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F14A Tomcat - PART THREE

The boarding ladder uses etched metal pieces to construct its vertical sides. These are too thin looking when built, so I laminated .015 inch sheet styrene onto them and trimmed them to size. Using appropriate sized drill bits, I drilled the litening holes into the sides where they existed in the etched piece. This thicker construction looked more appropriate to what I saw in pictures of a real Tomcat boarding ladder.

The mounting holes for the horizontal tails were too large. The tails just hung in them. After contemplating several not-too-easy options, I decided to take a "cheap" approach that worked. I applied a bead of super glue inside the holes and let it dry. This reduced the hole size just enough so that the tails fit snuggly. I needed no glue to secure them. This makes them more survivable over the upcoming years on my display shelves. Since they are not glued, they will just move if (when) I bump them instead of breaking.

The instruction sheet has parts #L10 and #L11 (the wingtip navigation lights) backwards. I painted mine on the sprue using the instruction sheet to tell me which part would be which color (clear red or clear green). When I went to attach them to the wingtips, they did not work on the sides that I painted them for. The correct placement, for the record -- #L10 is the left (red), #L11 is the right (green). I stripped the clear paint off using an old bottle of Polly-S paint and decal remover. Then painted them again in the correct colors before attaching them to the wings.