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F14A Tomcat - PART THREE

Building Hasegawa's 1/48 Scale Tomcat
I was so excited by what I saw in the original Tomcat kit I purchased that I started building it immediately. Then, I found some things with the engineering of the kit that really disappointed me. Not that the issues were insurmountable, but I had some preconceived ideas from what the F-4 and A-7 kits were like. When the F-14 kit actually did have what I considered "real" issues, I got disgusted and boxed the whole kit up, putting it away in the closet. Note that this occurred in the middle 1980's where my Advanced Modelers Syndrome (AMS) was at its worst. It was easy to convince me back then that any kit was too much trouble. The disappointment has lingered, though, and is the biggest reason it has taken me until now to finally build the kit. I will relate the issues I ran into as I walk through the construction sequence for the kit.

The troubles I ran into with the kit relate in many ways to the complexities introduced by all the pieces. The main trouble spots are only in a few specific places. In fairness to Hasegawa, I have to state that later releases of these kits have had the moldings reworked to help alleviate some of the issues that I outline here. Depending on which kit is being built, it may or may not have the reworked moldings. The original kits (stock#07018 and #07019) seem to be the most likely kits to not be reworked. Every other release of the kit I have checked has the reworked moldings.