back to your bench soon.

Parabat

[Navy Bird]

Parabat said:

Hey,

Welcome back! Glad it wasn't too serious then, back surgery ain't fun. Your Cat's finish sounds good, just check it out before you leap - I always thought the salt method was used to get the chipped effect seen on WW2 Japanese planes. I may be wrong though.

Good.to.have you.back, hope.you're able to get back to your bench soon.

Parabat

 

Check this out:

 

Linky

 

This is what I'm going to try. Wish me luck!

 

And I know a bit about back surgery. I've had seven over the course of 20 years, 2 in the last year and a half alone. You are right - they are no fun!

 

Cheers,

Bill

"CREATURE"

[Parabat]

Check this out:

Linky

This is what I'm going to try. Wish me luck!

"CREATURE"

I stand corrected!

That is some fantastic weathering, be good to see your plane once it's had the treatment!

Rip-Cord

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

Well, the back problem is not going away. They took a closer look at the MRI and decided that S1-L5 is indeed herniated. So I need to have a spinal tap and CT scan this coming Friday. Woo hoo! That's my favorite.

 

I've had a chance to do some work on the F-14, so let's get caught up. I left off with the fuselage assembled, but not painted. I followed the TPS scheme as shown above, with FS36375 on the bottom, FS36320 on the sides of the forward fuselage, and FS35237 on top. I used Gunze Aqueous Hobby Colors for the basic airframe painting. Next, I taped off the landing gear bays prior to painting them white.

 

 

I decided to model the Cat as if she were bowing after an airshow performance, so I've elected to use the compressed front gear strut. This required a simple re-positioning of the catapult launch bar.

 

As I've mentioned above, I'll be trying (for the first time!) a technique that uses salt to create a "mask" for the fuselage to simulate the patchy, faded, and dirty paint seen on the Tomcats when they've been at sea for a while. When I study the 20 or so photos that I have of VF-31 AJ100 in September of 2006, it's obvious that the basic camouflage paint is pretty nasty, especially on top (not so much underneath), but the squadron markings and insignia are in relatively good shape. So what I'll do is leave the markings off until after I'm satisfied with the weathering of the aircraft. First, we'll need to finish the basic paint job, so let's mask off for the anti-glare panel, skunk stripe, and the vertical fins which will all be black.

 

 

 

 

Next, I masked off the top of the fins and painted them white, followed by "Felix" yellow. I mixed the yellow to match that in the Felix artwork on the Revell decal sheet. I used Gunze H24 and some white. At this time I also painted the ECM fairings a light tan-yellow.

 

My plan was to then give the entire plane a couple of coats of Future floor wax, and then do a dark grey sludge wash on the panel lines, although I have no idea whether that will show through in the end. In order for the salt weathering trick to work easily, Future is a must (or so I've read - we'll find out soon!) At this point, I also painted and shadowed the main landing gear and assembled so the Cat was on its legs.

 

 

 

Another coat of Future was applied to seal in the panel line wash - this would not have been necessary if I had left the panel lines off until later. Now comes the really weird part, and something I can't imagine I would ever have been doing to a model airplane!!

 

First, we spray down the entire model with warm water:

 

 

Next we liberally apply salt to the top and sides of the model. I used larger crystals on the top (from a "salt grinder") and smaller table salt crystals on the side:

 

 

 

How weird is that? The idea is that the salt will dissolve in the water and leave a random pattern behind as a "mask." By then painting over the top of the mask, we can create a patchy, faded pattern that would be difficult to achieve by airbrushing alone, or with conventional masking. To assist in the dissolving and drying of the salt, a simple household hairdryer is used on the low setting. After everything is dry, it looks like this:

 

 

OK, so far so good (I guess, I've never done this before!). The idea now is to take light shades of the colours we used to paint the fuselage and paint over the top of the dried salt. For this step, I have to switch to ModelMaster enamels for a practical reason - if I cock it up, I can use white spirits to remove the mess I've made and get back to the last layer of Future. So let's do it! I thinned the paint way, way down and did my best to keep off of the areas where I shouldn't be spraying (like the black) but I suspect that I'll have some overspray. After I did that, she looks like this:

 

 

Next, we remove the salt by washing it off in the sink. I used warm water, but I have no idea why. The salt comes right off, whether it is the crystals that were left on the surface, or the dissolved salt "stains" that were all over the model. This left a very interesting pattern of random of patches over the surface. Here are the two wings, the starboard wing still has its salt, and the port wing as it looks when the salt is removed.

 

 

We don't stop here - there is more to do! The resulting surface is a bit rough, so after all the parts were dry I sanded with 2000 grit paper to smooth everything out. By the way, the panel lines only show through where the bottom layer of paint was protected by the mask, so next time we can skip that step at that point of the process. Here is the airframe:

 

 

Once everything was sanded smooth and dry, I decided to do a wash with burnt umber oil paint (Windsor & Newton - proudly made in the UK!). This was mixed very thin, so that multiple applications were necessary before the panel lines began to stand out. Along the way, I also used the oil wash to add some dirt and grime. Additionally I cleaned up the overspray on the black with some cotton swabs and white spirits. Here is where it stands right now:

 

 

I think it will be OK. We are by no means close to completing the finish. My plan at this point is to gloss her over again, and apply the transfers. Once those are on, a coat or two of flat varnish will be followed by pastel post-shading.

 

If this isn't the strangest thing I've ever done to a model, I don't know what is! This is an interesting hobby, for sure.

 

Cheers,

Bill

"CREATURE"

 

PS. It almost looks like the photo in Rip-Cord's signature above! Which is kind of what I was aiming for!

[John Laidlaw]

Only just caught up with this - there's some lovely work going on here . Shall keep watching...

Good to see you called them "transfers", too .

Sorry to hear of the back problems. Hope all goes well (and you have my sympathies for the spinal tap ).

[Parabat]

Wow, just WOW!

That finish has come out fantastically well Bill, looks exceptional! I'd only seen that salt finish being used on Japanese WWII planes, but the method you use is different, with an incredible finish and look, well done for being so bold.

Fortune favours the brave...

Rip-Cord

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

Just a quick update for today. All transfers have been applied, gear doors and tyres are installed, and a couple of coats of matt varnish laid down.

 

 

I haven't started the pastel work, but I will be getting to that this coming week. I think the burnt umber might be a bit too brown for the typical weathered down birds that I've seen. But I think that can be cured with the pastel work.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Giorgio N]

Very sorry to hear of your health problems, hope these will be sorted as soon as possible !

Regarding the model, I'm absolutely impressed ! The finish is really amazing, very realistic even in small scale. I see what you mean with the wash being a bit too brown, but the effect of the salt masking technique is really great. Guess I'll have to give this a try in the future.

[F-32]

Very nice indeed, I've never been brave enough to try the salt!

[DannyB]

Wow!

That salt wash looks fantastic, very realistic!

Hope your health starts to improve and can't wait to see this one finished

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

OK, I fixed it. No more burnt umber wash. What was I thinking? Too many pain killers gone to my brain...

 

Out came the pastels. Got it to where I liked it, and sprayed another coat of matte varnish. Arghhh! Pastels immediately went about 16 shades darker. So, out came the pastels again. This time, no matte varnish, but very careful handling. Then to get some good pictures to show what she really looks like, I set up my photo booth and lights, put the silly camera on a tripod and took some proper photographs. (Well, not completely proper, I didn't get the Kodachrome out of the freezer.) Here she is, I think she's not so bad:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before you ask, yes I forgot the aluminum along the leading edge of the wings and the steel around the cannon port. Easy fix. First, on to the exhaust nozzles...

 

Cheers,

Bill

"CREATURE"

[jenshb]

Looking good Bill. Yes, matt varnish over pastels is generally not a good idea - you also lose the dulling effect of the pastels. For that reason I tend to put pastels on at the last moment when the handling of the model is at a minimum.

Jens

[Giorgio N]

Looking really good, and IMHO better now than with the brown wash. My feeling for a TPS finish is that a grey wash is the best... although with grey paints, grey wash, grey pastels, it all ends up being very... grey !

[Dermo245]

Another seriously good Tomcat paint job on this GB.

Just a thought - any chance all these techniques could be pinned for future reference?

Dermot

[Navy Bird]

Giorgio N said:

Looking really good, and IMHO better now than with the brown wash. My feeling for a TPS finish is that a grey wash is the best... although with grey paints, grey wash, grey pastels, it all ends up being very... grey !

 

I really don't know what I was thinking of with the brown wash. Probably wanted to break up all the greys!

 

Let's chalk it up to experience. This experience will help me recognize my mistake when I make it again later!!

 

Cheers,

Bill