Here is my F-14A Tomcat in 1/48 scale. This is the Hasegawa kit which I built sometime early in 2003. I remember having mixed feelings about this kit. Personally I didn't find it very easy to build, and I have heard the same from other modellers. The kit has all sorts of fit problems, especially around the air intakes, the wheel wells and the joint between the cockpit/nose part and the fuselage. ON the other hand; it can be made into a beautiful model, and a l suppose that I have caused some of the problems myself, being very clumsy sometimes in the building process. And I didn't make it much easier
for myself, because I had bought the Aires cockpit set for this kit and I wanted
to use it, of course. I really love the Aires update kits, they are so
beautifully detailed, but sometimes instructions are not very clear on what and
what not to cut away from the plastic kit, so a careful approach is the only way
to get it right. This kit was just to big and impressive for me to make an
assessment in advance where problems would occur, so I decided to go step by
step and see which problems would show up and
First thing was to paint and get the cockpit in. Especially the paint job was a lot of fun. I had found some very nice pictures on the internet and I remember being very impressed with the Aires set, because virtually every dial, switch and button was included. I'm not a fanatic as far as 'the last detail', but I think this time I've painted everything it the color it should have. After fitting the Aires cockpit in the nose compartment it was time to build the fuselage. With some trial and error and especially some cutting around the front-end of the air intakes I got this part right. Joining the nose/cockpit to the fuselage took quite some time. The two parts fit, but that’s all. There is no fluency between the cockpit and the fuselage. After gluing there was kind of a small 'step', so in my case it took a lot of filling and sanding to get it right. And after this I had to do some rescribing of lost panel lines of course.... Anyway, after that had been taken care of the rest of the kit came straight out of the box and I didn't encounter a lot of problems anymore.
When all was fine in my eyes I primed the kit with Humbrol enamel. I'm not quite sure whether that's always necessary, but I like to do it because it makes it more easy to see if there are blemishes or other irregularities left; this is the time to fix them. Besides, the primer is a good foundation for the paint job. Preshading of the panel lines was next, with Xtracolor gloss black. After that, the gloss white and grey were misted on. Next came the decaling job. And 'job' it was, because I think over 350 decals went on the model. I had bought Aeromasters decal set 148-023, which takes care of all the general stencilling, and Eagle Strike 48020, F14 Tomcats part 1. From this sheet I had chosen the F14 from the USS John F. Kennedy, basically because I liked the yellow tail fin a lot. And then of course all the decals for the weapon systems, which are the ones from the Hasegawa kit. It took quite a long time to put it all on.
Well, after that I cleaned up the model and gave it a coat of matt varnish. I still like this base the best for weathering. I let it all dry for a couple of nights and then the usual washes of very diluted brown and black oil paints went on. Some dry brushing here and there ( I use it mainly for discolorations, not the usual highlighting), chipping and detail painting. This model was quite an experience. I have never built a plane this big (a bit intimidating) and it was definitely not a shake and bake kit, as they call it. I cannot say with accuracy how much time it took me to build it, but looking back it should be around 60 hours. I still am very pleased with the result, and sometimes I like to sit back and have a look at it. Hope you like the pictures.
Photos and text © 2005 by Jeroen Veen July 05, 2005 |
