Geoff M Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 I am now into Tomcats and thanks to Eracubsfan for starting this group build. It gives me a reason to build some of these kits. As it says in the title I am going to change AMK D into a B with the help of Steel Beach parts and Furball decals. Here is the run down. S Some of the smaller bits. Seats and Instrument panels in the process of being painted. Front cockpit glare shield being painted. The rear glare shield is from the amk kit along with the console side panels. The plane i am doing is the second from the bottom. It is technically an A+ but it is the same thing as a B. VF-211 only flew B's (A+) for a couple years and converted back to A's. Its hard to find pictures of their B models. Thanks for watching Geoff M Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Craig Baldwin Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Just stay away from that 325 page thread on this kit and you will be fine. Best of luck on your build. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Geoff M Posted February 15, 2021 Author Share Posted February 15, 2021 Craig, Its too late, I saw it while it was going on (maybe its still going on 🤓) I didn't contribute. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Geoff M Posted February 15, 2021 Author Share Posted February 15, 2021 Time to catch up. Thanks for following along with this and I hope you don't mind my comparison of the 2 kits. This one is taking longer than the Tamiya F-14. If Tamiya hadn't come out with there kit, I would say this is the best F-14 in 1/48th because of the detail they put into it (whether or not you think the detail is correct is up to you). That being said it is harder to work on. First off, there is a ton of parts spread out among 10 or so sprues, not including all the weapons they include. Secondly, the instruction are graphical with parts numbers and smallish diagrams and hundreds of lines showing you where things go. It is very easy to miss parts because of all the clutter in the diagrams. It also isn't very clear about which parts you should use for different configuration options or what order might be the best for putting things together. I missed putting the boat tail in when I was putting the fuselage together because it was buried in the middle of the diagram with lines going all through it. A few days later I am wondering where the step in the instructions is to put in the boat tail. I had to go back a few pages. Oops!. Now i have to do some modifications and spread the fuselage apart and clamp things back together. It was a pain but I got it on the plane. Just an example. They also don't apply the detail evenly. Example is the wings, they give you 2 complete sets of wings with ability to show the flaps and the spoilers all extended or all cleaned up and folded back, but the fuel dump pipe is just a solid cylinder on the rear of the boat tail, simple enough to hollow out but they overlooked it. Fit is very good, perhaps just a slight bit less precise than the Tamiya kit, but as long as you get rid of all the little sprue nubbins things go together almost snap fit. As for where the kit is now. On to the pictures. Here are a couple shots of the cockpit with the Steel Beach instrument panels, front cockpit coaming and ejection seats. These have some good detail on them but need some flash cleaned up. The IP was designed for the Tamiya kit so it needed to be modified to fit the AMK kit. This consisted of removing the side panel on the IP. This are accounted for in the kit cockpit. The cockpit coaming fit the AMK kit with some adjustments made by some light sanding to reduce the height. I used the kit hud frame and reflector glass. It isn't 100% correct but it fits. The side consoles are from the kit and I used the kit decals to create the detail. They snuggled down really well and look very good. The decals in the kit were made by Furball and printed by Cartograf. Too bad I won't be using them. The rear IP fit in place of the kit IP with no problems and used the kit IP cover. I had radar screen decals left over from the Tamiya kit that fit the both IPs and these worked well too! This joint at the front and rear fuselage was the worst joint on the whole kit. Took a bit of filing, sanding, and putty to get it smoothed out but that's what modelers do, right. The front fuselage is a miracle modern plastic molding. I don't know how they did it but it has full panel line detail all the way around it and the cockpit slides into from the rear and snap into place, just put the IP covers and seats in and you are done. Front gear well. About the same amount of detail as the Tamiya kit but it has better 3-D relief which makes painting things easier. View of the bottom. At this point the boat tail should have been installed. The way it is designed it should be trapped between the top and bottom fuselage halves, it doesn't slide in from the rear like a Hasegawa kit. As a result there was some repair work to do. The intakes are a bit fiddly. Three different configuration options. Geez. Top view. The fit of the top and bottom fuselage was very tight. It wanted to keep popping apart. While I was getting one area aligned another would pop apart. I required a lot of clamps to hold it together but the seams were minimal. The wings went together with no problems. For some reason they molded the formation lights separately. As you can see I am doing the wings spread open with all the flaps and slats hanging down. Spoiler will be retracted. Here is where I am today. Everything is together and painted and glossed. Just waiting on decals. They were supposed to be here yesterday but we had an ice storm that delayed delivery. Burner cans are detailed better than the Tamiya kit. AMK used multiple pieces to build up the burner cans and they all fit together very well. On the Tamiya kit the canopy drops into place. Not on this kit. I have minor gaps on both sides of the canopy, Small parts waiting installation. Bottom side painted and extra wings! Main gear well painted up. The ecm blisters are from Steel Beach. I am going to do a typical Tomcat load out of 2 each - Sidewinder, Sparrow, Phoenix. The decals represent an F-14B from 1991. VF-211 only flew F-14B's for 2 years or so and converted back to F-14A's. So this is before Bombcat technology. Main wheels are the extras from the Tamiya kit. Being an early B model I figure it was still using the early wheels and not the wheels from the D models. Let me know if I am wrong. Well that's where things stand now. I hope the decals will be here tomorrow. I will post more once I have some color on the kit (gray color that is) Thanks for following along. Geoff M Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Brian P: Fightertown Decals Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 Nice!! fyi, if you wanted to add bombs, VF-211 along with VF-24 were the first fleet squadrons to drop bombs in 1992 while flying the B (called A+) at that point. cheers brian Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Craig Baldwin Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 Great write up. Always interested to hear kit comparisons especially after all the wrangling about the AMK release. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Curt B Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 (edited) Very nice comparison,Geoff, thank you! I happen to have both the Tamiya and the AMK F-14D models, neither of which have I touched as far as building, though I've opened the AMK box to look at the sprues, etc.; I haven't even torn the factory cellophane off the Tamiya kit, yet! Your insight is particularly valuable for someone like me who will, eventually, (probably!!), build both versions of the 14D! Your write-up means I will now look more carefully at the AMK instructions when I build mine. In fact, I'll print this thread and clip it to the AMK instructions, so I don't forget!! Oops...forgot to say that your airplane looks great! I'm planning to take advantage of the AMK detail and do mine with the wings full forward, and all of the control surfaces extended. I know that won't really look like the plane ever looked, except at the moment of touchdown on a carrier deck, but that detail is just too good to pass up and not display! Edited February 15, 2021 by Curt B Additional thoughts Quote Link to post Share on other sites
eraucubsfan Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 Nice work Geoff, and thanks for participating !! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Thadeus Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 OOOh You totally have to put the paveway kit on them bombs. Very nice work. Love the paint touch ups. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Geoff M Posted February 20, 2021 Author Share Posted February 20, 2021 Sorry Thadeus, I have already painted up the missiles. Anyway I finished this one and while it came out ok, it was not as much fun to build as the Tamiya kit. I had done the camo painting before I got the decals but after getting the notes on the paint scheme I had to go back and redo the front fuselage a bit. Not a big deal. I had a particularly bad time with the canopy. I chose to use the 1 piece canopy, in the closed position. The multi-piece version seems to be for open canopy only. It is not a drop-in fit. I ended up removing it after the painting and decaling to get rid of the gap but it persisted. On to the pictures. Overall I enjoyed building this one. I like the contrast of the lo-viz markings compared to my previous build. Hope you like it too! Geoff M Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Lost_Erik Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 Rockin'😎 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Red Dog Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 Very nice and attractive. Great work !! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
phantom Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 Turned out great. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
FASTEAGLE107 Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 Thank you for sharing the pics and your "experience" with the mulit-piece canopy version. I will try to avoid it. 👍 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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