1/48 Hasegawa F-14A Tomcat

by Alan Williamson

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Here I am with what is the first of four Hasegawa F-14's, and before you say it, yes its another VF-84 Jolly Rogers Tomcat. I've always like this squadrons markings of VF-84, so when I got decals of VF-84 and this my first Hasegawa Tomcat I thought that it was a perfect match. Before starting this massive kit I read just about every article on ARC of those modellers that tackled the mighty monster and what was said, what tips were used to help build the kit. Than it was time to start!! 

The Kit :    Hasegawa 1/48 F-14A Tomcat kit No P18

Additions:    Aires F14A Tomcat Cockpit set 4124

                     Aero Master decals Anytime Bade Pt.V 48-522 

Construction

Well its true what you read from other modellers that have built this kit, Its no joy Its a pain in the butt, plagued with fit problems in just about every aspect. But in saying that it does build up to be the best Tomcat in 1/48 available. I found this kit in my local hobby shop along with an F-18C I had been looking for both of these kits from Hasegawa for about seven years, these kit F-14 and F-18 in 1/48  Hasegawa are extremely hard to get in Australia. So when I saw them I had to have them. I then perches two more Hasegawa Tomcats on E-bay last year, the last Tomcat I brought three months ago from a contact in Sydney. What can I say the Tomcat has always been my favourite jet fighter ever since I was about ten years old and first saw "TOP GUN". Over the years from the age of ten when I started getting into models I have built about ten tomcat five Monogram 1/48 and about four Hasegawa 1/72 and four years ago I built the Academy 1/48 tomcat which is under going a rebuild at the moment.

When I got this Tomcat I opened the box and studied all of the pieces there shore is a lot of pieces I decided that this kit needed a cockpit with some detail so I got onto Craig at Aeroworks and ordered two Aires cockpits one for this kit and one for the next Tomcat an F-14B. Once the cockpits arrived it was time to tackle building this enormous kit, I'll say its quite intermediating to a novices modeller like my self seeing all those bits and pieces. The first thing was to make room for the Aires cockpit so it would fit into the forward AFT of the Tomcat, this was basically trial and era. Not many people on ARC have used the Aires cockpit so I had nothing to go by in the best way to tackle the operation. Aires cockpit are great in detail but give nothing in the way of what has to be removed from the kit in order to fit the cockpits in there instructions. as you will see in picture 2, I removed a bit to much out of the cockpit resulting in a big chunk or a hole left in the forward AFT. Once I was happy with the fit of the cockpit it was time to paint and assemble the cockpit. With this kit I used a few new technics that I had not used before. Once the cockpit was painted in its prime colour and the black for the control console was painted I used the dry  brush technic for the first time and I tell you what its the best way to get the desired affect of all the detail in the cockpit, don't know why I've never used dry brushing before. With the cockpit painted and assembled it was time to place it into the forward AFT and to glue the two halves together, now all I had to do was putty up the seem lines and that of the big chunk of missing plastic in the forward AFT see picture 3. While the cockpit section was drying it was time to assemble the main fuselage section, I believe that this kit is a bit over rated there are to many pieces that need to be constructed to make up the entire fuselage. The mind boggles as to why Hasegawa has laid the kit out this way, I think that if it was made to be constructed like that of the Monogram or Academy kits it would not be such a night mare to construct.  

These are pictures of the cockpit assembly with the forward AFT assembled note the chunk of plastic missing from the forward fuselage.

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I found the top half of the fuselage section over lapped the bottom halve, which lead in more putty being used I think that there is more putty in this kit than plastic, see picture 4. Now with the main fuselage assembled it was time to construct the beaver tail, which is the third main section of the fuselage. I found this to be the trickiest part to join when it came time to join the three sections together. It was a real hassle to align and I ended up with a big gap were the join was, so out came the putty yet again. while all that was setting I moved onto the constructing the air intake, I have read a lot of articles on building the Tomcat by other modellers saying that when a Tomcat is on the tarmac the air intakes are in the fully opened position never in the closed or super sonic position. I found that to be wrong I have included two pictures 6 and 7 of tomcats on the tarmac with the intakes closed / super sonic. I felt that after reading articles from other modeller that the tomcat air intakes should always be opened when the tomcat is on the tarmac, so I placed these photos just to say not always. It is allot easier to assemble the air intakes in the closed / super sonic position the way Hasegawa has instructed them to be constructed, than in the fully opened position. The next tomcat I build I'll attempt to have the intakes opened. With the intakes assembled and attached to the fuselage I thought it was time to do some sanding and to get rid of the putty and give the tomcat some shape. I have to say the worst part of assembling a kit for me is the sanding, filling and re-scribing I hate it, its so time consuming but it has to be done. With the fuselage section assembled I decided to construct the landing gear again to many part for what it is, it is very hard to get rid of seem lines once the three sections of one landing gear is assembled, could be simplified. The next parts I decided to assemble were the wings pretty straight forward not to much of head ach there. It was now time yet again to go over the hole model with some more sand paper and the scribing tool before painting.

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Painting

The decals that I brought were that of VF-84 Jolly Roger appearing during October 1989 aboard USS Independence in over all Gloss Lt. Gull Gray, I wanted to make an early 1979 to mid 80's VF-84 from USS Nimitz. After watching the "Final Countdown" a couple of times while constructing the Tomcat using the necessary  parts to make an early F-14, and deciding how I would make the decals I had configure in to that of an early VF-84 it was now time to paint picture 8. After air brushing the canopy and tails in gloss black, I airbrushed the under belly with Model Master flat white. A couple of days later I applied the gloss Lt. Gull Gray to the top halve of the fuselage. A week later I airbrushed the bottom of the fuselage with gloss white, all Model Master enamel paint were used. After about two weeks it was time to add the finishing touches such as painting the after burner cans, and trailing edges of the wings, so I masked up the sections of fuselage not to get over spray on and painted the last bits. However when it came time to remove the masking tape of the fuselage I found that the gloss white from the under belly started to come off, see picture 10 and 11. As if constructing the kit wasn't hard enough painting it was turning out to be just as hard. I have used the same colours and the same method on my A-4 Skyhawk and A-7 Corsair and never had this problem before. So out came some very fine wet and dry sand paper and I smoothed out the chips, a gave the model another week for the paint to set before doing the touch up painting. The over all finish was ok but not as good as the first time I painted it, there were still imperfections from were the paint chipped to begin with, I was not happy. I thought of getting out the oven cleaner and stripping the paint completely off and starting again but it was going to more of a hassle to do so.

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The Finish

With the F-14 painted it was time to place the decals on, as I said I had to rearrange the decals to make up the early VF-84. Although I didn't have the name Nimitz to place on the F-14, until I received an E-mail from Rene on my article of my F-4 Phantom. Rene wanted to know if I would trade the Bicentennial decals that I didn't use for my Phantom for some decal he had. Rene had decals in 1/48 for the USS Nimitz bingo my problem was solved thanks to Rene and the trade was made. Now that the decals were applied and a gloss clear applied, it was time to get this Tomcat dirty, after studying photos of Tomcats and how they appeared I came across some very dirty looking Tomcats so that was it. I went to work on getting the F-14 grimy, I used pastel chalk and smeared it all over the fuselage. This help hid some of the imperfections in the paint. Once the pastel wash was applied I gave the F-14 a cote of dull clear. It was now time to add the finishing touches the stairs were constructed and placed on, the weapons were raided from other kits, the AIM-54 Phoenix and AIM-9 Sidewinders were from a Monogram F-14 that I never built and the AIM-7 Sparrow's were extra ones from the Academy F-14. I think that it is wrong that Hasegawa do not supply ordnance for there Jets, because just like the F-14 and F-18 the weapon sets are just as hard to get a hold of here in Australia. I've managed to get the three weapon sets of E-bay but they want last long. The ejection seats and canopy were the last things to be placed on and that was that, after about 100 hours of work it was finally finished, now its time to finish building the F-14B that I started. A note through the construction of this kit I got a hold of the Daco Publication book on uncovering the Grumman F-14A/B/D Tomcat by Danny Coremans, it is a bible for every thing needed in building, detail and finishing a model Tomcat. Rene told me off the book and Craig from Aeroworks got it in for me.

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Thanks

Thanks to Craig at Aeroworks  for the getting in the cockpit and book. For more information on what Craig can supply contact him at  aeroworks@iprimus.com.au 

Thanks also to Rene for the USS Nimitz decals

Thanks to Steve Bramford for his endless work on keeping the ARC going and giving us modellers an out let to show off our work and to obtaining tips and information on upcoming products.

Alan

 

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Photos and text © by Alan Williamson