Grumman F-14B 'Bombcat'

[Pappy]

G'day people,

 

After ummimg and aaghing I decided I would join in this GB with the Hasegawa 1/48 kit. nobody else has been foolhardy enough to join in with this kit as although it once ruled the roost in terms of detail and accuracy, it also has a fearsome reputation for being a nightmare to build that makes the Airfix 1/48 Buccaneer kit seem like a doddle (actually I thought the Bucc was actually pretty easy to assemble FWIW) such that many a Has Kitty has languished in people's stashes. I am sure that plenty of people are probably trying to offload it now that Tamiya have provided an easier option.

 

Since I have been amassing loads of AM for this kit over the years, this looks like a perfect excuse to build it.

 

Firstly, the box and bits,

 

 

 

 

I made a start  today by preparing the forward fuselage halves for the replacement resin tub by removing the moulded locating ledges  and removing the section of the cockpit access steps that protrude  from m the inside of the left fuselage as this would foul the resin tub

 

 

 

 

The final job for today was to start assembling the intake sub-assemblies by cleaning up the ejector pin marks from the forward intake sections  and filling the seams on the rear duct sections.

 

 

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Pappy

[2lefthands]

I'm curious to see how this develops! Great start!

I never made it past the Intake trunks...

 

 

[Andrew]

Looking forward to your build Pappy. What markings do you have in mind?

[Pappy]

1 hour ago, Andrew said:

Looking forward to your build Pappy. What markings do you have in mind?

 

G'day Andrew, so many choices! It will be a low-viz grey in TPS, I like VF-103but I have not really committed yet

 

15 hours ago, 2lefthands said:

I'm curious to see how this develops! Great start!

I never made it past the Intake trunks...

 

 

 

G'day 2LH, thanks, I hope I manage to get a little further than that!

 

G'day people,

 

Today I started preparing the cockpit parts. Hasegawa's cockpit is not bad detail wise, hoewever the side walls are completely devoid of any detail. On the F-14, this is a busy place and I have opted to replace the provided kit details with resin. The other issue with the kit cockpit is that when Hasegawa released its F-14 kit family, they tried to use a common tub and include separate side and instrument panels that would be correct for the major variants (F-14A/A+/B/D) and this was a great idea which unfortunately failed in the execution. The problem is that the side panels just do not fit, the horizontal panels are too wide and too long (even without the quarter panels) I assembled the kit parts  to see firsthand how bad the issue is

 

 

I needed to cut out about 1mm from the rear of each side panels to accommodate the quarter panels. This leaves an unsightly seam visible which was attacked with filler. I think the cockpit would look okay with aircrew installed and/or canopy down as the sidewalls are in deep shadow but as mine will be built with an open canopy, I opted for a resin replacement instead

 

 

No contest detail wise although this required removal of a hefty pour plug.

 

The cockpit set also includes a very nice pair of resin GRU-7 seats with molded on straps (and the straps are draping differently between the two seats), again a huge improvement over the kit items although they would be acceptable with aircrew installed

 

 

Finally, I assembled the kit undercarriage bays. The main gear bays are built up from several parts and this was one area where the kit has attracted criticism for unnecessary complication as they can be problematic to install. I think Has was attempting to provide more detail for the modeller by molding the walls separately due to limitations in molding technology of the time (although my boxing was released about 2000, the original "F-14A+" sprues date back to about 1991), so I think that the kit still holds up well nearly thirty years later!

 

Nose Wheel Well (NWW)

 

 

Main Wheel Wells (MWWs)

 

 

 

 

Before any of the wheel bays can be installed I need to prepare the kit parts first. I began by scraping off the roof the molded details from the MWWs. This seems too easy and I have a dreadful feeling that I will need to remove a LOT more plastic before I can get the two fuselage halves to close ......

 

 

Followed by the black painted area of the MWWS on the lower fuselage

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Pappy

[Graham T]

Lots of fond memories from 30 or so years ago of the Hasegawa F-14 kits.  I remember that they were a bit of a struggle in places.  Now of course we have the Tamiya kit which I am currently building & it goes together like a dream, however, I do miss the option to build it with dropped slats & flaps that you got with the Hasegawa kits!  Suppose you can't have everything!

[Pappy]

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

Lots of fond memories from 30 or so years ago of the Hasegawa F-14 kits.  I remember that they were a bit of a struggle in places.  Now of course we have the Tamiya kit which I am currently building & it goes together like a dream, however, I do miss the option to build it with dropped slats & flaps that you got with the Hasegawa kits!  Suppose you can't have everything!

 

G'day Graham, agree with all of that except that Tamiya will be releasing a limited edition version withe extended flaps and slats so actually, now you can have everything!

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[Sierra Mike Sierra]

On 14/11/2021 at 09:22, Pappy said:

it also has a fearsome reputation for being a nightmare to build

I have herad so. Good luck! I will watch you closely. Have the same kit in my stash vor quite some time and after opening the box time and again I always put it back to let it age a bit more...

[Pappy]

On 11/16/2021 at 7:50 AM, Sierra Mike Sierra said:

I have herad so. Good luck! I will watch you closely. Have the same kit in my stash vor quite some time and after opening the box time and again I always put it back to let it age a bit more...

 

G'day SMS, the rep is well deserved and I also put off building the kit for ages. If you have not already done so I suggest reading the 4-part build article by Dave Aungst which highlights most of the pitfalls and offers solutions - forewarned is forearmed!

 

Some of the problems go away with aftermarket (but this can introduce its own problems) whilst others just need some care or effort (or both!) and I certainly did not think my skills were equal to the task when I bought the kit years ago, but in the end it's only plastic

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited June 20, 2022 by Pappy

[Pappy]

G'day people,

 

More fuselage prep, I had removed the moulded in sections of the MWW in the previous installment, now it was time to continue preparing the fuselage halves.

 

 

The Hasegawa build sequence would have you add the completed 'beaver-tail' assembly to the assembled fuselage section. This is dumb and is one of the known problem areas with this kit.  If you follow the kit sequence you will likely have a very poor fitting join that will also tend  to result in a step between the assemblies which means more work to remedy. A far better solution is the add the upper and lower beaver-tail sections to their respective fuselage sections beforehand.

 

Hasegawa provides the air-brakes as separate parts so that you can position them open. My jet will be on the deck and the brakes are typically closed on the ground so I went ahead and installed these beforehand. The parts fit okay and any gaps were soon  neatened up with liquid filler. Installing these now allows the air-brake parts to  be adjusted from the inside to get a perfectly level join. That done, the beaver-tail parts were added to the fuselage parts. Hasegawa provide a spacer to help align the beaver-tail parts but I did not trust it would do an adequate job and I wanted to make sure that these parts would have the best possible chance of being level so I added some plastic strips on the inside to make sure the parts did not shift once I had everything where I wanted them and because the joint looked a little weak should I need to sand the joint.

 

 

Result! Pappy 1, kit 0

 

 

Next up, it was time to work on the intakes - another problematic area. The mould for the kit intake parts was altered at some point, increasing the depth area of the rebate at the joint making for a slightly better join but the area still needs care. I have painted up the intake trunks, so far so good. I found that adding a lip of scrap styrene helps to align the intake ducts and makes for a better join

 

 

 

 

The last bit of intake work for today was to work on the inlet ramps. If you follow the Hasegawa instructions you will end up assembling the inlet ramps in their supersonic position when the ramps drop down to reduce the volume of air being fed to the engines. When powered down, these ramps sit almost flush with the intake roof. I assembled the inlet ramp parts and then cut down the actuator so that only about 1mm remained

 

 

The moveable sections of the ramp (white) were then added and the inlet ramp assemblies were lightly weathered

 

 

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Pappy

[Pappy]

G'day people,

 

Cockpit painting has commenced,

 

 

 

Of course the bigger challenge will be to ensure that everything will fit and that the fuselage will close. It is a tight  fit when the resin NWW is included as well

 

 

Luckilly there is plenty of excess material underneath the cockpit tub so I removed enough material to ensure everything would fit. The resin instructions were practically useless apart from helpfully offering the advice that "some sanding of the kit parts may be required"  - no kidding!

 

The resin NWW looks convincingly busy when installed though so the effort was not wasted

 

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hewy]

Cracking painwork ,well worth the effort i agree 👍

[Pappy]

Thanks Hewie,

 Sometimes it does feel like painwork (aahh I kill me 🤣)

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited November 17, 2021 by Pappy

[Roberto]

Lovely progress 👍

[Thom216]

Wow, great looking build!

[Pappy]

10 hours ago, Roberto said:

Lovely progress 👍

 

Grazie mille Roberto!

1 hour ago, Thom216 said:

Wow, great looking build!

 

Thanks very much Thom,

 

G'day people,

 

Today I assembled fins. I ended up cutting out the bits corresponding to the red nav lights and added small sections of clear red plastic using CA. When dry, these were sanded to shape and polished up using toothpaste. A PE bracket completed the detail

 

 

I also made a start on the wings. These will need some additional work but for now I have assembled the cores

 

 

 

Whilst those bits were drying I managed to get the MWWs installed, but not without a struggle. The issue is that they are too tall to fit in between the fuselage halves neatly and both the inside of the upper fuselage and the resin MWWs require thinning. I didn't want to remove too much material from the kit and risk the MWWs punching through so the resin MWWs copped the majority of the thinning.

 

 

 

 

I actually broke through the 'roof' of the MWW at the corner but it is not noticeable

 

 

I also needed to sand out the sides in order to clear the kit moldings for the intake trunking

 

 

Finally I decided to reward myself with some painting. I have finished the seats. They were quite nice as is but I wanted stamp my own mark on them so I added a few more details to busy them up a little more. The upper and lower  initiation handles are from the kit provided parts

 

 

The instrument panels for the Pilot and RIO were also painted

 

 

 

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

 

 

 

I

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Thom216]

Very nice on the canvas covers!

[Pappy]

6 hours ago, Thom216 said:

Very nice on the canvas covers!

 

Thanks Thom, the details included on the resin parts is very nice, they just needed a bit of careful painting to make them pop

 

Pappy

[Pappy]

G'day people,

 

I have started gluing the various fuselage assemblies together I had some early success with the intake trunks and beaver tail, and I even managed to get a decent join on the main fuselage but when I mated the forward fuselage to the aft, the kit bit back hard!

I struggled to get a good fit on the upper and lower sections. I could get one but not the other. In the end I decided to get the best fit I could on the upper fuselage and sacrifice the fit on the underside as the worst area is mostly concealed beneath the weapons pallets

 

 

 

It is not pretty at the moment and I am well and truly on the FSR merry go round. To keep my spirits up I have been working on other bits and pieces.

 

Other additions to the front end are the resin TCS pod and replacement of the early F-14A style gun louvers with the later NACA style panels. Some PE  provided a delicate touch as well!

 

 

 

I have modified the wing glove pylons by replacing the kit supplied LAU-7 rails with LAU-138 BOLs. These include a countermeasures dispenser (the Bolt On Launcher - BOL). I kept the kit adapter and separated the LAU-7 as I wanted to use as much of the kit styrene as I could as this would help with alignment. The LAU-138 was then grafted onto the adapter

 

 

 

It can't be a Bombcat without bombs so I started painting up the bombs and FLIR pod

 

 

 

I am still undecided but I may end up adding a pair of GBUs as well

 

Back to putty monster.......

 

Pappy

 

I am still undecided but I may end up adding a pair of GBUs as well

 

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Pappy

[arfa1983]

Those bombs look great. Nice idea to make them slightly different 

[Col.]

Very nice progress so far Pappy. You're proving that a so-called 'nightmare' kit sometimes only needs a bit more care in its execution.

[Pappy]

On 11/19/2021 at 11:35 PM, arfa1983 said:

Those bombs look great. Nice idea to make them slightly different 

 

 Thanks Arfa. Bombs seem to be all grey now but at the time of my subject, the GBU bomb kits were transitioning from green to grey hence the pics of bombs with different coloured components. Also, I think that they look more interesting in different colours and it also makes them distinct from the jet

 

On 11/20/2021 at 12:33 AM, Col. said:

Very nice progress so far Pappy. You're proving that a so-called 'nightmare' kit sometimes only needs a bit more care in its execution.

 

Cheers Col.

 

I have to admit I was put off for ages because of the rep but I would urge anyone thinking of building this kit to go and have a read of the Dave Aungst articles (on Hyperscale) first, they were very helpful and helped me to avoid or reduce most of the problematic areas. This kit demands more work and it can be frustrating at times but now that Tamiya's wonderkits are widely available I expect that there will be an abundance of cheap(ish) 2nd hand Has kits flooding the swap'n'sell tables as people purge their stashes but I would not discount the Has kit completely (especially if you can get one cheap) as they do turn out well and for half the price of the big T's offering and with the money saved you can splurge on resin and PE. Having said all that I would love to get my hands on a Tamiya F-14D

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited June 20, 2022 by Pappy

[Pappy]

G'day people,

 

I am starting to get this cat tamed, I think. The majority of the filling and sanding work is done and now I just need to restore any lost panel lines in a few areas. Test fitting the weapons pallets shows that the majority of the lost panel lines in the forward/aft fuselage seam need not be re-scribed

 

 

I have also finished fettling the hot end to add the resin fairings to accommodate the donks

 

 

Although intended for the Hasegawa kit they did not fit very well at all and I almost regret using them but they did offer superior detail to the kit parts. If I was to do this again I would opt to try and adapt the kit parts to fit the resin can as the kits parts fit very well. The rest of today was spent working the undercarriage bits. The replacement resin doors have been painted

 

 

Likewise the hoops

 

 

Finally, I have added the wiring and plumbing the MLG legs

 

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Col.]

More lovely work. This one is taking shape nicely and I'm particularly enjoying all the extra detail you're adding in

 

On 11/19/2021 at 6:07 PM, Pappy said:

I have to admit I was put off for ages because of the rep but I would urge anyone thinking of building this kit to go and have a read of the Dave Aungst articles (on Hyperscale) first, they were very helpful and helped me to avoid or reduce most of the problematic areas. This kit does demand more work and it can be frustrating at times but now that Tamiya's wonderkits are widely available I expect that there will be an abundance of cheap(ish) 2nd hand Has kits flooding the swap'n'sell tables. as people purge their stashes but I would not discount the Has kit (especially if you can get one cheap) as they do turn out well and for half the price of thebig T's offering or less, you can splurge on resin and PE. Having said all that I would love to get my hands on a Tamiya F-14D

Having built several of them when they first appeared (a few for a friend and one to myself including the Verlinden detail set) without any memorable major issues it seemed people were decrying it needlessly so prior to this GB kicking off I went looking for a Hase 48th scale Tomcat thinking the new 'Twin Star' wonder-kit would be pushing second-hand prices down but alas it wasn't the case. In fact most were going for not much less than the Tamiya kit  

[Pappy]

On 11/21/2021 at 6:50 PM, Col. said:

More lovely work. This one is taking shape nicely and I'm particularly enjoying all the extra detail you're adding in

 

Having built several of them when they first appeared (a few for a friend and one to myself including the Verlinden detail set) without any memorable major issues it seemed people were decrying it needlessly so prior to this GB kicking off I went looking for a Hase 48th scale Tomcat thinking the new 'Twin Star' wonder-kit would be pushing second-hand prices down but alas it wasn't the case. In fact most were going for not much less than the Tamiya kit  

 

G'day Col,

 

I have to admit it is not as bad as I was expecting and I think the resin may have contributed to some of the fit issues. I would also bet that the Quinta cockpit details could be modified to fit the Has cockpit even if it was not the intended kit. I find it surprising that the second hand prices have not fallen much, Aussie modellers at least have been eager to embrace the Big T's offering and have been divesting themselves of the Has kit considerable cheaper that RRP, mind you we do get to buy Has kits in general a fair bit cheaper than the UK from what I have seen. I bought mine 2nd hand for about $45 AUD, so plenty of scope to spend up on AM.

 

G'day people,

 

I have managed to get some paint onto the U/C legs

 

 

 

They look a little stark at the moment, the weathering should pull that back a bit. I had a rummage around the spares bin and found a couple of GBU-31s. The will do but need some slight modification as they look to have pointed nose cones which differ to the blunter style employed by the USN. This was simple mod that just involved sanding the nose cone to a blunter shape to match my refs

 

 

Moving to the back end, my refs show a small round flat antenna instead of the rounded end these have.

It was a simple matter of cutting of the rounded tip and adding a small styrene disc made using a punch set

 

 

Better!

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

 

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Pappy

[Col.]

The strange situation here in the UK at the moment means it can be cheaper buying items posted from Australia than from Europe!

 

Anyway, enough of my moaning, nice progress on the ancillary components. Always good to have those sections moving forward rather than leaving them until last when enthusiasm can be on the wane.