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Yes. Another Tomcat here.


Tyas

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Yes, yes, yes, I know. Another F-14 joining the Grumman GB. I was planning to just look around my local store for a bottle of thinner when I realized this Hasegawa F-14A is on sale for Rp 490k (about GBP24,49 in old money), and they're giving 10% discount. A Tomcat? Why of course I can't miss it, even though I already got 3 and my brother threatened to launch any of them if I'm adding another one.

45662772041_3aa015e33f_b.jpg

 

This build is going to be a long build... Oh, and I'll be making 161276, the CO bird that was dispatched from USS Kitty Hawk during Operation Iraqi Freedom, dropping 45 bombs and contributed to VF-154 Black Knights' tally of 358 LGBs dropped during its last stint with CVW-5 at Persian Gulf.

Let's hope I can make it in time before the deadline...

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Hi tyas 

Welcome to the F14 STGB with friends. 

We don't have any model shop in Thailand any more so I usually get supplies from Manila or Singapore on my travels. It sounds like there's one in Indonesia? Would you mind sharing it's location as I visit Jakarta and Bandung quite often. 

Colin 

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1 hour ago, Colin W said:

Hi tyas 

Welcome to the F14 STGB with friends. 

We don't have any model shop in Thailand any more so I usually get supplies from Manila or Singapore on my travels. It sounds like there's one in Indonesia? Would you mind sharing it's location as I visit Jakarta and Bandung quite often. 

Colin 

Oh you visit Bandung or Jakarta quite often? Well, if you're going to Jakarta, you can't go wrong with Peter & Partner at Central Park in West Jakarta. Alternatively, there is a small hobby shop at Senayan Trade Center. if you're in Bandung (like me), Hobby Mokit at Pasirkaliki and Vega at Jl. Banda should be the place to go. Notice that if you're looking for military kit, Hobby Mokit is probably the only answer I can find in Bandung, since Vega's line-up is more focused on mecha and cars. If you're visiting Bandung, just drop me a message, I might be able to help!! :D

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3 hours ago, gingerbob said:

Oh lord, another Tomcat. 😒

 

 

Just kidding...

 

Is yours 72, or 48th?

It's the 72nd scale. 48th scale Hasegawa Tomcat is nigh-on impossible to find here... :(

Anyway, the Cat is progressing (relatively) nicely today, but I haven't had a chance to take photos. My camera is still charged for tomorrow's photo session.

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On ‎11‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 11:03 PM, Tyas said:

Yes, yes, yes, I know. Another F-14 joining the Grumman GB. I was planning to just look around my local store for a bottle of thinner when I realized this Hasegawa F-14A is on sale for Rp 490k (about GBP24,49 in old money), and they're giving 10% discount. A Tomcat? Why of course I can't miss it, even though I already got 3 and my brother threatened to launch any of them if I'm adding another one.

45662772041_3aa015e33f_b.jpg

 

This build is going to be a long build... Oh, and I'll be making 161276, the CO bird that was dispatched from USS Kitty Hawk during Operation Iraqi Freedom, dropping 45 bombs and contributed to VF-154 Black Knights' tally of 358 LGBs dropped during its last stint with CVW-5 at Persian Gulf.

Let's hope I can make it in time before the deadline...

 

Ding something similar, but with a different aircraft No, and with the Fine Molds kit. good luck with the build.

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On 11/4/2018 at 10:50 PM, Jabba said:

 

Ding something similar, but with a different aircraft No, and with the Fine Molds kit. good luck with the build.

I've seen your thread, and you're definitely doing a better job than I can ever muster.

Anyway, a little progress, and as expected, this kit kept trying to bite me back. One injured index finger is a proof. Yes, Hasegawa nailed the outline perfectly, and the fact that they provided so many different parts for different F-14s are a thing of joy, but boy does this kit shows its age. Give me my new Super Hornet and its ease-of-build back :( (but then again F-14s has always been my favourite subject so... yeah. Those regrets aren't really regrets, are they?)
|44867960795_ea365e19d5_b.jpg
As expected. the joint between the front and main fuselage is ungodly (in a derogatory way). Thanks to Brian Plescia's excellent guide, I decided to make sure the lower fuselage fits perfectly so I don't have to end up with a slightly upward-slanted nose and bent Phoenix pallets. The upper joints are taken care of with some putty and plasticard.
45781048771_575bd0a3ed_b.jpg

Yes, I decided to fit the landing gear first. I hate dealing with gluing painted parts and I definitely loath using cyanoacrylates (which unfortunately I have to use for the cockpit), so I decided to make sure the legs are glued in place first. Will be slightly fiddly to mask but I would rather have fiddly masking than a horrible gloop of cement.

Also, a question: Sources said that during OIF, VF-154 would usually carry 2-4 GBU-12s. If only 2 GBU-12s were used, do they still have the rear pallets installed?

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Sorry but at the moment I cannot help that much. I have had a look at the decal sheet instruction that I have and it does give a bomb load, but it says that the aircraft carried either 2 or 4 GBU-12s as you say but it does not say if it only carried 2 where they went. I will do a bit more delving over he next few days whilst at Telford and see what I can come up with. My own thoughts are that if an aircraft carried 2 of the bombs that they will be on the front pallets. Just had another quick read and it does say that 4 bombs were the more common.

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On 11/9/2018 at 4:01 AM, Jabba said:

Sorry but at the moment I cannot help that much. I have had a look at the decal sheet instruction that I have and it does give a bomb load, but it says that the aircraft carried either 2 or 4 GBU-12s as you say but it does not say if it only carried 2 where they went. I will do a bit more delving over he next few days whilst at Telford and see what I can come up with. My own thoughts are that if an aircraft carried 2 of the bombs that they will be on the front pallets. Just had another quick read and it does say that 4 bombs were the more common.

Ah, it's OK, thanks for the information. Greatly appreciated. :D

So, the project has progressed on to the painting booth. But before the painting begin, I realized that Hasegawa's painting guide has one fatal mistake. They showed Nite 100 and Nite 101 to use 2-tone basic TPS camo (like F/A-18s), while they're actually using 3-tone TPS camo. So out comes Mr Hobby's FS36375 for base, FS36320 for mid-tone and FS35237 for countershading on top. Also, instead of using Engine Gray, I decided to mix my own FS36081 dark grey (I know Mr. Hobby should have the exact paint - No. 301, to be precise - but I like to do a little experiment :D ).

45761127332_3e02a3a969_b.jpg

 

Now, Hasegawa gave us the walkways as decals. I, for one, don't really like it. They lacked the gritty, worn-down feel of the actual walkways on the actual aircraft. What I did is to mask the section after putting down black primer before painting, and peeled the mask away only after I finished painting the whole airframe. To give it the gritty, worn-down effect, I sprayed FS35230 lightly, followed with my mixture of FS36081. Not really a pro work but I like the result.
31939451258_2dac13bbc8_b.jpg

Those patchy paintwork is obtained from doing squiggles on top of the primer with the base FS36375 and some Wood Brown. Compared with my previous works, this yields a much better, worn-down result that most operational 'Cats suffered (proudly wore?) during their OIF/OEF tenures.
30870639347_3ebd63f382_b.jpg

Yeah, me likey. For the exhaust, Hasegawa told us to use Steel for the shroud and Burnt Iron for the petals. I thought this is a little boring so I decided to spray them with Silver first for undercoat, before masking some bits and sprayed them with light coat of Steel and a very light mist of German gray to give the shroud a duller look, then opened the mask and spray all with light misting of Burnt Iron, before applying watercolour wash of carbon black and burnt umber.
30870604727_91d49d47df_b.jpg

So now that painting (plus installing landing gear covers and pylons) are done, it's decalling time! Hope I don't get bored in process...

Edited by Tyas
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Went missing for the last few days, but it's getting closer to finish line...

 

45917560101_23ccaf2e19_b.jpg

 

45005325575_36cb154fbc_b.jpg

 

Decals are on... and turned out it was a little on the thick side, and proven to give me headache during flat coating... Oh well, learning something new everyday 😐

 

Currently the build has not progressed further, since I'm still looking to loot some ordnance before I can finish the kit. Hopefully I managed to secure some before the end of year...

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Looking good. Talking about ordnance I have spent a bit of time looking trough the Osprey book on the Tomcat during OIF. Although I cannot find any specific info on VF-154 I did find a photo of a VF-31 aircraft loaded with 2 GBU-12 and these are on the front pallets, so I think that VF-154 would be the same. I think that would be a CoG issue which would be very much worse if the bombs were mounted on the rear pallets.

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18 hours ago, Jabba said:

Looking good. Talking about ordnance I have spent a bit of time looking trough the Osprey book on the Tomcat during OIF. Although I cannot find any specific info on VF-154 I did find a photo of a VF-31 aircraft loaded with 2 GBU-12 and these are on the front pallets, so I think that VF-154 would be the same. I think that would be a CoG issue which would be very much worse if the bombs were mounted on the rear pallets.

My little research yields 4 GBU-12s and 1 or 2 AIM-9Ls during the mid- to late-stage of the operations. So I guess that's what I'm going, but not until I managed to find bombs from somewhere 😁

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  • 2 weeks later...

After thinking back and forth, I decided to go for asymmetric load of GBU-10 on station 3 and GBU-16 on station 5 with AIM-54C and AIM-9L on station 1B and 1A, respectively.

 

45404573604_e5d5086bd8_b.jpg

 

And with this, I declare this project is done! More photos on the RFI and the Gallery, thank you for allowing me to join the GB. Will I make another entry? I don't know, watch this space ;)

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16 hours ago, SoftScience said:

Huh. That was fast.

I would have liked to have seen some of your approaches to the poorly fitting sections of this kit. It looks like you handled them, deftly. 

TBH I didn't expect my build to progress up that fast either 😅 But no particularly new technique in dealing with poor fit. The horrible front-aft fuselage joints are taken care of by fitting the lower part first and allowing some gaps on top to be filled with thin plasticards and some putty. The rest is (much to my surprise) a good fit.

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I built this kit many years ago (somewhere around 1986?) and it was one of the fastest builds I've ever done.  I don't remember any fit problem then, but having been doing a lot of Monogram, etc, it probably wasn't anything I wasn't used to.  If I ever get back to the storage unit it is living in, I'll have to have a look...

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39 minutes ago, gingerbob said:

I built this kit many years ago (somewhere around 1986?) and it was one of the fastest builds I've ever done.  I don't remember any fit problem then, but having been doing a lot of Monogram, etc, it probably wasn't anything I wasn't used to.  If I ever get back to the storage unit it is living in, I'll have to have a look...

Probably because back then the moulding was still fresh and new. My previous experience with he newer boxing of Hase's F-14s has been a mixed bag of really good detail and shape, yet marred with warped parts, Greenland-sized flash, and misfits here and there. Oh, and the absolute lack of weapons. Plus a dreadful exhaust breakdowns on their F-14B and F-14D.

But until someone came up with a more modern, accurate representation (come on, GWH, when will you release the F-14 damnit), Hasegawa's F-14 is still the one I'll be going for. :D

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