F-14B, VF-74 Be-Devilers Adversary 1/48

[JohnS]

Hi again, everyone!

Here’s a little update on my Tomcat’s landing gear doors. Going into this portion on the build, I thought it would be straightforward. But in my quest for realism, I ran into a few minor issues that resulted in a little extra work.

I purchased the Aires gear bay set that included the gear bay doors. Thinking I would use the Aires doors (they’re very detailed), I started to dry fit the main gear doors. Much to my surprise, I found that two of the Aires doors had two issues, 1) they were too short for the fuselage bay openings, and 2) the mounting tabs were misaligned with the mounting slots on the fuselage.

The Hasegawa kit parts fit great.

So, what to do? I could either modify the Aires parts, or I could use the kit parts. Using the kit parts raised another issue. The inside of the kit parts lack the structural detail included on the Aires parts and on the actual aircraft.

I flipped a coin and decided to use the kit parts, and add the structural detail. First by carving out openings and then adding Evergreen plastic for the structural framework. I decided to use the remaining four Aires main gear doors, as they have great detail and fit perfectly.

Next it was on to the nose gear doors. The resin Aires doors fit great, but one had been damaged in the box. The Aires large nose gear doors were also warped. I decided to use the kit parts. The kit doors are a little bulky, but they also fit very well.

I opened up the molded grills on the large kit doors and inserted the PE grills included in the Aires set. I also filled a hole in the starboard door, as this was not present on the F-14B.

Inside the large port nose gear door, I added a little more detail and an antenna box. I also extended the edges of the small nose gear doors with Evergreen plastic to agree with the actual aircraft.

Well, that's it for now.

Next, it’s onto the landing gear.

Thanks for looking.

[Manuel J. Armas S.]

Wow... that is a really amazing JOB

[JohnS]

Wow... that is a really amazing JOB :woot.gif:/>/>

Thanks Manuel. Your Jolly Rogers 1/32 Trumpeter Tomcat is coming along nicely, as well. :thumbsup:/>

Edited April 2, 2013 by JohnS

[JesniF-16]

Nice details John! Amazing how Aires could miscalculate the door hinge location!!! It wouldn't be so bad, but the resin costs almost as much as the entire kit :deadhorse1:/> Thanks for breaking this all down, I am taking notes for my next Hasegawa Cat... Whenever I get to it! Did the Aires doors come with the wheel bay set?

/Jesse

[JohnS]

Thanks Jesse. Are you having modeller's withdrawal yet?

... Did the Aires doors come with the wheel bay set? ...

Yes, the doors were included with the Aires wheel bay set.

[JohnS]

I started to work on the landing gear and decided to purchase a set of resin weighed wheels. I ordered the Wheelliant set from Sprue Brothers. As always, it was great service from Sprue Brothers - ordered late last week and received today (Tuesday).

I've had a number of surprises during this build, some good and some not so good. This wheel set was a good surprise. Most photos of this set show the parts made from grey resin. My set came with black tires and cream coloured wheels.

This will make painting & detailing the wheel/tire combo very easy.

Edited April 9, 2013 by JohnS

[A-10 LOADER]

AMAZING WORK John, your attention to detail is incredible. I'm really enjoying this build. I have a question, how many screw holes are there around the carbon-fiber nozzle shrouds, right at the end where it meets the nozzle ? I am currently modifying a 1/18th F-14A to a B model and would like to add this detail to my jet.

Steve

[JohnS]

Thanks Steve.

... how many screw holes are there around the carbon-fiber nozzle shrouds, right at the end where it meets the nozzle ? ...

My Wolfpack resin shrouds have 36 holes. It looks like this matches the actual aircraft shrouds. The holes are equally spaced so that there are 3 holes adjacent to each exhaust feather. (12 feathers x 3 holes/feather = 36 holes total).

Here's a photo of the actual shroud showing the screw/hole spacing;

[A-10 LOADER]

Thank you very much John.

Steve

[Parabat]

This is definitely the craziest, coolest and incredible builds of a Tomcat I have ever seen. The level of detail is pretty much unparalleled with anything else. Just goes to show what a bit of patience and planning can do, wish I had your skills! Keep up the good work!

[JohnS]

This is definitely the craziest, coolest and incredible builds of a Tomcat I have ever seen. The level of detail is pretty much unparalleled with anything else. Just goes to show what a bit of patience and planning can do, wish I had your skills! Keep up the good work! :salute:/>

Thanks Parabat. It's comments like yours that keep me motivated.

[Parabat]

You keep building and I'll keep them coming! Inspiring stuff, it really is. If I can take one thing away from this, it is this; the little things all add up into big things, which make all the difference. ;)

[JohnS]

I'm taking another sabbatical from modelling for a couple of months, as the car show season is about to start. So, this will be my last update for a while.

I've just about finished the nose gear strut. I still have to give it a coat of Future & add some weathering.

Here's a series of pic's of the strut showing it in its current state;

And, pic's showing my mod's to the kit parts;

Once I get back to this build, I'll finish off the nose and main landing gear. Then, it'll be time to paint this 'cat and complete final assembly - I can't wait.

Stay tuned!

Edited April 18, 2013 by JohnS

[A-10 LOADER]

Great details John. Enjoy your summer and looking forward to you getting started again.

Steve

[JohnS]

I've been on the local car show circuit during my summer sabbatical from modelling. Last weekend, I attended a show at the Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario, and got the opportunity to take some photos of my car & some of the planes. It was great to get up close & personal with the museum's aircraft.

Here's a couple of pic's from the show;

And, a few photos of some of the other aircraft on display;

John

[Andrew Maverick Taylor]

In the third picture from the bottom with the T-28 Trojan, is that a DC-10, KC-10 or MD-11? Puts the size of the Trojan into perspective.

[The_Animal]

WOW...looks like another place I gotta visit (Hamilton) Too many things to put on my bucket list.

Anyways. Your VF-74 Tom looks very nice. Great work on those ejection seats. By the way, were those cushions cloth bandaids? Awesome job.

[JohnS]

In the third picture from the bottom with the T-28 Trojan, is that a DC-10, KC-10 or MD-11? Puts the size of the Trojan into perspective.

That's a Kelowna Flightcraft DC-10.

WOW...looks like another place I gotta visit (Hamilton) Too many things to put on my bucket list.

Anyways. Your VF-74 Tom looks very nice. Great work on those ejection seats. By the way, were those cushions cloth bandaids? Awesome job.

Thank you!

Those bandaids are the plastic/latex. I had to carefully prime them so the final paint would stick. I tried the cloth ones, but found they were too thick for this scale.

[JohnS]

Hi everyone! Unfortunately, our warm weather seasons are over for another year. The good news for me is that the cooler weather means getting back into modeling. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish this kitty.

I’m starting slow, weathering and detailing the nose landing gear strut I made last Spring. Looking at the strut, I decided to add a little more detail.

First the landing light. I made a frame from plastic tube and added 4 simulated screws to the frame. It’s not the shape of the actual light, but it gave me enough material to add the 4 screws to the face of the light.

Second, I added screw detail to the “approach indexer” box by making & applying a decal showing the 3 (red/yellow/green) lights & mounting screws.

Next, I painted various parts of the strut assembly to try to match the real thing.

Finally, I dirtied up the strut assembly using black & brown water based weathering washes, and oil/grease from the Tamiya weathering kit.

Here’s a few pic’s;

Here’s the completed nose gear strut. It looks a lot dirtier in the photos than to the naked eye (I hate close up photos! :bandhead2:/> ).

And, a couple of photos of the strut dry fitted to the nose gear bay;

Next up, I’ll be working on the main landing gear struts and all the landing gear wheels.

Thanks for looking. :cheers:/>

[JMan]

WOW, that is some phenomenal work. I am very much so looking forward to seeing this great and IMHO, the best aircraft ever designed and flown. Thanks for showing, cant wait to see more!!!!

[JesniF-16]

I say the nose strut weathering looks fantastic John as does the chrome on the oleo strut :thumbsup:/> Welcome back, it's gonna be a loooooooong winter! I can smell the Adversary paint flying already, good luck!

/Jesse

[JohnS]

WOW, that is some phenomenal work. I am very much so looking forward to seeing this great and IMHO, the best aircraft ever designed and flown. Thanks for showing, cant wait to see more!!!!

Thanks for the feedback JMan. Needless to say, the F-14 is one of favourites too.

I say the nose strut weathering looks fantastic John as does the chrome on the oleo strut :thumbsup:/>/>/> Welcome back, it's gonna be a loooooooong winter! I can smell the Adversary paint flying already, good luck!

/Jesse

Hi Jesse. Thanks for your comments. There's not much more (in quantity) to do - the main gear, wheels, weapons, final paint & decals. But, based on past experience, it'll probably take most of the winter to finish her. I'm looking forward to seeing more on your F-15, as well.

[JohnS]

Here’s an update on my progress assembling the main landing gear struts. Like pretty much everything else on the build, assembly & fit-up of the parts left a little bit to be desired.

But, first some good news. The kit struts have some good detail including a couple of hydraulic manifolds (I think that’s what they’re called) on each strut. I used a small drill bit to remove the plastic material between the piping, to make them a little more realistic, as shown in the following pic;

Now for the fit-up issues. After gluing the strut halves together and spending a lot of time filing and sanding to remove flash & adjust the line-up of the parts, I test fit the diagonal linkage arms to the struts and dry fit them to the fuselage. I’ve used the Aires resin wheel bays for this build. When I dry fitted the struts, I found the diagonal linkages were too long to fit in the proper location in the Aires wheel bays.

When I adjusted the linkage to the proper location, it moved the strut out of alignment.

To fix this problem, I removed a .1” piece out of each linkage.

I taped the pieces together and did another dry test fit – Perfect!

After gluing the linkage pieces together, I cut & glued some pieces of thin plastic sheet to each linkage to hide some pretty deep mold injection marks.

Finally, the finished linkages were glued to the struts & dry fitted.

Not a lot of progress to show for it, but man it was a lot work. :wacko:

Next update - the remaining parts (shocks & springs) will be assembled to the struts and I’ll give them a coat of white paint. Once the paint dries, I add some hydraulic piping for more realism.

Thanks for looking.

[gb_madcat_sl]

Nice work so far.

I don't think you should "correct" the MLG until it is perpendicular to the fuselage. Take a look at the photo below. Also, there is a brace that should fit into the small hole on the fuselage.

http://anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-gearmain-12.htm

Mark

[mikestomcat]

Nice work Mate, you've given me a few tips for my F-14 builds.