1/48 Hasegawa F-14A |
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Gallery Article by Dave Ramshaw
on Sept 9 2003 |
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Finished at last!
Firstly a couple of admissions : yes I know the gun cover on the nose is the early type which is not correct for a low-viz scheme - and more noticeably the markings are completely fictitious! Sorry all you Tomcat experts - the reason for this is I had a disastrous reaction between the decals and
Microsol - so rather than succumbing to my first impulse of stomping the model into the floor, I took a deep breath and stripped them all off (luckily the paint job was undamaged). Also I haven't stuck all the annoying little aerials and what have you on the plane yet, and the pitot tube needs
gluing back on at the correct angle!
This model had been on the go for ages (Have a look at some of the other reviews of this kit for the fit issues - they are all true!) so I was totally sick of it and wanted it finished, I decided just to use some decals from the spares box and do an "approximate scheme" rather than wait a month for another set to come from Hannants.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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Although it is a pain to do...this kit is worth the effort - the detail is outstanding. I built mine mostly out of the box with some minor scratch built details. I substituted the less than great kit pilot figures for a couple of spare ones left over from Hasegawa F-18 kits which are a lot
nicer.
The model was pre-shaded and then painted in three different shades of ghost-grey (all nearly identical!) The centre of certain top surface panels were then post shaded with lightened mixes of grey. An RAF friend sent me several pictures of Tomcats he saw when he was out in Kuwait, so I tried to recreate the grime these aircraft showed around the crew access steps by spraying with a darker grey. The model was sprayed with Johnsons Klear before receiving an oil paint wash in the panel lines. I then tried Humbrol Matt Coat for the first time and was pleased with the result.