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  Greetings ARC!  I would like to present my VF-124 Bicentennial F-14A.   All I wanted for Christmas last year was the new Tami-cat and my wife graciously delivered, so here we are 7 months later with a finished build!  It was built straight from the (amazing) kit except for the decals.  

 

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  About those decals...They are from Eagle Strike and I found them on EBay last fall.  They definitely showed their age and I had some cracking issues on the larger ones, like the wing glove stripes (which do not marry up to the swing wing opening perfectly- they are too big).  For those wishing to do this scheme, the nose decal fits well enough, but is oversized slightly and overlaps on the bottom (you have to repaint half a star that gets lost in the overlap).  I decided to paint the red, white, and blue stripes as opposed to using the decals on the empennage and wings.  I found MM Acryl "Guards Red" and "Dark Sea Blue" to be the closest matches out of the bottle.  

 

  The airframe stencils were mostly from the kit, as well as the Microscale Tomcat Data sheet.  I robbed a pair of "Stars and Bars" for the fuselage from a Furball decal set since the kit only contains US Insignia attached to the Jolly Rogers and Langley stripes.  Mike Grant cockpit decals were used for some of the larger cockpit instruments.  

 

  The rest of the model was painted using Gunze 315, 316, and various shades of Alclads and Metalizers for the exhaust.  I decided to use Bare Metal Foil "Matte Aluminum" on the leading edges of the stabs and wings after seeing Brett Green's build in Military Illustrated Modeler.   Exhaust areas were stained using Tamiya clear acrylics and Tamiya weathering sets.   The model was varnished with Gunze Super Clear III and given an enamel wash with Ammo of MIG "Sky Grey".  I used Tamiya X-35 "Semi-Gloss" clear as the final coat and I must say it sprays beautifully and leaves a wonderful sheen.  

 

  This was a labor of love and I found myself pushing towards the end to finish in time for US Nats.  This will be my first time ever at a Nats and I'm looking forward to seeing all the Tami-cats there!  I apologize for my photography in advance- I used my iPhone and black poster board since I don't have a fancy camera.  Anyways, enough rambling, on to the pictures!

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Steve

 

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Edited by Falconxlvi
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Steve, it is a gorgeous build, I love it!  One quick question, why one burner can wide open and one closed shut? I am not a Tomcat aficionado, so could use some educating. You can never have enough Bicentennial models and this one is a keeper!  I ope you do well at the Nats! R/ Dutch

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That's one of the quirks of the F-14A.  The engines have one nozzle open and one closed because when the first engine was shut down, there was still hydraulic pressure being supplied by the second engine to move the nozzle closed as the thrust dropped off, but when the second engine was shut down there wasn't the pressure to close that nozzle. 

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7 hours ago, CaptainObvious said:

Beautiful work Steve!
And beautifully photographed too.

 

I have one in progress and I hope it turns out half as nice.
Also I'm totally going to steal your idea and foil the leading edges. ;)
 

 

Thanks Captain!  This was the first time I have used Bare Metal Foil and I was impressed with how easy it is to use.  It burnishes down so well that it reveals any flaw on the surface.  I had to go back and sand down the paint demarcation lines between the red, white, and blue on the wings after my first foil application revealed them!

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  • 2 years later...

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