HobbyBoss 1/72 F-14A (another one!)

[Scargsy]

 

So I'll be building this for the GB - got a bit of aftermarket stuff, some resin crew, Eduard photoetch and masks.

Probably go with the low-vis scheme as it's a single overall colour making masking life easier for myself.

I probably haven't built a Tomcat kit for almost 30 years, this one looks nice - even though it's in the 'easy assembly authentic kit' range it looks from the instructions to just be a rebox of their other F14 kit. Some of the kits in that HobbyBoss range look very simplist, however I really enjoyed building their 1/72 P-61 Black Widow in this range.

 

Sprue shots etc. once I get started

[Col.]

Always nice to see some crew figures getting added to a project. Are you going to represent this one in-flight?

[Scargsy]

4 hours ago, Col. said:

Always nice to see some crew figures getting added to a project. Are you going to represent this one in-flight?

Yep, that's the plan - not sure how easy the kit designers have made that option for me yet!

[Scargsy]

So time to start...

I have to say I do like the packaging; it's an open top box, made from sturdy cardboard (not just the thin card type stuff), and they had taken the step of adding a small cardboard strip in the corner to help protect the fuselage top and bottom pieces even further - cheap, simple and effective!

The sprues were also all nicely packed in individual bag (even the duplicate sprues with the missiles are each individually wrapped), there's even foam protection within them on the delicate parts.

 

The instructions are a stapled black and white booklet, with a separate double sided colour paint/decal guide as a single A4 sheet.

The decal sheet is huge, I really hate doing lots of tiny, warning stencils so this may test my patience later!

 

Time to break and glue some plastic...

I made a start by removing the cockpit section and front wheel well - these connect together so I glued them to help see and alignment issues for the front halves of the nose section. A bit of test fitting was then done

Looks like it will all fit well after a little cleanup (it's just not tightly together in the shot due to the tape)...

So possibly one of the simplifications on this kit is that the front undercarriage doors are moulded onto the body section.

A bit of patience and a razor saw soon had them off...

Guess that's me committed to doing an undercarriage up version now!

The well is very well aligned to the door opening, normally if there's an inner lip it's possible to attach some plasticard bars to help stop the doors collapsing in.

I'll have to figure out how to get these doors in, annoyingly I'll need the 2 fuselage halves together to check the fit but that means no access from the reverse/inside. Possibly I can modify the well and put some strips or an inner 'lid' on it.

I guess a small bit of plasticard will be needed to attach the 4 front doors from the rear so judging the depth needed might be a pain.

One option I guess is there are 'slots' in the well, aligned with the hinges - I could maybe shape some plasticard rectangles and slide them in from the outside. That would give me the ability to test fit a bunch of times and reshape as needed.

There is also a long door slot which relates to a door attached to part of the leg, I'll need to separate and fit/fill that gap too.

 

The rear undercarriage isn't such a faff to convert, I managed to get one done so far...

The tricky part was initially aligning the rearward door (since it has no alignment pins, etc. and is effectively just a right angle.

With that in place I added some plasticard tabs - one from that door (to connect to the other two ahead), plus a couple of pieces I managed to find handy slots for on the interior.

Next I attached the larger outboard door, before the tiny slither of the inward one (I added an extra slither of plasticard to the larger door to help stop this falling inward).

Once all the glue dries off I'll maybe look at strengthening the interior (some epoxy maybe) and add some filler and cleanup to the outside.

 

 

 

[Col.]

You're on a good start with the modifications to in-flight pose

[Thom216]

Nicely overcoming the manufacturer's design.

[Roberto]

Nice kit, and a good start!

[Scargsy]

OK so my build had stalled for a fair amount of time but I'm determined to try and get it over the finish line (not sure I'll manage the other kit in a different GB I have going, but lets see).

 

So first off was closing up the opposite rear landing gear doors, which had me scratching my head as I'd completely forgotten the lessons I'd learnt from the other!

 

After that it was onto some work getting the front landing gear doors buttoned up.

Firstly I took a small slither of plasticard and mounted the doors I'd previously cut off onto the backing.

They don't line up great on the outer edges but I'll see/check later, hopefully some sanding and/or filling and it will get where it needs to be.

The fifth door is attached to one of the supports for the front gear so after chopping it off and a small bit of sanding it's fitted in quite well, there is a small mark still from where it was attached to the sprue and it'll need some minor filling still.

Next job was building up the wings (simple 2 parts per side) and fitting them into the upper/lower body halves.

After seeing some of the other builds in the GB I decided to omit the small front hinged stabiliser wings and also considered fitting the wings at a later point to aid painting but decided I'd prefer them solidly glued in place now in rearward configuration.

The wings went together very well, with great fit however I hit a bit of a snag when fitting them into the body. The lower body half has larger 'pegs' for the hinged section but they need to slip into slots in the upper half, however I didn't quite twig this in dry fitting so ended up with some glue smearing over the wing. After all the messing around the glue had dried in the pegs by the time I'd gotten it together so I've now got moveable wings! Annoyingly they are a bit 'wobbly' and can slip the gearing but it's easy enough to correct them again.

I need to decide whether I'll fix them (should be possible to get some glue into the gearing) up until I fit the front body section or leave them moveable, since it's going to be easier to mask the body just behind/under the wing area that way.

The air intakes were given a couple of rough coats of Vallejo white primer brushed on. I decided to fit these post attaching the upper and lower halves as that way it was easier to clamp the front sections together during gluing.

 

So onto the cockpit - I needed to get this all built up and two front fuselage halves attached before fitting the front gear doors.

With the aftermarket resin figures and PE this was a lengthy process (took me most of Sunday).

The figures were nicely moulded (separate arms and heads) though very tight fitting getting the ejector seats in, so much so that I snapped one when trying to dry fit it (grrr resin is so brittle! Superglue to the rescue).

Had some issues with the glue - I'd previously tried Bob Smith Supergold but the bottle had dried up when I went to get it out, so ordered some more - this time their 'thin'  variant (previously I found it a bit thick) but my words is it thin, so much so that it's petty impossible to control and get a tiny bead out without it running everywhere! Previously I'd use a cocktail stick - blob a tiny bit on that, or a piece of scrap then use the stick to put a smaller blob where I wanted. Well no such luck with this, too thin to pick up a blob or run some on the stick. I persevered but thankfully even with a few mishaps of it running over already attached pieces - it dries nice and clear (no fogging).

So once the cockpit and crew were assembled I built up the front halves - fitment seems good, should need a bit of minor fixing but overall no gaping gaps, there is a bit of a line behind the crew (under the canopy) though there is a small piece of detail to fit there so it should be hidden.

The nose cone was attached and I fitted the underside panel for the front section (the bit with the fifth gear door).

Well that's enough modelling for now - couldn't help test fitting the front and rear halves of the fuselage...

Still a fair few bits to get done but it's starting to look like a plane, fingers crossed I'll get some time (oh and that those seats are low enough to get the canopy on)!

[Jabba]

That has gone together well. It is sometimes difficult to remember how you did things on one side of a model and try to repeat it on other after a short break from working on it.

[Col.]

You're making great progress there even though the kit is putting up some fight.

[Scargsy]

So some further progress - got it all built up.

I was planning on putting the AIM-54 missiles on the wing root pylons but discovered the kit doesn't come with a full compliment of missles - only 4x AIM-54, 2x AIM-7 and 2x AIM-9. (Apparently a more realistic loadout would be 2 AIM-54, 4 AIM-7 and 2 AIM-9).

Luckily the glue hadn't fully dried on the pylon end, so I managed to pull it off and attach the AIM-7 optional piece instead, the instructions aren't overly clear on this step so unfortuanately in my haste I've mounted it backwards, which I only discovered the following day whilst building up the opposite pylon. Not a huge issue but not something I think is now salvagable (will make more of a mess trying to detatch it, I can live with it).

 

Fuel tanks were attached too - not sure if this is a realistic loadout but it's the full kit compliment. There are some spare pylon pieces and the instructions detail the various optional placements - a shame they didn't supply a few more missiles.

I'm not sure on accuracy of the kit but it does seem to go together well - some minor filling was needed on the rear vertical stabilisers/fins - also the kit doesn't give any info of the angles they should be mounted at (I'm guessing splayed outwards at the tops just slightly off vertical). I used the aftermarket masking kit and some liquid mask, th

 

I omitted to add some tiny detail parts to the exterior of the front (pitot tubes I think) - they were far too small and fiddly for me, would have got broken off or created a huge gluey mess no doubt trying to get them on.

 

Then on with some black primer -

After seeing some other builds here - I thought I'd give the Mr Surfacer 1500 a whirl (mixed approx 1:1 with self-leveling thinner) - wow, great primer, theres only one small blemish on the rear stabiliser and a bit where it's chipped on the wing (but that was from me moving the wings about during priming to get all of them covered).

 

The missiles I've primed in the White 1500 primer.

 

So on with the paint coat - after masking off the white business ends of the missiles, I gave them a second coat of grey primer (mixed from the white + grey Mr Surfacer).

The aircraft got a coat of Mr Color 11 (Light Gull, semi-gloss), again thinned with the leveling thinner - it was only once this was dried that I realised I'd used the wrong colour paint! Even though the colour callout text is 'Light Gull' the paint code number is for C-315 (FS16440) - gah, I thought the paint looked a little bit 'dirty / yellow grey'.

So progress has now ground to a halt, whilst I wait for some new paint to arrive!

Another thing - the colour/decal sheet suggests that the panels just under the wing folding areas should be, and I quote 'metallic red' H 87/75 which I kind of question, looks more like a dark grey in their image.

 

 

 

 

 

[Wings unlevel]

Hi @Scargsy, bummer about the gull grey. The instructions for my Academy F-14 show the colour of that wing sweep bladder as dark gull grey FS36231, which is what I’ve painted mine. Link here: https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/8/2/9/1121829-69-instructions.pdf

[Scargsy]

Small update - the new grey arrived, so I gave it a light overcoat of it, annoyingly seemed to do better on the underside than the top and it still has a kind of odd 'off-grey' effect in real light but I think I'll go ahead and decal it up next, time is pressing (even with the extension)...

 

Here's a shot of it compared to the two grey paints c-11 'light gull gray' semi-gloss and c-315 'gray FS16440' gloss. Obviously there maybe a slight discrepancies due to settle out at the bottom of the pots / drying colour but it should give an idea hopefully.

 

 

 

[dnl42]

Nice work on this! I hope you'll be able to make it. 

 

On 10/26/2021 at 3:41 AM, Scargsy said:

Looks like it will all fit well after a little cleanup (it's just not tightly together in the shot due to the tape)...

Definitely a familial resemblance to it's 1/48 bigger brother. Your intakes are a lot cleaner though...

[Wings unlevel]

Looks good/right from here!

[Scargsy]

So it looks like I've only just made the extended cutoff.

With the deadline looming I hand painted the exhausts and wing retraction areas before starting on the decals.

In the end I missed out putting on quite a lot of the smaller stencil decals, which I do find rather tedious!

I didn't clearcoat before applying the decals, the original grey was semi-gloss and the overshot grey paint was gloss - though the decals seem to have gone down fine with no silvering.

I clear coated using some Mr Topcoat Gloss rattle can, had a small issue when doing the underside that some gloss stuck to the stand and has ripped up a bit of paint on the top - slightly on the left wing and on the right fuselage just near the wing hinge. I tried to do a bit of paint repair using a few dabs on a cocktail stick and then sanding back with some 3000 grit but it doesn't look great. 

I then overshot it with some Mr Topcoat semi-gloss but the can ran out - I could have done with giving it a final flat coat - but didn't have a rattle can on hand and time got the better of the build!

I gave it a final oil wash of Abteilung 'Starship Filth' heavily thinned. Photos are all of the finished build.

The missiles BTW are all painted with a 'neutral' grey for comparison (mix of black and white primers), I'd wanted them to be a slightly different tone to contrast but think I might have overdone it.

Anyhow a nice enough build in the end and good to get another GB finished in time!

[Wings unlevel]

2 hours ago, Scargsy said:

n the end I missed out putting on quite a lot of the smaller stencil decals, which I do find rather tedious!

Me too! I skipped all the ‘no step’ stencils…. 🤫🤭

 

Nice build! It looks the business in low vis colours!

[PhantomBigStu]

Was the fit as good as easy build sounds Scargsy, still have a hankering to do a USN one and might pick up the Hb instead of doing the revell again. Nice work btw 

[Roberto]

Very nice indeed!

[Scargsy]

14 hours ago, PhantomBigStu said:

Was the fit as good as easy build sounds Scargsy, still have a hankering to do a USN one and might pick up the Hb instead of doing the revell again. Nice work btw 

Yes, I found it had very good fit all round - maybe not as good as the very latest kits but I found it needed very little filling and sanding, though it seems looking on Scalemates the moulds only date back to 2011. The worst parts were a small bit just behind the cockpit/front fuselage section on the upper side (where it slots into the rear fuselage section, it had a slight step) and I could have done a better job of fitting the clear canopy parts - looks fine on the right side but maybe needed a bit of better sanding for the left towards the front. I suppose being a fairly low part count kit helps, also I attached the rear fuselage top and bottom before the air intakes (out of order from the instructions) which I think helped as I could clamp the parts a lot easier.

 

[Freester]

Hi @Scargsy thanks for the visit on my WIP a shame I got my HB 1/72 Tomcat box a bit late for the GB. This has been an interesting / helpful read for me and sounds like we think about this build the same (except no aftermarket and wheels down for me).

 

I wish I'd found this a bit earlier. I've already cut the upper / lower fuselage one side for the forward stabilisers (believe they are called Glove Vanes).

 

Good tip about not fitting the lower air intakes until after the top / bottom fuselage fitted. 

 

I see you also considered painting the wings before assembly. This is something I'm seriously considering. I'm assuming you have to move the 'swinging' wings about to get best coverage of paint...?

[Scargsy]

On 24/01/2022 at 15:17, Freester said:

Hi @Scargsy thanks for the visit on my WIP a shame I got my HB 1/72 Tomcat box a bit late for the GB. This has been an interesting / helpful read for me and sounds like we think about this build the same (except no aftermarket and wheels down for me).

 

I wish I'd found this a bit earlier. I've already cut the upper / lower fuselage one side for the forward stabilisers (believe they are called Glove Vanes).

 

Good tip about not fitting the lower air intakes until after the top / bottom fuselage fitted. 

 

I see you also considered painting the wings before assembly. This is something I'm seriously considering. I'm assuming you have to move the 'swinging' wings about to get best coverage of paint...?

 

Hi,

 

After seeing the other builds and somewhere someone mentioned the glove vanes weren't actually used after a while and ended up being welded shut, I can't confirm that research but decided against opening them up/fitting on mine. 

 

For the wings some other builds did clip them and fit after painting but I attached mine first - yes you need to move them to get best coverage - was a bit annoying as the gearing kept slipping a little for me but after some manipulation you can get them aligned again. For paint coverage I managed fine with the airbrush with them fully out/wide, except for some small bits right at near the hinge, but luckily the paint and primer I use is pretty quick drying - so I did the bits under the wings first, then by the time I'd done the rest I could move them in without it sticking and get the outside hinge bits.

 

I'm not sure how you're planning on painting it (brush, airbrush, rattle can) but one thing that might be possible is to paint the dark grey segments first before assembling, place some masking over them then continue building, etc. and as a final step remove that masking.

 

Also I found attaching the top, bottom and wings was one of those jobs you need more than two hands for and I managed to get some glue on the wings - they slide into slots on the top part, so if I did it again I'd maybe lay the top piece upside down on its back, with the wings slid in, then attach the lower part onto it. I'm not sure if that makes much sense but do plenty of test dry fitting before you attempt it with glue!