Drew T.

Thanks Rich! I'm currently working on Hasegawa's A-7D with all the Reskit goodies. I'm posting on Britmodeller now since that site seems to get more traffic. Here's a link: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235159320-hasegawa-148-a-7d-south-carolina-air-national-guard/

Thanks so much Alexander!

I started with Gunze Super Metallic 2 Super Titanium 2 and darkened it by overspraying with Gunze GX109 Clear Brown. I then added a slight bluish tint with Aclad Transparent Blue. For both the brown and blue, I tried to vary the effect by varying the amount of brown and blue tint on each exhaust pedal to match reference photos, although it's hard to see the effect in my photos. Hope this helps!

Thanks Andrew D. and Niels!

Thanks Mr. Happy!

Thanks so much everyone!

Thanks Steve! Hi Bob, I’m no Tomcat expert, but I would assume the pylons would be the same color as the underside. At least it looks that way to me from the photos I could find. I never noticed that the tab on the horizontal stabs is different from one side vs the other. I wonder if this is just due to the shape of the molds? In photos of the real thing, it looks like the tab is the same on the top and bottom sides. Thanks BastianD! This one is DONE! Here’s the link to the final result: Drew

Hi everyone, here’s my latest completion, Tamiya’s excellent F-14A. You can read about the build at the link below: Even with all the aftermarket goodies I added, it all went together nicely. I probably spent more time with the weathering than any other modern aircraft I’ve built, but I’m satisfied with the result. On to the pictures, hope you enjoy!

Thanks Mr. Happy and GW! I’m on the home stretch now. I have completed the touch ups, using my reference photos as guidance. The corrosion control touch ups seems to vary from plane to plane and era to era, so I tried to stick to Desert Storm era photos, VF-32 specifically. However, the touch ups looked to stark to me against the highly weathered finish, so I blended them in slightly with additional oil paint weathering. Also, I decided I wasn’t happy with the Reskit exhausts since the closed nozzle was slightly undersized and resulted in a step when attached to t

Thanks Mr. Happy! I’m too lazy to write a whole book on this project. Plus, Kris Sieber did a really nice book on his Tomcat and did much more scratchbuilding than I have. I followed many of the techniques he used in this build. I have the bottom of the model mostly weathered now. Between the layers of dirt streaking with the oil paint, I applied a coat of clear flat to protect the previous layers of weathering. I also went ahead and sprayed some touch up with a roughly 60:40 mix of Mr. Color C308 and C338. I found a couple of photos of this exact plane during Desert Storm,

Thanks Bob! I used Mr. Color paints, with many of the colors custom mixed. They brown on the outer seat cushions is C530. The yellow on the pull handles is C329. For the green on the inner seat cushions as well as the grays on the top section of the head rest, I custom mixed the colors. The gray on the top of the head rest and the seat belts have a tiny bit of green in them to match reference photos. Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact colors I mixed together and I didn't measure the ratios, I just played with the mixture until I got something that looked right to my eye. I tried

Thanks Steve and Rich!

Thanks Rich! Over the past 2-3 weeks, I’ve been busy weathering this thing. This is probably the most involved weathering process I’ve done on a model, but seeing how grubby modern US Naval aircraft get, I wanted to do this one right. The first step was to give everything a coat of Mr Color GX114 super smooth clear to give the oil paint weathering a “sticky” surface to adhere to. I then worked in small sections by dabbing on some Abteilung Starship Filth and working it in with naphtha thinner. Using reference photos as a guide, I went heavier with the oil paint in high wear are

Thanks Ski! Yes, I used a used dryer sheet. I did also try a fresh one. I didn't have problems with residue, but a fresh one gives a more regular pattern that didn't look right to me. A used one gives a more natural pattern. The other bonus to using a dryer sheet is that it more easily confoms to curved surfaces better than more rigid aftermarket products. Thanks Steve! Thanks Andrés!

Thanks Thadeus! It’s been a while, but I now have everything pained. To build an initial patina on the gray camo, I started with a base coat of black Mr. Surfacer 1500 and applied a speckled coat of white by spraying through a dryer sheet. I then sprayed a highly thinned coat of Mr. Color C308 light ghost gray on the underside and C307 dark ghost gray on the top. To add more texture, I sprayed a very highly diluted black as well as white paint in an irregular pattern. Another very light coat of the light and dark ghost gray blended everything in.

Thanks for the nice words everyone! I’ve made a few more areas to detail before moving on to painting. F-14s use a string in front of the windscreen to measure the amount of sideslip when landing. I replicated this with very thin stretched sprue. Note that I roughly tape over the cockpit to keep debris out and eliminate risk of damage during construction. I am using Quickboot’s TCS and wanted to replicate the mirrored appearance in the scope. I first painted the front section behind the lens black. I then used my Anyz chrome decal sheet and punched out a circle a

Thanks Greg! After I found a photo of that exact plane with that loadout, I had to replicate it!

Thanks for the kind words everyone! I’ve made some more progress on this. With the cockpit complete, I moved on to construction of the air intakes. Tamiya has a decent amount of detail in this area, but I’m following the build in Kris Sieber’s excellent book where he documents his build of this kit. I basically copied what he did to improve this area. I also used Reskit’s single-piece intakes, which eliminates the need to remove the longitudinal seam from the two halves in the Tamiya kit. I painted the intake parts with Mr. Color C69 off-white. I like to u

HI Everyone, I’ve got the cockpit installed and finally have the nose section finished. Here’s the overall result. However, before installing the cockpit, I took the opportunity to add some detail in the bay where the boarding ladder is stored since I’m going to have the ladder extended. I’m using the 3D printed ladder and steps from Model On Details. The steps make for a tight fit with the Eduard cockpit since the steps are located right against the cockpit sidewalls, but with some careful griding, I was able to get everything to fit. Af

Interesting! I've seen an interview of Lt. Slade's POW experience at the hands of the Iraqis and it sounds like he had a pretty horrible experience. I didn't realize plane 212 was the one he and Lt. Jones went down in. Cool! I knew I would screw up and confuse his call sign with his real name. He's got a great collection of Tomcat photos posted on his Facebook page. VF-32 seems to be the most photographed Tomcat squadron of DS, and that has to be due to Dave Parsons' photo collection.

Thanks Aaron! I'll suck it up make the Reskit ones work, it's easier than trying to sell them for what I paid for them. Hi GW, that's interesting. What I have read is that at the time, they would fly with the ECA (expanded chaff adapter) on the left front Phoenix rail and the AN/ALQ-167 jammer on the right front Phoenix rail like this image shows of Gypsy 110. https://dstorm.eu/pictures/nose-arts/f-14/161140_1.jpg I was trying to avoid this loadout as I can't find any good photos of the ECA or the rack used to attached the jammer pod to the Pho

Thanks for the nice words everyone! I have not had this issue with the Eduard cockpit. However, I took great pains to make sure I had it located correctly. I think if they had put a little more effort into the design of the set to interface with the Tamiya kit, it would have been much easier to use. Yeah, I'm leaning towards this scheme. The low-viz jets got really grubby during the high tempo of operations during Desert Storm, so this gives me lots of opportunity for weathering. Unfortunately, I won't have any use for the parts I bought from the late F

Thanks Steve and Aaron! Dang, I just received the Reskit missiles in the mail yesterday and the are still multi-piece. If I had known the Flight Line version was single piece, I would have gone for that one. At least the Reskit ones do match the Tamiya missiles in length.

Hi Everyone, My new build is Tamiya’s excellent 1/48 F-14A, but to make things interesting, I’m adding a metric crap ton of aftermarket goodies. Below is everything I have so far. I have both the Reskit and Katran exhausts, but I haven’t decided which one I’m going with yet. Also below are the Eduard Phoenix missiles, but I found out after I took this photo that these are too short, so I purchased Reskit’s version. I messed up buying the original release of the F-14A since I’m doing a Desert Storm build, as most of the Tomcats by this time had the ECM

Thanks!