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


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I thought I'd do a quick & dirty comparison of the front engine faces provided by the model brands for the F110 engines used in the F-14B. Here's a photo of what I found.

F110FrontFaceComparison.jpg

I did a very quick search but couldn't find a part that exactly matched the actual front face of the engine. The rear face is another story. There appears to be a number of options that look like the rear of the actual engine.

I'd be interested in hearing your comments about the accuracy of the various brands and if there is a part out there in 1:48 scale that is similar to the actual front face of the engine.

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The Revell and Academy parts are both the same. My concern was never with the number of fan blades, but with the bulge at front. The TF-30 had a larger, rounder bulge, while the GE motor has a smaller, pointier bulge. Essentially, all of the Hasegawa kits come with TF-30 engine faces. You could conceivably cut off the pointier bulge from SB or Tamiya parts and graft them onto the Hasegawa kit part. No one is really going to know the difference, though. I wouldn't sweat it and just go with what you've already done. I don't think it's worth the work breaking open the fuselage to change them out.

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The Revell and Academy parts are both the same. My concern was never with the number of fan blades, but with the bulge at front. The TF-30 had a larger, rounder bulge, while the GE motor has a smaller, pointier bulge. Essentially, all of the Hasegawa kits come with TF-30 engine faces. You could conceivably cut off the pointier bulge from SB or Tamiya parts and graft them onto the Hasegawa kit part. No one is really going to know the difference, though. I wouldn't sweat it and just go with what you've already done. I don't think it's worth the work breaking open the fuselage to change them out.

Thanks again Darren. You got me thinking about the engine faces with your first comment. I was surprised to find that no manufacturer has reproduced them accurrately. Maybe a good scratch build project for a future 'cat. I'm leaving this build alone. Like you said, looking at the finished assembly, you can't really tell the difference.

I'm looking forward to seeing more pic's from your 30 squadron project build.

Edited by JohnS
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  • 4 weeks later...

Hello, again!

Spring time is here, and my available time to spend on model building seems to be getting shorter. B)

However, I have been able to do a little scratch building for the ECM blisters and F110 engines.

Here's a quick summary.

Using VFA-103guy's Tomcats 101 post as a guide (thanks Brian), I scratch built the two F-14B wing ECM blisters that were not included with my F-14A kit. I laminated three Evergreen strips together, cut-out the general shape of the blisters and filed and sanded them smooth.

Here's a pic;

96WingECMBlisters1.jpg

... and a photo of them glued in place;

97WingECMBlisters2.jpg

Next up, I wanted to add the F110 engine combustion chamber/afterburner detail, as seen from the exhaust nozzles. I could have bought a PE detail set but thought, since most of the detail will be hidden inside the plane, I'd see if I could scratch build something.

I started by finding a good quality photo of the engine, taken through the exhaust nozzle. I printed the image in 1/48 scale, on thick presentation paper. I cut out the image and glued it to the F14A kit supplied part (filed flat) for rigidity and ease of final assembly. I cut out a circular spacer to glue between the image and the kit part to give it a concave shape. I made the exhaust cone from 1/4" dia. dowel for a 3-D effect, as well as made the ring and frame over the cone from a printed copy of engine photo and stretched sprue, respectively. I finished the assembly with a coat of flat clear lacquer.

Here's a photo of the parts (it's a little busy, but you'll get the idea);

98Scratchbuiltengineparts1.jpg

... the parts assembled;

99Scratchbuiltengineassembled1.jpg

... assembly compared to a photo of the real thing;

100Scratchbuiltengineassembled2.jpg

... and finally the assembly test fit in the kit exhaust pipe.

101Scratchbuiltenginetestfit.jpg

All in all, I pretty happy with how engine will look in the final assembly ... and I saved some money by not having to buy the PE parts. :yahoo:

I'm going to keep plugging away a the model for the next few weeks, and will try to get the fuselage completed before summer (fingers crossed). :P :D

Edited by JohnS
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I've been working on the F110 engine exhaust internals prior to assembling the exhaust nozzle shroud to the rear of the fuselage. I used the Wolfpack F-14B&D resin exhaust set. The resin parts look reasonably good on the exterior but aren't accurate & lack detail on the inside.

I was able to find a line drawing of the F110 engine and used it to develop the dimensions for the exhaust build, and used photos of the exhaust to determine the colors required.

I started by cutting a 3/8" (approx.) sections off the end of kit exhaust pipes, painted them, and glued them to my scratch built combustion chambers.

Next I made decals showing the exhaust pipe detail for inside the nozzle shrouds. Decal application turned out to be time consuming fiddly work :bandhead2: . Once the decals dried, I gave them a coat of flat clear, following by adding heat discoloration using artist oils. Once this was finished, I added another seal coat of flat clear.

Finally, I sanded the inside of the exhaust nozzles to give them texture, and painted them using photographs as guides.

Here's a series of photos taken during the work.

The finished assembly and one of the photos I used for guidance.

102AfterburnerExhaustAssembly.jpg

The parts and decals.

103AfterburnerExhaustparts.jpg

Another pic of the assembly.

104AfterburnerExhaustcloseup.jpg

And the exhaust assembly test fit in the fuselage.

105AfterburnerExhausttestfit.jpg

Next up - attach the exhaust shrouds to the fuselage.

Thanks for looking. :cheers:

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  • 2 months later...

Watching this build with keen interest as I'm working on two Tomcats at the moment - both A models.

Any update since the last post or did I miss something????

Thanks for posting such unbelievable pics and techniques. Very encouraging to see what can be done with the Has. kit.

Jim

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I too am following this one with keen interest. I'm just about done my own Revell F-14B and am planning on starting both an Academy 1/48 F-14A and Hasegawa F-14B soon. Keep up the amazing work, very insipiring.

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Sorry, no updates since April. The Tomcat is still on the work table, but summer activities, car shows, etc. are taking priority. Hopefully, I'll be back at it in September, starting with attaching the engine parts to the fuselage.

Thanks for your interest in the build.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Hello JohnS, this thread of yours is God sent!!! Thank you very much for making it very informative and available to all, I love F-14's and this will be very helpful for me on my future builds, I'm a newbie here in the forums and by far your thread has been the most informative regarding Tomcat builds.

Looking forward on this build all the way to the end!!! :cheers:

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Hello JohnS, this thread of yours is God sent!!! Thank you very much for making it very informative and available to all, I love F-14's and this will be very helpful for me on my future builds, I'm a newbie here in the forums and by far your thread has been the most informative regarding Tomcat builds.

Looking forward on this build all the way to the end!!! :cheers:

Thanks 'wyntercamo', and welcome to the forum.

I've learned a lot, and still learning, from the members on this forum.

I'm just about ready to start work on the model again, so I should be posting more updates shortly.

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Thanks Marek. This really means a lot to me, coming from you. :cheers:

John!

This is so small scale compering to mine! Your atention to detales an extra wotk you put in to this model is realy great. You must know it! :thumbsup: My model is so big that needs a lot of detales becous they can be seen in so big scale. I´m sure that you could do the same and even beter work than me in so big scale. You have skills and you are gorgeos modelbuilder :worship::cheers:

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