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. |
Click on
images below to see larger images |
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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.
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.
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.
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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