.

[fewr9fkr9595]

16 minutes ago, Andrew said:

First, in May of '96

 

Just seen thats the pic I pm’d you and that I sent to cam decals to question their use of gull!!! 

[fewr9fkr9595]

This next 10th hobbyboss tomcat in gull grey has been put on hold while I mess about with another tomcat in gull grey. A finemolds one. More of the same shenanigans really...

 

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235036279-finemolds-last-tomcat-baby-172-f-14d/

 

Here’s all 9 from this wip together so far: 

 

 

 

[David H]

I heard the Fine Molds D-Cat is very very nice model, but i prefer the somewhat dysfunctional A- model, mainly because of paint schemes.

 

-d-

[fewr9fkr9595]

No major updates here apart from I took the most recent 3 to the sword and lance show in Darlington on the 14th of april. Would have been 4 but I damaged the freelancer trying to pack it (was left at home, since repaired)

 

Anyways got 3 golds for these so happy with that. Not bad for three drab line birds. 

Also won the Meng air modeller magazine best aircraft in show for the sundowner bird. Get to keep a glass trophy for a year and got a bunch of literature and magazines etc. The editor asked me to take some up to their place to get them photographed professionally and a chance for an article or two perhaps one day

 

L-R Tophatter, Slugger, Sundowner. 

 

 

Cheers, Tony

[Cookenbacher]

Congrats Tony! Well earned.

[Roger Newsome]

Congratulations Tony. It's a shame I was working for this year's S&L it would have been nice to have a catch up and to see your work.

[fewr9fkr9595]

 

Hi troops,

 

On the hunt for some more decals to continue this quest...

 

 

 

[matteo44]

Congratulations Tony!

[fewr9fkr9595]

Not got enough on the go clearly. 

 

Was getting bored and frustrated with the finemolds cats. Not because of the kits themselves but with what I am trying to achieve with them making pilots to match photos and finding errors with decal sheets. Chasing perfection too much. 

 

So thought I’d have a break and revive this. 

 

Spent the last few days of this week starting to knock another one of these together. 

 

This is going to be a low viz flat gull grey A, the most boring and drab one I could find the decals for. 

 

One of these two bounty hunters from the late 80’s. All black markings (sqn and stencils) on gull. Same markings as the tps ones. Screenshot from seaforces site. 

 

Paint is mission again, the last few builds have been trying out their shades. (Tps vf21, gloss 16440 gull vf103 slugger) now this in 36440 flat light gull grey. 

 

 

Something else I have been distracted with is making a master for the lower adapter to have dual aim-9’s on the wing glove pylon. 

Done this setup a couple times already (first was guess work, second an improvement but still not correct) so now I have used the  48th tamiya parts for reference to get the angles correct. Still need some more shaping after a prime amd then some scribed details adding. 

Again hope to be able to offer these for sale one day. 

 

Plastic strip added to some scrap part. 

 

Main shaping done and mounted to a pour stub. 

 

Thanks for looking.  

[fewr9fkr9595]

Some more messing around with resin in the name of improvements, a few things I have been working at on and off this year. Probably spent more time doing these than actually making models!

 

First up, exhaust bits. 

 

So the last two P&W A cats I did had resin hasegawa back ends, wanted to do something similar for the GE ones as again the Hboss cowls and farings are one piece and have no detail really. 

So took the hasegawa parts and shimmed them out to match the OD of the hboss fuselage. Added some details then cast them. 

 

Here on a cast you can see the plastic card that was added (both sides) to space it out. 

 

On the outside all the random dimples and lines were filled and smoothed, apart from the ring around the edge which was enhanced and had a row of rivets added behind it. 

 

Here are a load of parts waiting to be tried out. All in different greys. Can’t seem to add the same amount of pigment each time I cast! So we have the modded hasegawa cowls, the hasegawa side farings and a fujimi GE nozzle. 

 

Here they are on, the farings need some adjusting so they sit better, as you should be able to see the row of rivets around the edge of the cowl. May mod them to make new masters then recast them rather than having to sand them down every time with all the builds I have planned. 

 

Resin tube is mastered from a hasegawa exhaust section by getting rid of the seam on the inside by some careful filling and sanding. Inside we have a straight copy of a hasegawa GE afterburner face, as hboss give the same exhaust face for all three of their tomcat kits (A/B/D) but what they include is only passable for the P&W of the A. 

 

Last one for this is an overall shot of the test mule with the nozzle in situ. Not too bad for replacing the whole back end of a kit. Going to use these in anger and retrofit them to one of my earlier finished builds whilst reworking some other details on it that have been bothering me for a while. 

 

Next up is something that doesn’t exist as far as I am aware - empty fuel tank pylons in 1/72...

Reason for making them - you do see the odd plane without tank but pylons still on. Mainly when land based. 

The pylons are larger than what they seem, as they fit in a recess in the drop tank. The top of the drop tanks are M shape in cross section, but most 1/72 tanks are flat topped with only the top half of the pylon on in a butt join type fashion, so was going to be a big job. 

Of the kits I have in the stash it was the academy kit that actually had some detail to start with on their drop tank pylons. Even hasegawa and the new finemolds kit they are just slabs of plastic. 

 

So here is how I made them -

 

First, here are the two bits (circled) cut away from the academy tanks. Some spare hboss lantirn pylons were cut in half to add the missing depth to them. 

 

Next, they were added and the shaping & scribing started. 

 

Here mounted to pour stubs and more filling to blend bits together. 

 

Mounting hooks/tabs added from white plastic card and ejection pins (to jettison) from stretched sprue. Can see alot of filling along the centre still required to level the sides off. 

 

Back ends were sanded down to a steeper angle and the notches carved out along with some more scribing and drilling of details. Trying to find decent pictures of the real ones of these, especially the face against where the tank mounts is almost impossible! These should be passable for 1/72 hopefully. 

 

And here is the first cast of the pair: 

 

Will be adding a pair of these to one of my completed builds to see how they look. 

 

Would be cool to release these as a combo set with the above  previous post’s sidewinder rail adapter as a ‘Dual & Fuel’ type thing. As a lot of the time when Tomcat squadrons were land based and training at the NAS places they often flew without tanks and with a dual rail on the wing glove pylon for a CATM-9 and tacts pod... 

Would anyone be interested in that? 

 

Thanks for looking. 

[Robert]

Of course people would be interested. You have created some great items, just have to find a slot to build some more Tomcats. 

 

Esci did those VF-2 decals in one of their boxing's.

 

Robert

[Parabat]

Amazing work as ever, very skillful stuff.

[fewr9fkr9595]

2 hours ago, Robert said:

Of course people would be interested. You have created some great items, just have to find a slot to build some more Tomcats. 

 

Esci did those VF-2 decals in one of their boxing's.

 

Robert

 Thats true Robert mate, plane 210. Subdued sqn markings but still regular colour stencils & warning data. Have the sheet in my folder...

 

What I am planning to use is these all black ones from microscale, plane 206. 

 

 

 

[fewr9fkr9595]

Last bit of resin work for now - hobbyboss pylons. 

 

First is the finemolds sparrow pylon, cast with some etch to make an empty pylon for my finemolds cats. 

 

In a nutshell - they are larger than a hboss pylon so a cast was shortened and re-profiled to make a new master. 

 

Note size difference - 

 

Shortened to suit and reprimed to check it over - now works with a hboss pylon. 

 

‘Empty’ part

 

Next it with an original casting above for size and shape comparison. Happy with the angles of the smaller black new master. 

 

Next is the hboss Lau-7 sidewinder pylon. Did something similar with the finemolds ones in the other thread, using a two stage procedure. 

Made a first cast of it as it was with the etch attached and no other work. As the etch piece is too narrow,  It would be too tricky to sand down the plastic without catching the edge of the etch plus there would still be the join along the side. 

 

Here is the problem area circled on the first cast - 

 

 

They were sanded back with a stick then reprimed to make a new master. 

 

 

And then here are the new casts from the second mould. The etch is the same but the plastic part not as detailed as the finemolds ones to begin with. 

 

 

 

 

I am quite pleased with them and a few fellow BM’ers who are tomcat nuts should be able to vouch for the quality of the castings as they have some to mess about with 

@Andrew

@Giorgio N

@Onetogo

 

Might set up an ebay tomcat parts shop once the house move is over...

 

Thanks for looking. 

[Azgaron]

Awesome production of Tomcats! Looks awesome!

 

That maskol panel line technique was interesting. Might try that. Need to get some maskol first though!

 

At the moment I'm considering, putting my other builds aside and start up a Tomcat build!

 

Håkan

 

[fewr9fkr9595]

1 hour ago, Azgaron said:

At the moment I'm considering, putting my other builds aside and start up a Tomcat build! 

 

Good idea!  

[NealParkes]

On 6/25/2018 at 3:04 PM, Tony Oliver said:

 

 

Might set up an ebay tomcat parts shop once the house move is over...

 

Thanks for looking. 

I’d definitely be spending some money there if you did!

[fewr9fkr9595]

Another update, mainly about the vf2 low viz gull tps bird. 

 

This plane is going to benefit from the overspill of a few parts masterd during my finemolds tomcat builds. 

 

Here are the casts from the work on that thread, oem kit doors with all the sink & pin marks removed. They are all a drop in fit apart from the rear main gear leg doors, the pins dont line up exactly with the hboss kit so a little surgery is required. I am working on a master that is hboss specific for the future for that cover. 

 

Here is above parts removed and cleaned up. 

 

 

A few areas of interest while she was having a seam check spot prime -

 

My combined hgwa IP’s and hboss coaming casts:

 

Those empty fuel tank pylons. Also note the cast finemolds main gear wheel door - drops straight in as the hook slots are same width apart  

 

 

General overview - 

 

Here we have my own etch strips and pylons, end fairing worked from hgwa part and ventral fins based from finemolds bits. 

 

Nose fm etch panels on and a view of the cast u/c bay with added details. Kits moulded front u/c doors removed too. 

 

Full Prime:

 

 

A few things in detail:

 

General front of nose showing the removed RIO step reinforcement plate removed amongst other things. 

 

Belly and Fuel tank pylons: 

 

 

 

Tail top etch: 

 

 

Side view of several details:

 

 

My moded hgwa cowls with aires nozzle and tube. Gloss black stynylrez in readiness for the mission metals. 

 

Those reworked sparrow pylons & sidewinder rails from the finemolds builds have been put to good use. Also tried out one of my dual adapters. 

 

 

 

one last thing to upgrade this kit - a cast of the finemolds hook and base. Sink marks removed, engraved detail sharpened up and fuel dump(?) pipe opened.  

 

 

Basically this build has become a poster boy for a load of my resin conversion & update bits! 

 

Thanks for looking. 

 

Tony

 

 

[Azgaron]

Nice work! Looks very neat in the black primer!

 

Håkan

 

[Robert]

That is all looking great. Those engines are beautiful.

 

Robert

[fewr9fkr9595]

So this vf2 bird now has some paint on - mission models. 

 

This is the third consecutive hboss build in mission paints. 

 

I have tried using the paint in different ways for each - a recap: 

 

First was the vf21 freelancer. That was primed in grey, had black and white preshading/highlighting then the main TPS colours built up using their transparent meduim to allow variation in the finish. 

 

Next was the vf103 slugger. It was primed in grey then painted in a full solid coat of Gloss gull grey. This was then weathered using a maskol postshade to get the variation in the colour and a heavy corrosion control effect. 

 

For this vf2 bird it had a black prime, then the Flat gull grey built up black basing style to allow some variation in the finish. Weathering will consist of a more classical fading and staining using oils once decals and panel line wash is complete. 

 

This flat gull grey is different and lighter than the mission gloss gull grey. Which is good to see, as opposed to just being a matt version of the same shade. 

 

Details-

 

Wing bladders done first, used rlm 66 for the dark grey, then masked off.

Corroguard on leading edges done with duraluminium. 

Engines done with several self made mixed shades using their metals too  - cold rolled/steel/burnt iron/alu etc. 

Also for this one these were all airbrushed. Previous two builds  exhausts were sprayed in block metals then individual panels/petals picked out by brush on those. 

 

Pics: 

 

Masking off :

 

 

 

Overall primary colours done:

 

 

Close up of finish: 

 

Exhausts:

 

 

 

Next is masking off and painting all u/c bays and doors. Then detail painting of all lights/radome tan blisters/red door edges/metals for intake lips and gun panel etc etc before a gloss to seal it all in and get it ready for decals. 

 

Bye for now. 

[Azgaron]

Nice paint job and good explanation of the different techniques!

 

Håkan

 

[fewr9fkr9595]

21 minutes ago, Azgaron said:

Nice paint job and good explanation of the different techniques!

 

Håkan

 

 

Thanks mate. Links to all the RFI’s of the said finished builds are in the first post of the page of this thread  

 

Tony

[Tyxxx]

Still looking good Tony. Having loaded countless live and training winders as well as ACMI and RAIDS pods to LAU-7A's, I have to say the detail on yours are the best I have seen.

[Tyxxx]

12 minutes ago, Tyxxx said:

Still looking good Tony. Having loaded countless live and training winders as well as ACMI and RAIDS pods to LAU-7A's, I have to say the detail on yours are the best I have seen.

LAU-7A fitted to an F.3