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1/32 Tamiya F-14A Tomcat


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I take it we are talking about the grill just above the slime lights, right?

There is a cooling fan in there for the avionics bay, it is round in shape

with three support brackets shaped in a "Y". Think of a stove top exhuasst fan

and you got it.

If you have the DACO book look on pg 8 for a good view of it.

HTH

Reddog :lol:

Edited by Reddog
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I take it we are talking about the grill just above the slime lights, right?

That's the one we're discussing.

Thanks for the info, Reddog. very much appreciated! :)

Yes, I used page 8 in the DACO book (the best source for this area I could find among my references) when building the grille but the interior was a bit too dark to make out.

With your info I now know what to look for, and it looks to me like the fan is almost perpendicular to the grille?

Will have to scratch something suitable.

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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Hi Anders,

As expected you did a very nice job- much better than the stock kit. I'm at the same stage of opening up the vents on either side of the turtle back in your last pic and I have an idea how to do it fairly easily. Rather than just cut little slits between the grills, I looked at the back and it appears there's extra plastic placed behind the grills, so why not just sand it off a bit? I'm going to use some 600 grit sandpaper back there and gradually thin the plastic, so that if the grill bits don't naturally expose themselves, it will be a lot easier to cut between them anyway?

I'm busy this week, so I won't get a chance until this weekend to give it a whirl. Maybe you could try it first and, if you screw up, I'll do something completely different! Deal? :thumbsup:

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Very neat work Anders :woot.gif: That looks much better now that you can see daylight through the gills.

I take it we are talking about the grill just above the slime lights, right?

There is a cooling fan in there for the avionics bay, it is round in shape

with three support brackets shaped in a "Y". Think of a stove top exhuast fan

and you got it.

If you have the DACO book look on pg 8 for a good view of it.

HTH

Reddog :woot.gif:

Hmmm,....anyone know where I can get a 1/32nd scale DeLorean flux capacitor.....? :lol:

I've had a look at the pic. in question but I can't quite make out how the fan sits. Does it back up against the back of the grille Reddog?

Hi Anders,

I'm going to use some 600 grit sandpaper back there and gradually thin the plastic, so that if the grill bits don't naturally expose themselves, it will be a lot easier to cut between them anyway?

Before you do that Chuck, don't forget that Tamiya molded the vanes at 90degrees to the centreline but the actual vanes are set more like 70degrees and angled backwards......(I think the Hasegawa 1/48th version depicts them more accurately)

Just trying to save you some work buddy..... :pray:

Cheers,

:salute:

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Before you do that Chuck, don't forget that Tamiya molded the vanes at 90degrees to the centreline but the actual vanes are set more like 70degrees and angled backwards......(I think the Hasegawa 1/48th version depicts them more accurately)

Just trying to save you some work buddy..... ^_^

Cheers,

:thumbsup:

Thanks Man, I didn't know that, but unlike you and Anders here, there's no way I can build some new grill vanes, so I'll have to do with whatever the Tamiya kit gives me. We are talking about the 2 grills on the top of the fuselage rather than the port side nose, right?

Anyway, my forte is painting and weathering, so rather than sweating some of the tiny details, I'll concentrate on what little I'm good at. :worship:

Edited by chuck540z3
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Hi Anders,

As expected you did a very nice job- much better than the stock kit. I'm at the same stage of opening up the vents on either side of the turtle back in your last pic and I have an idea how to do it fairly easily. Rather than just cut little slits between the grills, I looked at the back and it appears there's extra plastic placed behind the grills, so why not just sand it off a bit? I'm going to use some 600 grit sandpaper back there and gradually thin the plastic, so that if the grill bits don't naturally expose themselves, it will be a lot easier to cut between them anyway?

Hello Chuck and thanks for your support along the way!

About those vents on each side, don't know what could be the best way. What I have thought about is to build a framework from styrene strips which I then cut in half, creating two identical frames which the vanes then can be added. Sounds complicated? It probably is... I'll have to do some more thinking about this area.

Your suggestion of grinding out the plastic from underneath sounds like a faster way, but I'm worried that I would not be able to control the grinding and simply destroy the kit grilles.

I'm busy this week, so I won't get a chance until this weekend to give it a whirl. Maybe you could try it first and, if you screw up, I'll do something completely different! Deal? ;)

Hmm, let me think about that one... ok? :)

Very neat work Anders :worship: That looks much better now that you can see daylight through the gills.

Thanks Guy, glad you like it so far! After all you showed the way on how to go about this operation.

I've had a look at the pic. in question but I can't quite make out how the fan sits. Does it back up against the back of the grille Reddog?

That's a good question. I'm still at a loss as how to design the area behind the vent, but perhaps I can close up the fuselage and add this detail later, prior to installing the nose cone. Or I can just install a backing plate, paint it black and forget about the whole thing... :cheers:

Trying to get the forward fuselage prepared for assembly I moved on to the boarding ladder.

Comparing the hatch and interior of the kit to photos of the real thing I believe the size of the opening is slightly off (too tall and a bit narrow), but I won't do anything to fix that.

A quick trial-fit of the Wolfpack ladder set revealed that some detail could still be added to the interior of the open hatch.

To be able to detail the sidewalls I figured that the resin piece should be installed from the inside rather than the outside.

Not the best of pics but here is what I have done so far.

The Wolfpack resin piece as it comes in the set:

f14a043.jpg

To be able to insert this piece from the inside I cut away the back wall provided by Tamiya.

The Wolfpack piece got a new wall from styrene, letting me push it in position later.

f14a044.jpg

f14a045.jpg

Again, the interior as provided by Wolfpack:

f14a046.jpg

The same piece shown before removing a few details that were molded solid and after replacing those details.

(That white rod at the bottom probably need replacing as I don't think it should run all the way back.)

f14a047.jpg

The prominent bar running across was fashioned from styrene rod.

As pics of the real thing (in the DACO book) showed a slight taper to the bar I put the rod in my Dremel and sanded away.

This produced a suitable taper, although it doesn't show up too well in the pic.

f14a048.jpg

The complete interior so far.

f14a049.jpg

Next step is to add detail to the sidewalls. More to come...

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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Your suggestion of grinding out the plastic from underneath sounds like a faster way, but I'm worried that I would not be able to control the grinding and simply destroy the kit grilles.

Cheers,

Anders

If I have time I'll try to give it a whirl tonight anyway. I love a challenge!

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To replicate the fan here's an easy way, do a backing plate with a circle in the middle, install a "fan" and the three brackets in the shape of a "Y". The fan sits perpendicular to the grille about two inches inside. The area was painted the same as the outside and the fan blades were light grey. To make the fan paint a piece of scrap light grey and do black line in the shape of a bicycle spokes pattern then glue it so the center is in the hole in the middle of the backing plate, bingo, instant fan.

You can also just put a backing plate there with a ligh grey circle painted in the middle and the Y bracket done with a black pen.

HTH

Reddog :deadhorse1:

BTW, your boarding ladder area looks great!

And if you want, you can add one more bar at the bottom and paint it burn amber, it was the drive shaft for the gun and ammo drum.

Edited by Reddog
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If I have time I'll try to give it a whirl tonight anyway. I love a challenge!

I say go for it! :) I had another look at the area and like you say there is a fair bit of plastic on the underside that could be removed. I am tempted to try doing the same but as I said I'm a bit worried about what will happen if I slip with the grinder. Speaking of which, I need to get me some smaller sized grinding bits! Will have a look at the LHS, hopefully today.

BTW, your boarding ladder area looks great!

Thanks, Reddog. ;) I will add that bar to the bottom of the interior.

Many thanks for the detailed descripion of the fan assembly - very helpful!

I will give it a go ASAP to see how the fan turns out.

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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I say go for it! :thumbsup: I had another look at the area and like you say there is a fair bit of plastic on the underside that could be removed. I am tempted to try doing the same but as I said I'm a bit worried about what will happen if I slip with the grinder. Speaking of which, I need to get me some smaller sized grinding bits! Will have a look at the LHS, hopefully today.

Cheers,

Anders

I was very busy last night and I'm traveling today, so I only had a chance to get it started. Here's what I found:

You can sand the plastic backing off until it's flush with the rest of the fuselage and it still isn't deep enough to erode into the vent vanes. This is good, because I'm using a knife to cut the vents open and not a grinder, so I need all that plastic removed if I have a chance. I was able to open 2 slits last night with no real problems, other than it's long picky work. You can open up the vents a LOT because the real deal, like the pic below from "Christine", shows that there's lots of air between the vent vanes.

As geedubelyer noted above, the kit vents are not accurate because they're positioned at 90 degrees rather than ~ 70 degrees, so you may want to replace them completely. I won't, mostly because I'm no good at scratch building and I'll probably just make a mess. Based upon what you achieved with your nose vent, I'd give it a whirl....

SideVent.jpg

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Very interesting info, thanks Chuck! :thumbsup:

Sounds like grinding could be the way to go after all?

BUT, I noticed in the excellent pic you posted that those vanes seem to run almost perpandicular to the surrounding surface, or else the angle in the pic could be decieving.

From the pic it looks like the angle of those vanes differs from the angle represented by Tamiya.

Perhaps the vanes are positionable. (Reddog?)

I thought not, and from your pic the vanes sure look like they're firmly bolted to their frame at a specific angle so could they really be tilted?

If those vanes typically are set at that angle I believe replacing them with strip styrene should be a little easier than expected, not having to worry about even spacing from all angles... I think. :unsure:

Cheers,

Anders

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To replicate the fan here's an easy way, do a backing plate with a circle in the middle, install a "fan" and the three brackets in the shape of a "Y". The fan sits perpendicular to the grille about two inches inside. The area was painted the same as the outside and the fan blades were light grey. To make the fan paint a piece of scrap light grey and do black line in the shape of a bicycle spokes pattern then glue it so the center is in the hole in the middle of the backing plate, bingo, instant fan.

You can also just put a backing plate there with a ligh grey circle painted in the middle and the Y bracket done with a black pen.

HTH

Reddog :thumbsup:

About the cooling fan, before cutting plastic I tried to make a simple sketch (don't laugh) using PowerPoint.

I'm still a bit unsure about where the "Y" shaped bracket should go.

Is this somewhere close to how it should look?

fanassembly1.jpg

Thanks again for any help on this!

Cheers,

Anders

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Just to make sure we are still talking about the same grill area, the one above the slime lights and NOT the gun cooling vents, right. I can't view some of the photo while at work (I'm taking a break right now) but will follow up tonight when I get home.

The drawing you did is not quite there, the circle would be in the middle of the grill area and the Y would be in the middle of the fan, the point where the three lines of the Y coverge, that is where the center of the fan would be, that is the mounting point for the fan. The mounting bracket (the Y shape) is flat and attaches to the sides of the grill recess and not to the fuselage skin. Looking at it from the outside you would see a flat Y bracket with the fan in the middle of it, the ends of the Y where attached to the side walls of the recess. Hope I explained that right and didn't confuse the heck out of you.

HTH

Reddog :thumbsup:

BTW, the vanes are fixed, not positionable.

Edited by Reddog
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This is turning into a great reference thread Anders :thumbsup:

The work on the ladder opening looks excellent. I'm taking copious notes ;)

That's a brilliant photo of the grille Chuck. It would appear that each of the vanes has a slight curve to it . It's also nice to be able to see down into the second level where the radiator/filter? sits. Thanks for sharing that one. :unsure:

Reddog, I'm guessing that the fan assembly could resemble an electric fan on a car radiator where the blades sit within a circle which in turn is supported by the "Y" shaped arms?

:cheers:

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Reddog, I'm guessing that the fan assembly could resemble an electric fan on a car radiator where the blades sit within a circle which in turn is supported by the "Y" shaped arms?

;)

Yep, that about sums it up.

Reddog :cheers:

Edited by Reddog
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I was very busy last night and I'm traveling today, so I only had a chance to get it started. Here's what I found:

You can sand the plastic backing off until it's flush with the rest of the fuselage and it still isn't deep enough to erode into the vent vanes. This is good, because I'm using a knife to cut the vents open and not a grinder, so I need all that plastic removed if I have a chance. I was able to open 2 slits last night with no real problems, other than it's long picky work. You can open up the vents a LOT because the real deal, like the pic below from "Christine", shows that there's lots of air between the vent vanes.

As geedubelyer noted above, the kit vents are not accurate because they're positioned at 90 degrees rather than ~ 70 degrees, so you may want to replace them completely. I won't, mostly because I'm no good at scratch building and I'll probably just make a mess. Based upon what you achieved with your nose vent, I'd give it a whirl....

SideVent.jpg

Okay, this photo is of the port heat exchanger exhaust. The wire mesh sat about ten inches inside the grill and there was a three inch pipe running down the length on the inboard side. The vanes were not moveable. The color inside would be a dark grey, gunship grey is extremly close if not a perfect match. The grill itself was polished steel.

HTH

Reddog :thumbsup:

Edited by Reddog
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Okay, this photo is of the port heat exchanger exhaust. The wire mesh sat about ten inches inside the grill and there was a three inch pipe running down the length on the inboard side. The vanes were not moveable. The color inside would be a dark grey, gunship grey is extremly close if not a perfect match. The grill itself was polished steel.

HTH

Reddog :thumbsup:

Thanks for that, because it looks like the pic I posted has the grill painted, yet many others I've seen look like bare metal. I'm going to open up my grills (a lot and not worry about the angle) and paint them Alclad steel.

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Have had a hard time these last few days to get to the forum and post a reply, but I just want to say thanks to Reddog, Chuck and Guy for providing all this info, great stuff! :thumbsup:

Unfortunately time for modelling looks scarce for the upcoming weekend but I will try to get started on the fan assembly and continue detailing the boarding ladder area - if time permits.

Sure is tempting to start on those grilles on each side of the spine, but first things first. :thumbsup:

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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Have had a hard time these last few days to get to the forum and post a reply, but I just want to say thanks to Reddog, Chuck and Guy for providing all this info, great stuff! :whistle:

Unfortunately time for modelling looks scarce for the upcoming weekend but I will try to get started on the fan assembly and continue detailing the boarding ladder area - if time permits.

Sure is tempting to start on those grilles on each side of the spine, but first things first. :)

Cheers,

Anders

No problem, if you have any question feel free to PM me instead of waiting for me to look in here. I worked on Tomcats for over 14 years as a ordnanceman and in QA (Quality Assurance), I've dealt with just about every part on the Tomcat at one time or another.

Reddog :salute:

Edited by Reddog
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Sounds like grinding could be the way to go after all?

Cheers,

Anders

If you want to see how it turned out, check out my build. It's not up to your standards, but it's good enough for me. I'd post the pics here, but that might confuse your thread.

Edited by chuck540z3
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No problem, if you have any question feel free to PM me instead of waiting for me to look in here. I worked on Tomcats for over 14 years as a ordnanceman and in QA (Quality Assurance), I've dealt with just about every part on the Tomcat at one time or another.

Reddog ;)

Thanks again, Reddog! :unsure: I will most certainly ask again as soon as the need arises (and it definately will!).

The knowledge from people like yourself that has actually worked on the Tomcat is simply worth gold for someone like me.

Somehow watching Top Gun about 100 times just doesn't come close... ;)

If you want to see how it turned out, check out my build. It's not up to your standards, but it's good enough for me. I'd post the pics here, but that might confuse your thread.

Great, Chuck! I will head over to your thread right away.

Cheers,

Anders

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Well, not much going on at the workbench today but I spent a little time on the ladder interior.

To make room for the ammo feed chutes I decided to open up the bay a little further to let it extend upwards.

f14a050.jpg

Compared to pics in the DACO book I feel the bay is not deep enough, and as a result some compromises will have to be done to the detail inside, but I won't loose sleep over this problem.

Still more work to do...

Also, currently considering wether to open up this hatch or leave it closed.

f14a051.jpg

Pics show this one being either closed or open, so I guess it's up to me to decide.

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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That panel is the canopy handle panel and we normally kept it close so it would not beat itself to pieces in the breeze. The canopy handle and gun drive gear box is in that panel if you want to open it.

Reddog :worship:

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That panel is the canopy handle panel and we normally kept it close so it would not beat itself to pieces in the breeze. The canopy handle and gun drive gear box is in that panel if you want to open it.

Reddog <_<

Thanks for the info, Reddog! Sounds perfectly reasonable to normally keep the hatch closed.

Having that hatch open would surely add some interest to the area but I still haven't found any good pics showing what the canopy handle and gearbox actually look like, plus it will save me some time and effort not having to scratchbuild the lower interior.

So, I will probably keep the hatch closed.

If you can find some flexible ammo chutes, I used ones from the MRC OH-58D for my Iranian build it dresses up the bay and hids alot as well looks awesome bro Erick

I knew I had seen one of those ammo chutes somewhere but hadn't begun to look for it.

I will raid my OH-58D as soon as I find the kit, I know it's around here... somewhere. :thumbsup:

Great tip, Erick. Thanks!

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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