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1/32 Tamiya F-14A Tomcat


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No problem looks fantastic, what part of Sweden are you from? My grandparents came over from Gothenburg? Got to love Swedes Erick

Good to hear, Erick! :salute: Seeing your name I figured you could have some connection to these parts.

I'm in Stockholm, but my brother and his family lives just outside Gothenburg so we visit there a few times a year. It's a very nice city!

Found the ammo chute in my OH-58D. But, I also found a pair of suitable chutes in the Tamiya PBR, and these look great also. A plus for the Tamiya items is that replacing those parts will probably be easier using HLJ or Rainbow 10 compared to getting a replacement from MRC/Academy.

Either way, I will do some trial-fitting to see which one to go with on my Tomcat.

Cheers,

Anders

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Not so much progress to show but another question on open access panels... :explode:

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.

I'll admit it. I did lose some sleep over that... :P

Joking aside, I still wanted a little more room in the bay so I decided to make the area a little bit deeper by adding some more plastic.

Still looks a little rough here...

f14a052.jpg

Pics of the real thing show this small access panel sometimes being left hanging open. But what's inside? :unsure:

Sometimes there's an RBF tag attached to the inside and sometimes not.

From what I can see this panel is not mentioned in the DACO or any other reference that I have at hand.

f14a053.jpg

Looking in the DACO book (page 8) as well as the Verlinden Lock On (back cover) the panel is still open while the aircraft is kneeling at the catapult, so I figured this one gets closed up by the deck crew just before getting airborne.

Because of this I am guessing that inside is some kind of safety/arming device for the gun, right or wrong?

As usual, any help is most welcome... Reddog (again)? :)

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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That panel is called the gun clearing sector holdback door, it was where you safed the gun. The only thing you would see in there is a silver ring, vertical if the gun is armed and horizantal if the gun is safe. The RBF flag was for the pin that went in the clearing sector to keep if from slipping into the arm position. The clearing sector was attached on the back end of the gun housing. The pin was removed by the arming crew on the deck just before the launch bar was hooked up to the cat, and everyone has to be clear of the aircraft also. The door is hinged at the bottom and was painted red on the inside. The ring was about two inches in diameter and the hole was just big enough to get your finger in. The ring attached to a silver plate, that attached to the gun housing.

If you want to open it, have the door hanging down and the RBF would be wrapped around the door. We use to do that to keep the pin from falling out and going down the intake while the bird taked to the cat or the end of the runway were we armed them. Or you can leave it close and just write on the panel right above the door "2x250 HEI AO2" and what ever name you want to put, that would mean that the gun is loaded, just not set up to fire. This was usually done in two to three inch high letters.

This was stardard practice for all Tomcat squadrons, not matter what coast while the gun was loaded. This told fire fighting crews and everone else what was loaded on the jet, it also let the aircrew know what was going to be coming out the pointy end when they squeezed the trigger.

HTH

Reddog :)

BTW, it was written in black, forgot to add that detail. It was just hand written, not stenciled or anything fancy like that. We use grease pencil so when we downloaded the gun we could wipe it off.

Edit: corrected terminology of the door, it's proper name was the "clearing sector holdback door" .

Edited by Reddog
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Obviously I'm not Reddog and I know squat about Tomcats, but I do have this pic lifted from the 'Net that might help you with your detailing inside the ladder door. Without Reddog I think we'd be pretty pathetic, don't you? Thanks Reddog for all the tips!

F-14ladder.jpg

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No sweat, always glad to help out.

BTW, that is a pic of the boarding ladder area, inside is the hydrualic drive for the gun and at the top is the return chute for the gun also. The bar is the gun support post, in the upper left corner is the gun voltage arm box, the red is the cover for the switch.

Reddog :thumbsup:

Also, that is a dog jet, my hands have been in that panel many times.

Man, the memories.

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Obviously I'm not Reddog and I know squat about Tomcats, but I do have this pic lifted from the 'Net that might help you with your detailing inside the ladder door. Without Reddog I think we'd be pretty pathetic, don't you? Thanks Reddog for all the tips!

Couldn't agree more, Chuck!

Again, THANKS to Reddog for the detailed description. As always, really helpful information! ;)

And thanks for posting the pic, Chuck. I don't think I have seen this area from that angle before in my references.

This is where I ended up tonight. Some detailing done in the ladder bay and opening the clearing sector holdback door is underway.

f14a054.jpg

I just now realized I need to somehow mimic the last section of the gun bulge which continue onto the door from the panel just forward of it. :unsure:

Perhaps wrapping the RBF flag as per Reddogs description can help me here... :whistle:

That panel is called the gun clearing sector holdback door, it was where you safed the gun. The only thing you would see in there is a silver ring, vertical if the gun is armed and horizantal if the gun is safe.

From looking at pics of the exposed gun (e.g. DACO page 154) it looks like the ring attaches almost directly to the body (for lack of better word) of the gun, which in turn seems to be a dark gun metal or even black color, which should explain why there is not much else to see in there (apart from limited view because of the rather small opening of course).

Should hopefully be relatively easy to come up with something to simulate the interior for this area.

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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On page 8 (bottom right picture) in the DACO book shows the ring I am talking about and on page 9 (top picture) shows the writing on the oustide of the panel (some squadrons started using chalk late in the Tomcat's life) I'm talking about. On page 154 (top photo) shows the clearing sector holdback attached to the end part of the gun, it's the silver vertical bat with a ring on the bottom. The middle right picture shows the inside of the clearing sector holdback door (the red part). The gun housing (called the rotor) is gun metal.

As far as trying to reproduce the bulge on the clearing sector door, just wrap the RBF flag around it, you would be 100% accurate.

HTH

Reddog :bandhead2:

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A little more progress has been made. At this point I feel the boarding ladder interior is just about done, and the clearing sector holdback door is completely removed.

The detailing was done with bits of styrene, lead wire, Archer rivets and some leftover Eduard PE.

f14a055.jpg

f14a056.jpg

f14a057.jpg

The camera really leaves no detail out, huh? Hopefully things will look a little more neat after some paint...

The final detail to add is the ammo feed chute (inset). Actually I will need to use two sections but I'm unsure if both will fit in there.

Being made of vinyl I need to find a way to trap the sections in there without resorting to superglue as I'm afraid it won't work on this material.

Now all that's left is to fabricate the interior for the holdback door, and the fan assembly for the cooling vent.

Then it's hopefully time for the cockpit! :)

On page 8 (bottom right picture) in the DACO book shows the ring I am talking about and on page 9 (top picture) shows the writing on the oustide of the panel (some squadrons started using chalk late in the Tomcat's life) I'm talking about. On page 154 (top photo) shows the clearing sector holdback attached to the end part of the gun, it\'s the silver vertical bat with a ring on the bottom. The middle right picture shows the inside of the clearing sector holdback door (the red part). The gun housing (called the rotor) is gun metal.

As far as trying to reproduce the bulge on the clearing sector door, just wrap the RBF flag around it, you would be 100% accurate.

HTH

Reddog ;)

Thanks for the clarification, Reddog. :)

I had another look at page 154 and hopefully I can come up with something resembling the ring and visible part of the rotor.

An RBF flag wrapped around the door it will be! :tumble:

BTW I need to find me a good set of 32nd scale RBF flags. Eduard? Verlinden? :unsure:

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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For the RBF, most of our flag where just red flag with now writing on them. The ones with writing wore out very fast so we just made new ones with red canvas. We would add a stripe of reflective material (silver) to the middle on each side so we could see them at night when we shined a flishlight on them.

Point is, you don't have to have the writing on the RBF flags, nost of the time we didn't use those kinds anyway, the only exception would be for the seats and canopy pins.

HTH

Reddog :worship:

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Perfect! I will make a plain red flag to wrap around the door.

As the pilot and RIO will be in the cockpit I figure no additional flags for that area will be needed as these would have been removed already.

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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Holy crap- you are GOOD with scratch building tiny detail bits! Very nice indeed- and it gives me something to shoot for at some point into the distant future! I've been modeling for about 2 years now, and it's always great to learn new stuff.

Edited by chuck540z3
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Thanks, Chuck! :)

I'd like to think my frequent ventures into armor modelling has helped to somewhat improve my skill, but I feel I am still far from a lot of the guys posting here at ARC. They achieve some amazing results with their detailing and scratchbuilding.

I guess practice and more practice is what's needed... ;)

Cheers,

Anders

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Anders,

Don't sell yourself short, your scratch building looks like the real thing, not many can do that and I am no where close to you.

BTW, I forgot to tell you that both ends of the RBF flag for the gun are attached to the ring.

Again, great build! :salute:

Reddog :)

Edited by Reddog
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Anders,

Don't sell yourself short, your scratch building looks like the real thing, not many can do that and I am no where close to you.

BTW, I forgot to tell you that both ends of the RBF flag for the gun are attached to the ring.

Again, great build! :D

Reddog :D

Thanks for the encouragement, Reddog! :whistle:

I guess it's the contrast from looking at my effort with my own eyes and then as captured and magniified by the camera (glue stains and all...) that makes me wish I had the patience for another try.

I will make sure to attach the flag in both ends. BTW, I'm almost done with the holding sector interior. Pics to follow soon.

Cheers,

Anders

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One thing I've learn in model building, one's worst critic is one's self. :wacko:

Only the builder will know where all the flaws are so when you look at your own work the first thing you see is the flaws, everyone else see's the perfection.

Reddog :cheers:

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One thing I've learn in model building, one's worst critic is one's self. :thumbsup:

Only the builder will know where all the flaws are so when you look at your own work the first thing you see is the flaws, everyone else see's the perfection.

Reddog :thumbsup:

Totally true! :thumbsup:

I found it difficult to make out the proper shape of the ring assemby using the DACO book alone, but I finally found an excellent pic in the Top Shots book on the F-14.

Here are a pair of pics of the progress on the interior, the ring assembly at left and a simple rendition of the rotor at right:

f14a058.jpg

(I noticed some dust has become attached to my creation, those will be removed.)

The ring assembly being trial-fitted:

f14a059.jpg

I feel the actual ring might be a bit undersized but I will make a second check against references.

More work getting it all toghether...

Cheers,

Anders

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Looks good! all you have to do is stick the rotor right up behind it and you got it. Also, paint the back edge of the rotor silver, that was the back plate holding clamp.

Looking great, after this build you will be ready to work on the real thing, it would be same, just super sized.

Reddog :salute:

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Outstanding work Anders :thumbsup:

What a magnificent improvement over the kit parts.

With a lick of paint this will look just like the full sized article. I'm taking notes on the interior of the boarding ladder well. That looks just right to my eyes and I'll be hoping to emulate what you've achieved when I get to that stage.

With you and Chuck doing all of the hard work, my build will be a breeze.... ;)

Thanks for sharing your progress.

;)

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Reddog, Andrew, Guy and RG, many thanks for your comments! :thumbsup:

Looks good! all you have to do is stick the rotor right up behind it and you got it. Also, paint the back edge of the rotor silver, that was the back plate holding clamp.

Will do, Reddog. Although the rotor is really hard to see once installed, I will perhaps do a little more detailing before moving on to painting of both the holding sector interior and the ladder bay.

EDIT: Forgot that I still have the fan for the vent to fabricate, this one will be next so it can be painted at the same time.

With you and Chuck doing all of the hard work, my build will be a breeze.... ;)

Thanks for sharing your progress.

I must say it's a real help having a number of modelers currently working on the Tamiya F-14, providing inspiration as well as useful tips and tricks along the way.

Great stuff! :blink:

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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It's been a slow week modelingwise, but I have made some progress with the interior for the cooling fan.

I managed to flood the entire assembly with Tamiya super thin glue which made the surfaces turn a bit soft and look a little rough.

f14a060.jpg

Still missing is the fan itself.

Considering our earlier discussion on this subject and the input provided by Reddog, am I on the right track here?

I doubt my rendition is 100% true to the original, but close enough (well, that's a relative term) is good for me. :thumbsup:

Cheers,

Anders

Edited by Anders_Isaksson
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Looks great!

The support brackets are just slightly too long but I wouldn't about it, they will be hard to see once you have it installed. All you have to do is install the fan on the other side and bingo, you got it.

Nice job, wish I could build like that. :thumbsup:

Reddog :)

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