Hi,

I´m new to this forum but was advised by Magnus Fridsell that you had a group build coming up for the F-14. I have reported to the campaign site and I intend to do two Hasegawa Cats in 1/48. One VF-1 F-14A in the Heater scheme from the early 1980´s that competed with what became the TPS. There are no decals for this bird so I need to cut masks and paint!

The other kit is a F-14B. I can´t make up my mind if I´m going to do an operational Cat , armed to the teeth with air-to-ground precision munitions, or the red tailed show bird from the Reapers. Anyway, two Tomcats it is!

It´s good to be here!
Martin

Welcome on board Martin. I can't wait to see those schemes that you have planned. At least we are proving that not all Tomcats are "plain old boring grey" :-)

Oh damn....My bird will have a 48th twin? TWO Heater-Ferris schemes in one campaign???? The world will shatter into pieces!!!

@smashedglass - I think it will be ok as long as they never meet each other... or something.

Has anyone tried to get the 1/72 Eduard F-14D etch set (designed for Revell kits) into the newer Hasegawa tooling? I am about to purchase a set and want to make sure I'm not wasting my $$$.

Thanks in advance
Wiz

Eric, since you mention Ferris, is your Cat being covered in the two-tone splinter scheme? Microscale/superscale covered one of the splinter versions on a pretty old sheet. Mine will be in a scheme that apparently C.J. Hetaly designed himself. It is a three tone, soft cruving, wrap around kind of thing! (Try saying that fast!)

Martin

Hi all!

I have been busier building than photographing lately but tonight, after a glass of wine, I didn't feel like risking my fingers with the scalpel. Out came the camera!

This is the actual kit I got hold of, dating back to1989 according to the copyright notice:



There were two HUGE decal sheets in the box. Rather generous but too bad I won´t use them anyway!



I have built the aft fuselage. I think I should have fitted the top part of the beaver tail to the top part of the fuselage instead of doing as mr. Hasegawa suggested. Now I ended up with a fuselage spine not being entirely flat and a rather awkward joint... It will be interesting to see what it looks like after painting!



The lower part of the fuselage is complex but cleverly designed. The fit between fuselage and the forward part of the engine nacelles is a bit sloppy, a few small strips of plastic will help a lot.



The only thing that has gone seriously wrong (yet) is the wings: I think the best way of assembling flaps and slats is to glue them to the upper half of the wing and getting the best possible fit there. The lower half of the wing can then be fitted afterwards. I glued top and bottom part of the wing together and fitted flaps and slats afterwards. Fit on one wing was OK, the other one didn´t fit at all. I have probably gotten some slight misalignment between the parts and then slats and flaps won´t fit.



I really enjoy this, I am more of a builder than a painter and this kind of rather complex project is a joy!

I hope to get som basic painting done this weekend and I'll try to post more frequently in the future.

Regards

Magnus

Martin, you are correct, I got ahold of the old Micro/Superscale sheet; very basic markings but correct for ship # "100" in the splinter scheme. I'm going for the first version of the trials with the slightly darker shades. I've never seen the CJ Hetaly one; soft curves? You should post a pic of it up for us.

Wow Magnus, some great work there, at least i now know what to look out for when I start work on the rear fuselage and wings for my kit tomorrow.

Update on my build.... not alot really :-) joking aside I have managed to get all the under carriages, wheel bays, intakes and exhaust primed and painted with Halfords Gloss Appliance White today so hopefully I'll get cracking next weekend and actually start gluing some bits together. Haven't got any pics as i think looking at pieces of gloss white plastic can look a bit boring :-)

Hi Eric,

I hope this works out! Attached should be a picture of one of the two VF-1 jets painted like this during the early 1980´s. This is some years later than the trails with the splinter schemes, which began during AIMEVAL/ACEVAL at Nellis in 1977. VX-4, VF-124, VF and VF-2 flew splinter jets for a while but VF-1 were the only outfit to try the Heater scheme.

Cheers
Martin


Edit: I can´t get the attached photo to work, try this link:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v147/smigield/OddCamoTomcatcopy.jpg

Hi Magnus

Thanks for sharing your first problems in your build. I think I have the exact same kit except for some additional decals. Now I know what to look out for.

I have a few armour projects I will finish first and then I will start on my Tomcat.

Hi There

working link

Andy

Progress shots so far.

I'm building this OOTB, as i know next to nothing about Tomcats, and don't need the eyestrain of trying to super detail at 1:144 scale.




Cheers

Andy

Looking good Andy, I agree that it's not worth the hassle at that scale unless it's the Dragon (ex Crown) kits as they have terrible alien looking blobs for pilots :-)

I try to build all mine without Pilots any way - not good at the painting of figures yet!

Andy

If you had a Dragon kit you wouldn't have that option as the cockpit floor and pilot are molded in on piece, hence what can only be referred to as blobs :-)

Allen

I'm very glad you put me off them at MK then.

Cheers

Andy

Andy,

Your right to steer clear of the Dragon F-14's as they are I found out the hard way but they do have some very nice decals.

So I'm building the Revell kits with Dragon decals so not a complete loss.

Ciao
Luciano

Luciano.

I'm very impressed with the quality of the revell Kits - not like the old revell stuff i have in my stash, fit is great and very few ejector marks - are all of the 144 revell kits like this? - they seem to be a nice quick (by my standards) build kit

Andy

I done did joined up I did!! I got started on one of Dragon's 1/144 Cats. These are the way to go if you like putty and filling gaps with scrap plastic :-) Maybe I had a bad kit or something, but it has a good amount of putty on it. Just waiting for it to dry so I can commence to sanding and filing to get things right. Wheels will be up and it will have a brass rod up one of the pipes for mounting on a nice wooden base. Pics to follow soon, "Q"

ps. Wish I had read the posts above before buying the Dragon offerings If nothing else they do have some colorful decals.

Hi Andy!

No, Revell still have some "buggers", but they are weeding them out!

New quality kits are;

Hawker Hunter F.6, F/A-18C Hornet, F-14A Black Tomcat (Black Bunny), F-14D Super Tomcat, TF-104 Starfighter, Dassault Rafaele, AV-8B Harrier II, Panavia Tornado IDS/ECR, Sukhoi Su-37 Berkut and Eurofighter.

There are several earlier issues of the Tornados out there, but these two issues are new moulds, same for the F-14 and F-18.

If you are interested in 1/144 scale, I can recommend a look at Sweet and Platz kits.
These are absolutley wonderful small scale kits, Tamiyas in miniature!

Thanks to all for the nice comments on my VF-142 Ghostriders F-14!

I have a stack of these kits, and with the AAA decals I can build at least 10 aircrafts in different squadron markings!

Cheers!

Stefan E

My normal scale is 1:48 - only trying !;144 for this campaign, but am impressed - i will keep my eyes open for interesting subjects in 1:144, as long as the Mk1 eyeballs are working.

Andy

Hi Andy,

Stefan beat me to it but is quite right, not all the Revell kits are to the same standard as the F-14A Black Bunny, and watch out for the F-14A as this is the same Crown molding as the Dragon kit.

As stefan has already pointed out the good ones I'll not repeat them, but will say that the Hunter is IMO better than the 1/72 version if thats possible.

Ciao
Luciano

Sorry that I could not check this thread lately, some of you have almost already finished! What a speed

I have one question. I am going to build a 48 scale Tomcat tak-off diorama for this campaign and made a lot of research about the carrier deck. I have drawn the plans of it already:



Narita's Tomcat diorama helped a lot, plus I had some other sources, and used some photos, as well to create this drawing.

I am stuck now, I need to figure out how I can scratchbuild the tie-down holes. I know there are some photoetched products for this, but there is no way I can find them here in Turkey. Besides, purchasing from abroad costs a lot. I need to build about 80 of these holes

Does anybody have any idea about this?

Thanks a lot.
Cagin

Welcome Aboard Red4 i look forward to seeing the result of your kit, Its a good job that i expanded the scales to include 1/144 as we'll have an entire Air Group before long :-)

Cagin i know how you feel I'm hoping to do a diorama for my 1/48 Cat and bought the Flightpath USN equip'ement detail set. They include the tie downs but not enough for a large deck section looking at the style this is a (crude) drawing of what they look like



My current thoughts are to drill a scale size hole in the base which would give the slightly curved shape and then to make a small jig out of wood or metal (something that plastic cement won't stick to) ant then place five bits of plastic rod in the jig and drop a bit of glue to bond them all together then just trim them to size and mount in the hole (I hope).