wm_cheng Posted May 21, 2020 Share Posted May 21, 2020 Wow thanks @Laurent - seems to me like we have a winner! (which happens to be the only kits I don't have of the F-14 - argh...😞) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
757flyer Posted August 2, 2020 Share Posted August 2, 2020 Laurent, Many thanks for the comparison work on the various kits! Where did you find the Grumman drawings? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MRF Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Hello everyone :). Feeling weird posting here first time this way, specially this forum is true kit/aircraft mine of knowledge, but anyway - I would be careful with comparisons shown above. Not that I want to undermine Laurent's work, but: 1) sometimes even so called "factory drawings/plans/whatever" should be treated with caution. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess we don't know the real purpose this "redprint" was made for, and it doesn't seem to be any kind of detailed design of skeleton/skin of the aircraft. If so, it really doesn't need to be dead accurate compared to real deal with its any single curve, shape etc. This is actually the problem with any scale modeling drawing reference - mostly these are only better or worse approximation... 2) We don't know, if those paint schemes pictures correspond accurately with kit's outline, for FM and Hasegawa. Seemingly it's quite safe and logical to assume so, but still - only assumption with no certainty. In case of Hase it's almost for sure not the case, considering age of the kit. For fusalage profile I did some other thing - found this picture on web, taken from the angle which actually makes perspective distortion quite irrelevant, at least for the fuselage forward section: https://covers.alphacoders.com/cover/view/92890 Me and my friend who recently works on Hase F-14 we scaled it properly in Photoshop, and compared to both FM and Hasegawa windscreen and canopy. Both looked spot on in terms of profile height. I would even say, the angle between windscreen's base and upper frame seemed slightly too small, resulting in impression that whole piece is too flat - in contrary to what we see on Laurent's comparison, where difference must be at least 1 mm, if not bigger. I have really mixed feelings here. On the one hand, FM actuall did that mistake on wings (luckily relatively easy to correct), but on the other... Asian kits are also well known of having stupid geometrical mistakes (often), and in the end, I still would bet on Japanese kits for more overall accuracy. But it's just me. Yeah, so... That's the ugly face of modern scale modeling - plenty of sources, references and in many cases it's still not enough to be sure the kit You got is right ;). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
PlasticSmith Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 (edited) Hi there, new member here. Sorry for dredging up this thread again. I joined this forum specifically after finding this thread. I was fairly obsessed as a kid with the Tomcat and built a good dozen plus 1/144 scale kits of every imaginable squadron and version, before building a couple of Hasegawa and Fujimi 1/72 kits. I appreciated the greater detailing of the Hasegawa, but always thought Fujimi captured the overall shapes better. I was feeling nostalgic lately and decided I would love to build another nice Tomcat in 1/72 scale now that my modeling skills are on another level (not that I don't have too many "in progress" projects already, lol!). So I went searching to see what the market has to offer these days that it didn't in the early 90s. Many reviews, forum posts and youtube videos have convinced me that the GWH kit is the most accurate. (Special thanks also to Laurent for the images with the overlaid outlines in this thread, which confirmed many of my impressions.) I have a couple of questions, though regarding the GWH model, which I would be most grateful if someone here could answer: Does the GWH kit out of the box allow you to model the wings in "oversweep" (i.e. parked on the deck) position? If not, how much modification is needed to accomplish this? I have not seen a single picture of a finished GWH model where someone modeled it in oversweep position. I recall the Hasegawa model had a a notch that allowed you to stick in the wings in oversweep out of the box, while for the Fujimi you had to remove a pin inside the glove that limited the wingsweep and then file down the inflatable "balloon" triangle behind the wing. Fairly simple modification. Does the GWH model need more surgery than that to accomplish this? There are a number of third party detail kits available for the GWH model, among them exhaust nozzles and wheels from Reskit, photo etched detail parts from Eduard, 3D cockpit decals from Quinta Studio. Are any of these recommendable? Overkill? Must have? How is the out of the box detailing of GWH in these areas otherwise? If the Eduard set is indeed recommendable, is there one for the B or the D version? I only found one for the A version. Many thanks in advance. MK Edited July 31, 2021 by PlasticSmith Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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