NSAWC Splinter Tomcat - Fujimi 1/72

[Giorgio N]

Mi first build for this GB will be a 1/72 model of one of the splinter painted Tomcats used by the NSAWC in the mid-to-late '90s. In particular I will build F-14A 159855 coded 10, a picture of which can be seen here:

http://www.tomcat521.com/tomcat/story/NSAWC/f14ansai.jpg

The kit I'll use will be the very good Fujimi 1/72 offering, of which I have 3 boxes in my stash. The one I'll use is the first I bought a long time ago:

Now the sharp eyed readers will start wondering about the choice of kit... yes, this is an F-14A+, a version later renamed F-14B... why would I choose to use a kit for a GE powered Cat when the subject of my build is an older PW powered one ?

There is some logic in this, and it comes from the content of the box: the Fujimi kit is not really a good representation of the F-14B because while Fujimi added the proper GE exhausts, they forgot that these also require a different rear end of the engine nacelles. Fujimi instead would want the modeller to attach the new exhausts onto the same fairings used on the F-14A, for this reason this kit can't be used to accurately depict an F-14B without some correction work.

At the same time Fujimi included all the standard F-14A parts in all of their boxes, this means that the TF-30 exhausts are still in the box.. well, actually there are 8, 4 closed and 4 open ! This because the box also includes 2 TF-30 engines, each with a choice of exhausts. To complete the package, there are 2 F-110 engines, again with a choice of exhausts.

Among the new parts meant to be used for the F-14A+/B is a left front fuselage with the NACA style gun vents, so by using this and the TF-30 exhausts it's possible to build a late F-14A. The GE F-110 exhausts will become surplus and a welcome addition to the spare parts box, more welcome because they are actually very nice, better than the Hasegawa ones.

The only modification needed to the kit parts will be the removal of the ECM bumps on the beaver tail and beside the intakes as these were never present on 159855.

The rest of the build should be relatively OOB, although I might be tempted to add some detail here and there, particularly in the wheel wells.

Decals will come from this Fightertown decal sheet:

The sheet seems to be very well researched, as usual with this company and there are several pictures of the real aircrafts in the instructions. Pictures of this aircraft are also quite easy to find on the web and I have some in a book on the NSAWC, so hopefully I'll be able to paint the splinter scheme correctly.

In general, I tend to prefer aircrafts from line units, however I have to admit that the splinter painted aircrafts look impressive and this should be a good addition to my collection of Tomcat models

[Neal]

Great choice of scheme. I've the same fightertown decals in 1:144, so I'll be interested to see how you go with the masking & paint colours.

[DaveJL]

Nice choice mate, always fancied a splinter 'cat myself but fear I don't have the skill for the paintwork

[Dermo245]

Nice one! Look forward to seeing the splinter camo.

Dermot

[DannyB]

Owww this will be good, a splinter cat.

Looking forward to this one, I really enjoyed the fujimi kit and was amazed byt the amount of spare plastic in the box when I built mine!

[Parabat]

Nice!

[Giorgio N]

As the STGB is now on, I did a little start... now I have other models to complete first to be honest, but a bit of parts preparation is not going to be bad, right ?

First of all let's see what's in the box... and this box is really full of plastic !

A lot of plastic ! This kit was bought from a fellow Italian modeller around 2006-7 and for this reasons some part were detached from the sprues (but everything is in the box). In any case, the parts still on the sprues are impressive:

The last picture shows the parts specific to the F-14A+/B box. I'm not showing the parts that remained in the box to avoid losing them. These include the clear parts, tubber tyres and a small PE fret. I'm not showing the decals either as these will not be used. They also got damaged when water infiltrated through a wall and damaged some boxes from the stash, this one was the most affected unfortunately.

Time to do some parts preparation work ! First of all, I removed the ECM antennas under the glove vanes and the on the beavertail.

Here's the parts before:

And after:

The cockpit parts also received some attention: the tub has a few gaps and these are better filled with plasticard bits to prevent to see around the front seat rear wall:

The nice detail on the consolles can be clearly seen in the picture above. The instrument panels are similarly detailed.

I then checked a couple of points, among them the wheels.. Fujimi offers the older style of F-14A rims, that were later replaced. I believe that my aircraft should have the later rim that is quite different. Here in the picture a comparison between the Fujimi part and the Hasegawa part for the later rim (Hasegawa offers both styles of wheel)

The solution here is relatively simple: I have made a mould of a Hasegawa wheel with the later rim a few months ago and from this I plan of making a few resin copies. A couple will be used for this kit

[NavDoc]

This looks good- i the "proper" scale, and being done by a b uilder who knows those Tomcat details !!

[Dermo245]

Cool!

Giorgio - just tried to PM you but your inbox might be full?

Dermot

Edited April 5, 2014 by Dermo245

[Shalako]

Any progress?

[Giorgio N]

Any progress?

Been doing some small preparation work, like filling and sanding some ejection marks in the intakes and preparing the parts for the wings. I'll add some pictures later.

In the meantime I've realised I don't have much time left to finish the kits I'm building for the MiG-21 STGB so these will take precedence for the next few days...

[Giorgio N]

The MiG-21 I'm building for the STGB here on Britmodeller is taking most of the time I can devote to modelling, but I've managed to do some small jobs on the Tomcat too. Most of this has been painting small bits like the engine fans and exhausts and preparing parts, not really worth taking pictures of these things with the exception of the wings, that are now ready to accept the flaps:

The fit was good but the slats needed some work. The Fujimi kit has the interesting option of allowing the wings to move while allowing them to be painted separately and inserted in place when the model is completed. I'm not interested in moving wings, but installing them when the model is completed helps a lot. My model will have the wings at maximum sweep so the flaps will be all closed.

It was then time to work on the cockpit. Here are the parts prepared after most of the painting had been done:

The level of detail is pretty good and accurate. The only problem I found is that the front instrument panel is located too far forward. A couple of plasticard bits were added to the rear of the panel to move this backward. This meant cutting the tab in the panel (the slot on the floor was left in place as it will be hidden anyway).

This is how the cockpit looks like at the moment:

Does not look great in the picture for a number of reasons: I'm not a great modeller, and the magnification is pretty high... the blue lines on the cutting mat are spaced at 10 mm....

[Andrew]

Good progress, Giorgio.

The cockpit looks fine, as do the wings. Keep it up!

Andrew.

[Jabba]

Nice progress, I know what you mean with the MiG-21 GB taking up your time to making this model.

[tc2324]

A nice choice and change from the norm with the splinter scheme.

Looking forward to the next update.

[Giorgio N]

Updates unfortunately are few and far between as most of my time is still being used on the MiG, but I've managed to do some "structural" work yesterday while the paint was drying on the small Soviet fighter..

One picture only but showing some progress:

The front fuselage has been glued with the cockpit and the front wheel well in place. The cockpit still needs some details but I'll add these when the fuselage is complete to avoid any risk of damage during the handling needed to assemble the Cat.

Some of the main fuselage parts have also been glued together. Now the fujimi kit has an unusual breakdown of parts with a top part, a centre lower, 2 side lowers and 2 parts for each nacelle. Fit is not going to be easy, but the worst parts are the nacelles. Having the other parts already glued as shown above will help in aligning the nacelles halves... hopefully....

[Jabba]

Now the fujimi kit has an unusual breakdown of parts with a top part, a centre lower, 2 side lowers and 2 parts for each nacelle. Fit is not going to be easy, but the worst parts are the nacelles. Having the other parts already glued as shown above will help in aligning the nacelles halves... hopefully....

Because of the unusual break down of the kit that is why I prefer the Hasegawa one.

[Andrew]

Nice going Giorgio,

Any progress is good and your fuselage bits look nice and sharp. Good luck with the nacelles.

cheers,

Andrew.

[Giorgio N]

Some proper update finally ! Yes, the nacelles are the worst part of the build, their fit is not great and in my kit the parts were also quite badly warped, which didn't help an already complicated fit.

The technique I used to try and minimise the problems was to use the other fuselage parts as guides for alignment, and I have to say this technique succeeded. The first thing however was to glue the exhaust ducts in place, without the nozzles of course. These give some more contact areas for the glue. Once the ducts are in place in one half of the intakes, I aligned this half on the fuselage:

It was then time to add the other half of the intake and glue the two together while still on the fuselage:

Here the nozzle is in place but not glued. It's there only to check that the diameter of the two side parts is fine when glued.

Now some might wonder why I didn't glue the intake parts in place on the fuselage directly... the answer is that this would prevent the modeller from filling and sanding the inside of the intakes, and there's plenty of need for this:

Some is due to the bad fot of the parts in general, some to the fact that I removed the front alignment pins. These would have been visible through the intake in an unrealistic way. It is another small thing that sets apart these fujimi kits from the hasegawa ones: the hase kits have some solutions that result in a much more realistic model. Considering that the fujimi kits are not that cheap themselves, for the money they are probably not as good a buy as the slightly more expensive hasegawa Cats.

With patience and using the same technique I finally got two intakes set glued:

The fit was not good at all ! I hope that my other Fujimi kits are a bit better in this respect...

In any case, now I have a rear fuselage assembly almost complete:

Not shown in pictures, the intakes have been painted white and masked. Now I have a problem however: what's the colour of the "visible" part of the intakes on my Tomcat ? Generally these areas are in the same colour of the underside fuselage, the Fightertown decal sheet however mentions white here. The undersides should be in FS 36495, that is a very, very light grey... I checked a good number of pictures and I can't make up my mind on this, if anyone has any opinion or hard evidence I'll be happy to hear from you !

During the many breaks from the intakes assembly I've also started some painting: the wings and stabilators under surfaces of this Tomcat remained in the original FS 36375 and this was painted on the assembled wings and the stabilators. Interestingly the kit has 2 sets of these, that look completely identical... misteries !

Here I first sprayed a lightened 36375 and then added the pure colour on the panel lines and in some other areas to try and replicate the dirt typical of the TPS scheme... in any case I myst have done something not quite right: the effect is there but very, very delicate. Not that I mind, I like to have these effects delicate, however I'm afraid it will disappear completely once a few clear coats are applied... and nothing can be seen in the picture !

[nimrod54]

Nice work Giorgio. With regards to the intake colour I have found this photo in a walkaround on ARC hope that it helps.

http://www.arcair.com/awa01/001-100/awa070-F14/part2/images/doc2-007.jpg

[Giorgio N]

Nice work Giorgio. With regards to the intake colour I have found this photo in a walkaround on ARC hope that it helps.

http://www.arcair.com/awa01/001-100/awa070-F14/part2/images/doc2-007.jpg

Thanks a lot John !

Unfortunately that is another aircraft that had a different scheme. Mine is shown in these pictures on Fightertown website:

http://s106.photobucket.com/user/renegades24/library/NSAWC%20Tomcats?sort=3&page=1

In particular it can be seen here:

http://s106.photobucket.com/user/renegades24/media/NSAWC%20Tomcats/flanker10rightfrontview.jpg.html?sort=3&o=17

And here:

http://s106.photobucket.com/user/renegades24/media/NSAWC%20Tomcats/flanker10headoncropped.jpg.html?sort=3&o=18

At the moment it looks to me that the intakes are in the same colour appearing under the glove vanes area, that is FS 36495. The radome is white and looks to me that the intakes are slightly darker than the radome... not easy to tell however, 36495 is really light. The side of the front fuselage is in FS 36440, and the result is that this aircraft had 3 colours on the top (FS 35109, 36320, 35450) and 3 on the sides and bottom (FS 36440, 36495 and 36375)

In addition, for a while the aircraft had some replacement panels in the standard FS 35237, so should I decide to represent the aircraft in that period I should use 7 different paints for the camo scheme plus white for the radome.... an 8 colour scheme is crazy !!

[nimrod54]

At the moment it looks to me that the intakes are in the same colour appearing under the glove vanes area, that is FS 36495. The radome is white and looks to me that the intakes are slightly darker than the radome... not easy to tell however, 36495 is really light. The side of the front fuselage is in FS 36440, and the result is that this aircraft had 3 colours on the top (FS 35109, 36320, 35450) and 3 on the sides and bottom (FS 36440, 36495 and 36375)

In addition, for a while the aircraft had some replacement panels in the standard FS 35237, so should I decide to represent the aircraft in that period I should use 7 different paints for the camo scheme plus white for the radome.... an 8 colour scheme is crazy !!

Sorry for confusing the issue Giorgio. I agree with you, in the head on shot it does appear to be the same colour as the wing glove area, but in the side on views it is difficult to define the difference.

Your right an eight colour scheme is crazy and having looked through some of the other photos there is even more fun to be had representing the paint touch ups on the rivet lines along the intake/exhaust panels.

Have you tried converting some images to black & white?. Perhaps this would make it easier to match with known colours on the aircraft, because you would only be looking at the tone.

[Giorgio N]

The idea of converting pictures to B/W might work, I'll give it a try !

Now the weekend was nice and sunny but still I resisted the urge to stay out all day and managed to get something done. The fuselage is now complete:

This may look like a small step, but I can guarantee that the time spent sanding and filling was crazy ! The intakes in particular needed a lot of work and so did the exhaust area. The front fuselage too needed some work while the radome still needs to be perfectly blended in. This is not really a relaxed build ! Anyway having all the fuselage bits together is a major step, hopefully the model will be ready for painting before the end of the week.

The more sharp eyed viewer will have noticed that the right exhaust can has been glued on. On the exhausts inner side I've added some thin plasticard strips to replicate the petals. This is a terribly nervewrecking exercise but IMHO it improves a lot the final effect. Interestingly this kit has nicely detailed F-110 exhausts with details on the inside too, while the TF-30 exhausts are totally smooth internally. Mind, the Hasegawa kit is not any better here.

Here's a picture taken during work on the open exhaust:

One petal is still missing in the picture as this will go over the alignment tab. What I did was to glue the nozzle on the model and then add the last strip over the tab.

Small note on the exhausts: due to the engines shut-down procedure used on the Tomcat, it is normal for the F-14A to have one exhaust nozzle open and one closed when the engines are off. 99% of the times the right nozzle is open with the left closed, but occasionally the opposite happens. Most Tomcat kits have optional parts for the open and closed nozzles, so it's easy to depict this by choosing the parts. Some kits unfortunately don't have both options, here the best solution is to to take the parts from another kit

Edited May 19, 2014 by Giorgio N

[Giorgio N]

And here's a picture of the exhaust nozzles in place:

The inner ducts have already been painted and weathered at an earlier assembly stage, now the nozzles will receive their own poaint and weathering.

Also visible in the picture is the boat-tail with no ECM pod, as used in the production block to which this aircraft belongs

[tc2324]

Looking good on this and thanks for explaining the nozzles positioning as I wasn`t quite sure why that happened.