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Hello there.

I recently had the urge to try something quite different for me so I jumped on to spruebrothers and purchased the Trumpeter F-14A Tomcat in 1:32 scale. I've read about it's issues with the intakes (I plan on addressing those as I get to that part of the build) but as a general rule, I find the Trumpeter kits pretty much worth their cost. And I just can't bring myself to deal with the raised panel lines of the Tamyia kit.

Anwyay... I'm actually a bit into the project already so my first couple of posts will be a bit of catch up.

The big kit and the Aires resin cockpit. The kit cockpit is pretty good but I rarely, if ever use a kit pit OOB so why would this be any different.

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Some of the parts on the workbench... if you're wondering, that's the beginning of 'The Final Countdown' on the laptop...I'm planning on building Jolly Rogers of that era so it seemd appropriate.. and it's a fun movie.

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Next we're on to the two cube front office. The Aries -A pit is very accurate according to the DACO book and other references I have. It does however need a bit of cutting and fitting to slide into the nose. Here you can see it upside down beside the kit part.

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And here it is trimmed. I sort of ran amok with the dremel but thankfully, no harm no foul here...

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The pit with its base coat of Light Ghost Grey. Tomcat cockpits are generally a bit darker when they're first painted in the factory, but my research shows that they tend to vary greatly when they actually get into service. So I went with something a bit lighter.

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And with the panels painted Testers 'IP black'

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And after a few days of painting, they're just about done in these images...

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The cockpit isn't quite done yet but I'll get back to that in a bit....next is some landing gear work.

David

Edited by RiderFan
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When I built my 1:32 CF-18 from Academy, I was really impressed with the details in the landing gear. While I did end up using G-Force metal replacements, those are just castings of the kits parts so the details were the same. I can't say I'm as impressed with the Trumpeter landing gear as I was with the CF-18's. Lots of work to do to bring it up to scratch.

I'm using the 'long' option for my cat and I started with assembling the left and right side of the front gear with the metal rod down the centre. I then cut off the bottom strut portion of the gear and replaced it with aluminum tube.

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While still a work in progress, I've started fleshing out some of the missing details from the kit part...

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The kit gear bays are quite a bit lacking, I'm surprised there are no better after market sets for those.. so I'll have to redo those as well.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

David

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Looks good so far, David.

I will follow your build with interest as I just can't seem to stay away from the thought of getting a Trumpeter Tomcat, although I must say the HobbyBoss 1/48th offering fights me all the way through the build... :P

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Looking good David! Great start.

One thing you may or may not want to do is to fill in those ribbed seat cushions. They look like that straight from the factory, but they soon are replaced with flat (and very worn) cushions instead.

Chuck

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Looking good David! Great start.

One thing you may or may not want to do is to fill in those ribbed seat cushions. They look like that straight from the factory, but they soon are replaced with flat (and very worn) cushions instead.

Chuck

Thanks. I haven't started the seats yet but they did look a bit too 'new'. Unfortunately, the DACO book also shows them like this so I'll have to poke around for some good photos.

Speaking of photos. Does anyone have photos of the HUD projection lens that sits under the forward canopy (I know the F-14 didn't have a HUD per se, but you know what I mean). I'm trying to figure out if it's green, yellow, or just black when turned off.

thanks

David

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Speaking of photos. Does anyone have photos of the HUD projection lens that sits under the forward canopy (I know the F-14 didn't have a HUD per se, but you know what I mean). I'm trying to figure out if it's green, yellow, or just black when turned off.

thanks

David

This pic is in the ARC walkaround section, so a hotlink of it here is likely OK. I really can't tell color though....

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For the Aires seats, I just filled the grooves on the seat with white glue and let it dry before painting. It worked pretty good.

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Thanks. I haven't started the seats yet but they did look a bit too 'new'. Unfortunately, the DACO book also shows them like this so I'll have to poke around for some good photos.

...

Agreed, the pics in the book showing the seat alone only include seats with the original cushions, but I seem to recall that in the pics of the cockpit(s) the seats all have the relpacement cushions fitted.

(If not the case I apologize for the confusion as I have not had the opportunity lately to have another look in the DACO book.)

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...I haven't started the seats yet but they did look a bit too 'new'. Unfortunately, the DACO book also shows them like this so I'll have to poke around for some good photos...

Here's another couple of David Aungst's photos showing the seat cushions and their wear and tear.

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I used some ARC tips on my current 1/48 Hasegawa build, making the cushions out of bandaids.

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... Does anyone have photos of the HUD projection lens that sits under the forward canopy (I know the F-14 didn't have a HUD per se, but you know what I mean). I'm trying to figure out if it's green, yellow, or just black when turned off...

My guess is that the lens is clear/black. Like Chuck says, it's hard to tell. This is mainly due to the reflection from the green HUD glass attached to the windscreen.

John

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Some additional photos of what I consider to be the completed base cockpit. There are still a few little bits that need to go up around the HUD lens but those will be added just before the front windscreen is built in. Mostly because some of those parts are actually part of the windscreen and I'll build all that at once.

Anyway... the canvas is tissue paper applied over the resin part. Although the resin is really nice, it ends up looking like painted resin. The tissue adds a bit of addtional texture to it.

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Now to complete the landing gear...

thanks

David

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Some additional work on the forward landing gear tonight.

The forward gear bay. I used the DACO book as a base but it's not exactly the same. The major pipes are there though. Again, I'm really shocked that Aries hasn't done up a set for this one yet. Their F-18 and A7 gear bays are really very well done.

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The forward gear strut...now with more plumbing goodness...

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The taxi light was recovered from left over F-18 parts. Also, I don't understand why Trumpeter made the three landing lights just a block of plastic with no detail. Anyway, those little lights have been drilled out.

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On a side note, I'm disappointed that I have to have the forward landing gear built into the model so early. Because there's no room to slide it in once the nose sections are glued together you have to put it in early. I have seen others cut the cross brace off (I was going to do that as you can see by earlier photos) but then realized that the plumbing detail would be all out of whack. So I put the cross brace back on and will just have to deal with the forward gear being glued in place. How does the Tamyia kit deal with this issue?

thanks

David

Edited by RiderFan
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Hi David,

I agree with Denis, you're really rattling along with this build, long may it continue! :D

The HUD projector lens looks superb, nice job on that. :worship:

I also like what you've done with the gear. Neat work. :thumbsup:

On a side note, I'm disappointed that I have to have the forward landing gear built into the model so early. Because there's no room to slide it in once the nose sections are glued together you have to put it in early. I have seen others cut the cross brace off (I was going to do that as you can see by earlier photos) but then realized that the plumbing detail would be all out of whack. So I put the cross brace back on and will just have to deal with the forward gear being glued in place. How does the Tamyia kit deal with this issue?

thanks

David

From what I've seen of both kits, the Trumpeter nose gear leg is identical to the older Tamiya version, even down to the details, so they both work in the same way.

Keep up the good stuff. :thumbsup2:

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Some more work, again on landing gear. I've spent more time adding plumbing to these legs than I have on some kits... ug.. what a pain...

The DACO book was used for the majority of references, but also wikipedia and ARC walk arounds.

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The main landing gear bays are up next.. those are a rat's nest of tubes, hoses, and cables...

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The left and right main gear bays...sheesh... lots of plumming. It's not 100% accurate to the DACO book but it's got a lot of major pipes and hoses. The more difficult part was making them as symetrical as possible. There are some landmark parts such as the coiled hose and the jack that is used to register if the doors are closed. I also opened up the hole in the side of the bay.

I think I can start painting these now..

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Thanks

David

Edited by RiderFan
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Wow. Looking really great! Very nice. Got a question for you. On the tissue paper you used, did you use white glue on it?

Hi there

Yes it was glued on with heavily diluted white glue. It's an old trick that really adds something extra to cockpits.

Thanks.

David.

Edited by RiderFan
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