1/48 Hasegawa F-14A

[Daniel_B]

Started this one a few weeks ago. Always wanted to build a Sluggers' Tomcat, and thankfully there are finally decals available for 'em.

Didn't waste much time detailing or weathering the cockpit since, with the canopy closed, it'll be hard to see much on the finished product. This is my first time using the Eduard color PE, and I'll probably be using it on all future projects, if for no other reason than it's so much easier and faster than painting the IPs. :) (Plus, it looks great.)

I haven't found any pics of AA-202 taken during this deployment yet, but here's a cool one of 206. Interestingly, -103 seems to have been doing most of their corrosion control touchups in 36440 at this time, which will be a neat thing to try to replicate.

[twhite80]

That pit looks fantastic! Much better than my attempts with the Eudard PE. Looking forward to more updates!

[Daniel_B]

Thanks. I'm looking forward to watching your progress on your VF-31 F-4J. We can have our own little USS Saratoga GB. :P

Some more progress:

The Hasegawa Tomcat has such a reputation for being difficult, but this is my 4th one now and I've never had any more trouble with it than the minor problems you find in any average kit. I'm guessing that's because I follow a few basic tips I've picked up from reading about other people's builds.

The biggest one is, don't join the upper and lower fuselage halves together first the way the instructions tell you to. Finish the nose, then attach the upper fuselage to it. Also attach the upper beaver-tail section at this point:

Then finish and attach the intakes to the lower half, but only glue them to the fuselage at the back end. Leave the front ends free (hopefully you can see the small gap in the second pic). Otherwise you risk hearing the distinctive 'crack!' of the front ends breaking loose when you try to assemble the 2 fuselage halves.

Glue the 2 major fuselage sections together, glue down the forward ends of the intakes, and finish it off with the lower beaver-tail piece, and that small bit of fuselage on the underside of the nose (part B4).

[arnobiz]

Veru clean build so far, and very nice scheme choice as well

Arnaud

[Daniel_B]

Thanks, Arnaud!

White primer, then pre-shading. From Tomcat to Zebracat:

These pics are actually a few days old. Since then I've gotten the first coats of the ghost grays on everything that needs 'em, but when I sat down to do the medium gray, I discovered my bottle of it had turned to mud. :D Guess it's been longer than I thought since I built a TPS Tomcat.

So while I wait for the new bottle to be delivered, I worked on the seats. Even if I'm building a kit completely OOB otherwise, one thing I always add is aftermarket seats. But this time, since I'll be putting aircrew in this one, I decided I could get by with the kit seats. The Hasegawa frames are actually pretty decent, and the figures will hide the worst parts: the cushions and belts.

Here they are with a little detail added with styrene strips & rod, Tamiya tape, and some copper wire:

(The tops of the cushions were rounded off a bit, and the back filled in--most of it is hidden by the seat frame, but the upper corners stick out enough that the opening back there would've been visible.)

[xavi84]

Those seat look pretty good so far, along with the rest of the build.

[arnobiz]

Yours seats look great, good job improving the kit parts

I know there is an eternal debate going on about pre-shading but for Tomcats I tend to do it randomly, rather than follow the panel lines. Just a matter of taste I suppose :)

Arnaud

[Rodney]

Daniel,

Keep up the good work and keep the tips coming. I'm still afraid to start a Hasegawa Tomcat but not afraid to keep buying them. So sooner or later, I'll have to start building them.

Rodney

[mawz]

Looks like it's coming along nicely, and the tips are always useful.

[Daniel_B]

Thanks, guys--hopefully some of that will turn out to be helpful. :)

I know there is an eternal debate going on about pre-shading but for Tomcats I tend to do it randomly, rather than follow the panel lines. Just a matter of taste I suppose :)

If you're relying on pre-shading as the main method of varying your surface colors, then I probably agree with you. But that's just one of several major steps I'll be taking. It should look plenty splotchy and random by the time I'm done.

TPS colors applied, then the entire thing was brushed with black chalk pastel dust. Then it was sanded with 3200- and 4000-grit sandpaper, and wiped down with a paper towel to pick up the chalk freed during sanding:

Then corrosion-control touchups, done mostly with the TPS colors, but also with a few spots of 36440:

It's amazing how much more exaggerated everything looks in the photos compared to the naked eye, but even tho it's not quite as stark as it looks here, I have "overdone" it at this point, since there's still more steps to come, and because the Future and flat coats have the effect of toning everything down (yes, I've learned that the hard way :( ).

Up next is a Future coat, then a panel-line wash, another Future coat, and then I can start putting decals on it.

[Daniel_B]

Made some good progress this past week. Most of the decals are on, and the finish line's actually already in sight. Here are some before and after pics of how the decals looked fresh off the sheet, then with some fading and wear from 4 or 5 months at sea:

And overall, here's how it looks now:

Saving the MODEXes, formation lights, and a few other small miscellaneous decals until after the salt weathering.

Also, I know about the "parts/decals request" thread, but before I ask there, is there anyone (in the US) with a couple of Hasegawa AIM-54s to spare (1/48, obviously)? I have Monogram and Academy ones, but neither are quite wide enough to fit correctly on the Hasegawa rails. I'm hoping that at least Has's own might be the right size...

[arnobiz]

It looks beautiful Daniel, a lot more realistic than most dirty Tomcats that are way too evenly dirty, mainly due to over-use of the salt method (A fashion issue I guess). End of rant :)

As you said the pictures make it looks very contrasted but I'm sure it's a lot smoother in reality. Maybe taking your pictures outside would help?

Great job on toning down the decals too. To make it short I love it

Arnaud

[FEDE]

Excellent Work Daniel.

I´m waiting more work and pictures of this Kity.

Greetings

FEDE

[Daniel_B]

Thanks, Arnaud and FEDE!

As you said the pictures make it looks very contrasted but I'm sure it's a lot smoother in reality. Maybe taking your pictures outside would help?

Maybe I will, when it's done and the weather warms up. It's still pretty cold around here right now, even tho it's supposedly spring.

This is my first attempt at salt weathering. On the whole I'm pretty satisfied with how it's turned out, but I'm sure it's one of those things that you get better at with practice.

Still have to touch up a couple of spots, then re-apply another batch of salt and hit some panel lines and random spots with a light dose of Tamiya smoke. And of course, I have no idea how much more this is going to be toned down after it's been flat-coated. Hopefully at least some of it will still remain visible.

[FEDE]

Woow I love this dirty kitty.

The corrosion control spots look´s real!!!

Keep it coming!!

FEDE

[kilroy]

Sweet paint work! In awe of just how realistic that looks.

[Daniel_B]

Thanks, guys! :wacko:

Ran low on sea salt and had to take a break from working on most parts of the airframe for a few days, but I did get the landing gear and tails finished off.

One tip with the landing gear is that where you see the red arrows pointing, there are originally tabs molded there that are supposed to fit into slots in the wheel wells. Every time I've tried to fit them in there, however, it makes the gear point off in wildly-inaccurate angles. And I know other people have had this problem, too, so it ain't just me. The easy fix, as I've done here, is to simply remove the tab, and align things by eye.

[Daniel_B]

I managed to avoid a disaster as I was finishing with the paintwork on the fuselage. I wouldn't say I "dropped" it. It was more like an in-flight engagement, where it just hit the deck a little harder than I would've liked. But I checked it over pretty close, and it apparently came through it with no damage, so big "phew" there.

Anyway, here's how it looks right now. Just the NMF areas left to paint, and then it'll be time to start adding the rest of the pieces to it...

[Hoops]

The weathering looks great, I'm glad that it survived the drop without too much damage,

-Hoops

[Bigasshammm]

Dude WOW!

Can't wait to see it done.

[catfan]

wow looks like the reall thing. i nned to get off my *** and build a tomcat for this thing

[julio cesar]

look great progress, keep track of their assemblies, to be sure that cat stay spectacular

[Mike C]

Nice progress thus far. Very realistic looking!

What paint and color will you use for the exhaust?

[EX_Birdgunner]

Wow just, Wow!

- Denis

[Daniel_B]

Thanks, guys!

I used burnt metal for the engine shrouds, and gunmetal for the nozzles (not pictured yet). Testors metalizers.

Haven't done much with it recently. Partly because of the warm weather, and partly because the main thing left to do is paint the canopy and windscreen, and I hate working with clear plastic parts. I always put it off as long as possible. It'll be done by the deadline, tho.

Here's some old progress I didn't get around to posting:

Of course, the one (and probably only) time I put crew in a Tomcat, I had to pick a non-Fightertown sheet, with no helmet markings included. So I did those myself, with some black lines out of the decal-spares bag cut into a bunch of tiny little pieces and applied one by one. I don't think "tedious" quite covers it.

At the time, this was all I had for reference:

So I had to guess at how the backs looked. And naturally, once I was done I found another pic showing the backs that proved I'd guessed 100% wrong, but what the heck. The headrest will hide them a bit, and how many people who ever look at it will know what the backs of the Sluggers' helmets looked like in 1986?