My first build log. 1/72 Fujimi F-14A

[2qwik4u]

Well, after lurking on here for a few years watching everyone else's build logs, I figured it was finally time to man up and do one myself. I'm a fairly slow builder, so updates may only be one or two a week depending on how busy I am. Comments, tips, suggestions, criticism etc, are all welcome. I figure that what better way to do my first build log, than with a first build of my all time favorite airplane, the F-14 Tomcat.

So here is what I will be building:

Fujimi 1/72 F-14A Jolly Rogers boxing. I'll be using the CAM Decals 72-001 sheet with the VF-154 Black Knights markings.

I'm planning on building this pretty much OOB other than the decals, although I may add some Aires exhausts too, we'll have to see.

I actually started this kit about two years ago, but I got busy with other things (buying a house, getting married, you know, minor stuff) so it got put back in the pile.

At the time all I had done was paint all of the parts that need to be gloss white (my absolute least favorite thing to do) and put the base color on the cockpit.

Assembly wise, here is what I have so far:

Assembled the engine nacelles and masked off the white portions so that I can paint the gray before assembling them to the fuselage.

I also glued the wing tops and bottoms together:

As well as the wing glove and glove vane to the fuselage top:

I still need to mask off the white on the bottom of the wing glove so I can spray the gray for the intake trunking.

Unfortunately, I also noticed that I missed a few things with the gloss white, so I'll have to respray some of that too.

Next up, I'll probably work on the cockpit, which is one of my favorite things to do.

Please help keep me motivated and on track, as I am easily distracted! Oooh squirrel!

Thanks for looking,

-Dave

Edited March 25, 2011 by 2qwik4u

[Andy Mullen]

Excellent choice of markings Dave, will be tracking this build - good luck

[EX_Birdgunner]

Good start Dave.

I'll be watching this closely to compare it to the 1/48 Fujimi and the 1/72 Hasegawa in my stash.

One question: What are you planning to do with the kit decals? I am looking for 1/72 Jolly Rogers decals for my Hasegawa F-14A.

Cheers,

Denis

[2qwik4u]

No pictures right now, but I thought I'd give a quick update.

First off, thank you guys for signing on. Please don't hesitate to interject anything!

Andy, I've been to your website many times in the past and it has helped me tremendously in my quest to build at least one Tomcat from every squadron. Any comments or advice on this build will be greatly appreciated.

Denis, I wasn't planning on using the kit decals as I already have a few VF-84 markings on other sheets. If you're interested, they're yours. Send me a PM and we can work out the details.

Ok, build-wise I managed to get a few minutes in last night and warmed up my airbrush. I retouched some of the white that I had missed (gear doors, bays, struts, etc.). I did notice that the struts have some pretty prominant seams on them, so I guess I'll have to clean those up and shoot them again later. I also sprayed the red for the slats on the wing as well as on the bottom of the slat itself. Being that the Fujimi kit gives you a compressed front strut with the shuttle and holdback bar molded in, I've decided to do this one sitting on the cat waiting to be shot off. I've always loved the look of the Tom sitting on the cat with the horizontal stabs cranked way up. I'll try and get some pictures posted later, but I masked off the red areas so that I didn't get any overspray anywhere else because red is a pain to paint over.

Like I said, not a whole lot of progress, but for me any progress is good progress.

-Dave

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Dave. Good to see you've started building 'in public' through ARC. I'd say something nice about your start but just noticed the "1/48 sucks" comment, so .....

Cheers anyway!

Ian

[2qwik4u]

Hi Dave. Good to see you've started building 'in public' through ARC. I'd say something nice about your start but just noticed the "1/48 sucks" comment, so .....

Cheers anyway!

Ian

Thanks Ian. I've always been a little on the weird side...

-Dave

[HOLMES]

So Dave how is it going....I have to imagine the work thru your words

anda question for you./Will you be posting any pics any time soon

It would be nice to see the progress but if you are anything like ME....unabale to post pics etc then I quite understand..{I am usleless }.

HOLMES

[GreyGhost]

Nice progress, Dave ...

The Fujimi kit is a nice one to build ...

Gregg

[2qwik4u]

Ok, some pictures as promised.

Here is a picture of the wings with the slat areas painted red:

And a picture of the bottom of the slats themselves:

And you can see from the pictures of the main gear that I have some mold seam cleaning to do:

And the same on the nose gear:

I just wish they would have molded the gear door over the retraction strut separatly. That would make it a little easier to paint.

Like I said before, not much to report on so far. I didn't have any time to work on it last night, as the wife and I were at a friends place carving pumpkins and didn't get back until later. My dad is coming in today for the weekend to bring me some of my stash from back home, so I probably won't get to work on it anymore until at least Sunday.

Thanks for looking!

-Dave

[janman]

Good luck with your build! Looks good so far. Fortunately the Fujimi Tomcat builds up nicely, just like Gregg already noted.

[2qwik4u]

No updates as I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on it lately. I do have a question for you Tomcat guys though, especially those that have flown it. I'm planning on building this one up like its sitting on the cat, seconds before they press the button. (I may even do up a diorama with a JBD, haven't decided yet.) Anyway, here's the question, what are the pilot and RIO doing? What are they looking at, and where are their hands? I'm assuming the pilot has his left hand bracing the throttle full forward and his right hand on the stick, full back. What's he looking at? Where are the RIO's hands? Braced on the handle, in his lap, flipping off the guys on vulture's row? I ask because I'd like to try and modify the figures to represent how they would look on a cat shot. Thanks!

-Dave

[arnobiz]

I'm planning on building this one up like its sitting on the cat, seconds before they press the button. (I may even do up a diorama with a JBD, haven't decided yet.) Anyway, here's the question, what are the pilot and RIO doing? What are they looking at, and where are their hands?

-Dave

That's a great idea, I have a similar plan myself and I found literally dozens of pictures of this scene on navy.mil, just do a search for "Tomcat launch" and you will see how diverse the situations can be on the deck. Never the same number of people around in particular, though I have no idea of the procedures. As for pilot and RIO I'm not sure they can be seen clearly but I remember reading that they don't have much to do as for a couple of seconds they are entirely at the hands of the shooter :)

[andrew.deboer]

If the cat shot is imminent, the pilot would either be looking at the shooter to left or right of the nose or he'd already be looking straight ahead, hands on the controls. None of this hands-off-the-stick FBW stuff like you see in the F/A-18.

One thing is for sure: the crew would not have their helmets back against the seat headrests. If I understand it right, the Tomcat did a bit of a nose-downward lunge at the beginning of the cat stroke due to the kneeling nose gear, and a pilot or RIO who had his or her head back against the seat would be punished with a momentary forward push of the head followed immediately by a rearward smash into the headrest as the cat did its thing.

No updates as I haven't had a whole lot of time to work on it lately. I do have a question for you Tomcat guys though, especially those that have flown it. I'm planning on building this one up like its sitting on the cat, seconds before they press the button. (I may even do up a diorama with a JBD, haven't decided yet.) Anyway, here's the question, what are the pilot and RIO doing? What are they looking at, and where are their hands? I'm assuming the pilot has his left hand bracing the throttle full forward and his right hand on the stick, full back. What's he looking at? Where are the RIO's hands? Braced on the handle, in his lap, flipping off the guys on vulture's row? I ask because I'd like to try and modify the figures to represent how they would look on a cat shot. Thanks!

-Dave

[arnobiz]

None of this hands-off-the-stick FBW stuff like you see in the F/A-18.

That's a useful detail, I heard it from an F/A-18 pilot but I did not know it would be different between two airplanes. Thanks!

[2qwik4u]

Hey look, an update!

Thanks for the help so far guys, I've been scouring photos on the 'net, and I think I've got a gameplan for the figures.

I had a nice weekend with nothing to do but work on the '14, so here goes...

I decided to upgrade to the Aires resin nozzles, and they arrived last week. Here is a comparison shot between the Aires part and the kit part. Aires part on the left.

Definately an upgrade. I also cut the cans away from the plug to do some test fitting. This is my first time using a resin upgrade to a kit, and so far so good. I did have to do a little trimming of the resin to get the PE flame holder to fit inside (see picture) The flame holder sits about 1/16" in from the end, right before the grooves on the interior of the can. The smooth area was what I had to shave down. I don't have a picture of it, but the outer portion of the cans will need to be trimmed as well in order to fit inside the kit engine sponsons. It appears that the outer portion of the engine sponsons will have to be sanded slightly to match the resin 'burner petals as well.

I've also been working on a bunch of little things.

Picture of the landing gear legs. There were some pretty good seams that needed to be cleaned up on all of the legs. They are ready for another coat of white now.

And the wheels themselves. Kind of a before and after shot. I still need to weather the tire itself to knock down some of the shine. Not sure how I'm going to do this yet. I may try some pastels, I don't know yet.

Did some work to the cockpit too. I added a rough approximation of a throttle, which still needs to be painted. I still need to do some more detail painting on the panels.

Instrument panels as well. Again, still need some detail painting. Screens are currently silver, they will get a coat of clear green and clear smoke.

GRU-7 seats. For kit seats, they're not bad. These are pretty much done. As I'm going to have pilot and Rio sitting in them, I'm not going to mess with painting the belts.

And the instrument coamings got the initial coat of paint. The khaki fabric covers still need to be weathered.

[2qwik4u]

Intake trunking got the Light Ghost Gray sprayed on:

Beaver tail glued together. It needed a little putty on the RWR on the bottom, but not too bad.

Well, that's it for now. With Veteran's Day on Thursday, I've got a nice four day weekend coming up, so hopefully I can get a whole bunch more knocked out.

As always, thanks for watching.

-Dave

[arnobiz]

Nice work so far The Aires exhausts are definitely a massive improvement on the kit parts, and I will use them for all my kits but the cockpit is clearly not worth the (enormous) trouble of fitting it in so you made the right choice!

Arnaud

[2qwik4u]

Nice work so far The Aires exhausts are definitely a massive improvement on the kit parts, and I will use them for all my kits but the cockpit is clearly not worth the (enormous) trouble of fitting it in so you made the right choice!

Arnaud

Thanks Arnaud. I agree, the exhaust are awesome. I just wish they weren't so flippin' expensive. At $20+ a shot, one or two builds isn't bad, but when you have a whole bunch of kits in your stash, it adds up quickly.

-Dave

[2qwik4u]

Update for the evening.

I had some time after work, so I worked on weathering the rest of the wheels, added some more detail to the cockpit, and weathered up the coamings for the instrument panels.

I'm pretty happy with the way the coamings came out. What do you think?

-Dave

[arnobiz]

Very nice, the textile parts look exactly right. Why does the HUD projector look gold/brown?

[2qwik4u]

Very nice, the textile parts look exactly right. Why does the HUD projector look gold/brown?

Thanks. I thought that the HUD projector had a yellow tint to it. Is that incorrect? I used a combination of Tamiya Yellow and Smoke over silver to get that color.

-Dave

[robw_uk]

nice work so far... am on the look out for an F-14 so will watch this build with interest (considering the Academy 1/72 but not purchasing just yet so will be picking up ideas....

[arnobiz]

Thanks. I thought that the HUD projector had a yellow tint to it. Is that incorrect? I used a combination of Tamiya Yellow and Smoke over silver to get that color.

-Dave

I have to idea to be honest ;), I just leave mine clear with a silver backing, and a clear green coat if it's "on".

[2qwik4u]

I have to idea to be honest ;), I just leave mine clear with a silver backing, and a clear green coat if it's "on".

I thought I had seen a picture where the lens had a slight yellow tint to it, but was still very dark. If anything, I think I still need to add more Smoke to it to darken it up. Most pictures its very hard to see. Truthfully, I'm not overly concerned about it. I'm far from a rivet counter, and most time I just try to do the best I can. Most of the time it ends up being "Looks good to me!"

[arnobiz]

I thought I had seen a picture where the lens had a slight yellow tint to it, but was still very dark. If anything, I think I still need to add more Smoke to it to darken it up. Most pictures its very hard to see. Truthfully, I'm not overly concerned about it. I'm far from a rivet counter, and most time I just try to do the best I can. Most of the time it ends up being "Looks good to me!"

Absolutely right, and also note that you don't see it very much once the front canopy is fixed anyway ;)