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Revell F-14D Tomcat Build


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Well, this week has seen a few "it could only happen to Dave" moments in the course of the Tomcat build. The birthday goal came and went with not much notice or concern on my part. First I'll start off with a pic of the paint job on the fuselage after the masking was pulled off...

maskoff.jpg

The paint job came out well I think.

After the unmasking is when things started to bumble along a bit.

The Sparrow missile has been kicking my butt, but I finally have it to a state where I am gonna throw some TB decals down on it. I fought with some spare Sidewinders I had and found that they didn't want to sit right on the Steel Beach BOL rails so I had to do some minor surgery on the BOL rails. Of course the surgery was after the painting of the pylons and rails was complete, so I inevitably hosed part of the paint job on the pylons and had to sand and repaint and all that jazz.

I masked the canopy and windscreen for painting. In the course of cutting the tape for the mask, I managed to make a nice cut in the center piece of the windscreen. I went ahead and painted anyway and it doesn't look that bad.

So, then I was working with the chin pod, tweaking the base of it to make sure it fit flush with the fuselage. It jumped out of my hands and hit the floor, bounced up under the edge of the cabinets and found a gap between the face of the cabinet, the base of the cabinets and the floor of the lower cabinet. What does that mean....well, if I want that particular chinpod back, I will have to pull up the floor of the cabinets...not gonna happen...luckily when my parents visited to see my new daughter a few months back, they brought the stockpile of poorly built models of my youth to me...included was a Revell F-14D...hello replacement. (I might also use the windscreen from this kit for the aforementioned windscreen issue, but maybe not.)

So, then today I decided to mount the pylons for the drop tanks. One of my marks for a hole was slightly off so I had to drill at a bit of an angle to correct and I managed to pop the seam of the wing glove on that side...annoying...I had them dressed so nicely...they were invisible. So I fixed it by dropping superglue on the backside of the gap while holding it sealed. Did the trick, but now part of the seam is slightly visible...I guess I'll have to do a little weathering in that area :lol:

By the end of the day, she will be up on her legs. I detailed in the gear wells a little bit and I have been working on the crew steps and boarding ladders. I should also get weathering started along with decaling on the missiles.

Cheers,

Dave

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Well, I've managed to make some leaps ahead in the last few days...why do I get more done during the week than on weekends? Oh, well, whatever...first I've gotten the weapons painted up with decals applied. The TB decals on the sparrow drove me nuts, but they were worth the effort.

weapons.jpg

All that is left for "things slung under it" is the LANTIRN pod.

I got her standing on her legs, but just not her feet yet...

I've also banged away on some of the detail stuff...crew ladder and steps along with plenty of little touch-ups here and there. Some items are still up for paint, but I have started with the weathering on the wings and fuselage. I have only used a mechanical pencil and a finger so far, but I am also gonna break out a white pencil and a finger for lightening some spots too.

Please tell me what you think.

I'm hesitant to go whole hog trying to do all sorts of shading and weathering so it is definitely muted at the moment, but I still intend to do some more.

shading2.jpg

shading1.jpg

wingshading.jpg

And finally, even though the Tomcat didn't get finished in time for my birthday last Friday, my wife still got me a killer gift...something else for the MiG/Sukhoi collection...

bdaygift.jpg

Cheers,

Dave

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I'm gonna do the racks in the next few days so it'll probably be this weekend when I get them installed and pictures taken. No, I haven't done them yet...part of my ready stash went in the mail :whistle: . I'm sourcing the sway braces from the spares box...they were the braces in a Revell Legacy Hornet kit...

Cheers,

Dave

Edited by parche
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Got some work done today. Finished up the weathering and started to put a glosscote on so that I can get to decaling. For some reason I am having a devil of a time with the paintjob on the LANTIRN adapter...I keep getting orange peel on it. I think I have sanded it down, cleaned it and repainted four times now. I worked on my corrected MLG wheels. I used a punch to make some plastic circles. I then punched out the center of the circles and sanded the pieces thin...they pretty much dropped into place. I am just going to simulate the holes in the wheels with a black pen instead of drilling. I will probably do one correctly with drilled holes later and make a mold of it. I can finally see the finish line right as things at school are gonna start getting hairy...the RACE IS ON!!!

Items left to complete...besides decaling and the dullcote...

LANTIRN POD

Weapons Pylons

Make some intake covers (may be a while...or I'll get some Steel Beach stuff)

LANTIRN Pylon paint

Paint and attach wheels

Final installations

Not that much...

Hopefully I can dive into decals tomorrow.

We'll see

Cheers,

Dave

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  • 3 weeks later...

Seriously, is it the middle of February already? Madness at school coupled with the two month old has kept the modeling quotient very low. I have managed to finish decaling the bird as well as most of the other detail work. All I have left is putting the bare metal foil onto the leading edges of the wings and attaching the detail bits. I also have to put the bomb racks and A/G ordnance in place. Here are some pics from a few days back...

First up is the fuselage after the decals were added over the gloss coat...

shinydecals.jpg

Next are the vertical tails after decals and a dull coat...

tailsflat.jpg

You'll notice that I forgot to add the rear red light at the top of the right hand vertical tail...it has since been added.

I'm almost there...maybe one or two days left.

Cheers,

Dave

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Here are some shots that Anthony Wan asked for of the bomb racks in the tunnel. I made a pair of masters and have casted a handful of them. They could be a little better. I found a bunch of little air bubbles when the first coat of paint went on. So there was a bunch of clean up for that. I added some bent .020 rod to the aft ends to simulate the cabling. I used spare sway braces from a revell hornet kit and attached the bombs by drilling holes in the bomb and the rack and inserting .025 rod.

bombs.jpg

GBU-16 and GBU-12 up forward

bombs2.jpg

GBU-12 alone in the back

bombs3.jpg

Another shot of the loner and the empty rack.

Cheers,

Dave

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Seriously, is it the middle of February already? Madness at school coupled with the two month old has kept the modeling quotient very low.

Dave

Dave, doesn't time fly when you having fun :blink:

Great job, can't wait to see her finished :thumbsup:

BTW you mentioned at the beginning your wife was a nuke - what job it that?

Edited by Andy Mullen
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Thanks for all the comments. I just finished putting a bunch of detail pieces on it and she is about to get a second (and final) dull cote. Hopefully I will complete her tomorrow for President's Day.

Colin,

The toothbrush handle idea worked great (I highly recommend it and intend to use it on many other builds)...I actually picked up generic toothbrushes at Target and had the luck that they react very nicely with Proweld. So I could sand them down to the right shape and hit them with a drop of the Proweld and they shoothed over nicely and got a shiny glass appearance. The lights on the gloves are one of the last things I will install.

Andy,

My wife and I met at Nuclear Power School in South Carolina. She went off to be a PPWO (Propulsion Plant Watch Officer) on the USS Abraham Lincoln while I went to the USS City of Corpus Christi for various Division Officer jobs. As a PPWO, my wife was responsible for standing a watch overseeing the operation of one of the nuclear reactors onboard. She was one of only a handful ( I think there were only three) of "nuke" (nuclear trained) officers on Lincoln for their 10 month OEF/OIF deployment in 2002-2003 who was onboard for the entire deployment. She's since gotten out of the Navy.

Cheers,

Dave

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Touched up the dullcote, added the Bare Metal Foil to the leading edges, finished up the HUD... dullcote drying and final assembly is all that remains. Next pictures will be of the finished bird, hopefully later today...

Cheers,

Dave

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WOOOHOOO!!!!!!! Only 1 month late! It's done (almost, I still need to find a set of the Steel Beach intake covers in black...but for all intents and purposes it is done) . Here are a couple of pics...

done3.jpg

done2.jpg

done1.jpg

I'll post more tomorrow.

Also...300th post...

Also, Happy President's Day

Cheers,

Dave

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Thanks for the comments guys. I appreciate it. I'm gonna have to put off some of the detail pics 'til tomorrow.

Flintstone, I used the DACO book for a guide for some of the scribing. For a fair bit of the stuff on the underside I actually skipped on rescribing totally (yeah I cheated...but who is gonna look in the tunnel right?)

Any idea where I can find the Steel Beach Intake covers in BLACK? Spruebrothers is out. Anyone willing to part with a set? Bueller? Bueller?

Cheers,

Dave

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Well, I'm working on some bombracks to trade for the intake covers so that problem should be done shortly...I did notice, however, that I failed to make the box for the JDAMs that goes on top of the coaming forward of the RIO...gotta figure out a way to fix that, then she should be totally, finally, completely done...

Cheers,

Dave

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