Grumman F-14B Tomcat VF-102 'Diamondbacks'
Copy of the Tamiya radome.
Note the lenght difference between Revell (top) and Tamiya forward fuselage. The Revell nose is much longer between windscreen and radome.
Revell nose w/ Tamiya windscreen. Looks much better already.
Revell and Tamiya radomes are identical in length.
Note huge cross section difference between Revell fuselage and (recast) Tamiya radome.
A wedge shaped cut was necessary to squeeze the fuselage into the right shape.
The nose was cut off again to remove around 2,5mm between radome and windscreen
Scale Navy Stuff fuselage top louvers in place.
They look quite a bit better than Revell's louvers.
A wedge shape cut is necessary to squeeze the rear fuselage into shape
The Aires F-110 shrouds fit pretty well with the fuselage cut as described before.
Main gear wells cut open before being enlarged.
I wanted to replace the fuselage position lights with clear parts. I simply removed the entire panel and replaced it with a clear part cut from the Revell canopy.
The position lights will be masked before painting.
CAD designed & 3D printed TID screen & upper IP. Analogue instruments will be added later.
Aires F-110 engine shrouds in place.
Widened main gear wells.
Cockpit sidewall canvas covers were made with Magic Sculp.
Ditto.
3D printed air intake ramps.
Forward intake ramp painted and weathered. Deadly close up photo! 😄
Early painting & weathering stages.
First decals applied.
More painting & weathering. I sadly had to change my initial plan to build Modex 102 as some of the decals were badly misregistered. It'll be another normal line bird then.
The national insignia and some other decals were removed and painted instead. The masks were cut on my Silhouette Portrait.
New national insignia.
Nasty gaps between fuselage and wings...
... required another cut and a bit of squeezing.
No more gaps!
Making templates for the carbon fibre shrouds in front of the nozzles.
BRU-33 from Aerobonus installed. There should be gaps with visible wires in front and behind the racks but I wasn't in the mood for this kind of work. Pretty much all of this will be hidden under a GBU-12 anyway.
Adding shadows and weathering with highly diluted Tamiya Smoke.
Smoke was also used to create shadows and accumulating dirt around old touch ups. The dark sports were later filled with bas colour, leaving just a small "frame" around them.
Almost finished Phoenix pallets with bomb racks. Some small parts have to be added and a few small details to be painted.
Liquid mask applied with a sponge was used to create a more vivid surface.
The contrast is very low but it's visible.
Wash / filter applied to a stabilisator. I used warm grey, black, blue and white oil paints.
Kommentit
8 30 October 2017, 09:23
Alexander GrivonevWow, nice cosmetic surgery. Why did you saw it off the first time, wrong position/angle?
30 October 2017, 09:47
Ben SchumacherThe surgery was made without scale drawings, just based on photos; I needed several attempts to get it (more or less) right. The angle was incorrect indeed, the nose was pointing too far towards bottom at the first attempt. Then, I didn't realize the Revell nose is too long between windscreen and radome, so this problem was adressed at the same time.
30 October 2017, 12:31
Michael PhillipsWow, this is fascinating! Some serious plastic surgery here.. Pamela Anderson would be envious! LOL
30 October 2017, 13:13
Ben SchumacherYes, the 3D printed parts were designed and printed by myself. They were printed on a Formlabs Form2.
7 November 2017, 08:50
Spanjaardthanks a lot. looks like a very nice toy😉 i guess you have it for more than printing parts for your models right? i should be doing some training in 3D printing...
amazing job you are doing in this Tomcat, by the way.
7 November 2017, 09:53
Ben SchumacherIt sadly isn't my printer, I just have access to it from time to time. I wish I had one myself! 🙂
7 November 2017, 10:23
Spanjaardi see, it is not a cheap toy, but results seem really good. i did not know about SLA printing, but this seem to be the way to go, probably better than filaments or powder....
7 November 2017, 10:36
Ben SchumacherMuch better for detailed parts, but much more expensive as well.
7 November 2017, 12:13
Steve -Just a quick round of applause for this fine looking build. Your corrections look like all the effort was worth it.👍
27 November 2017, 20:26
Ben SchumacherThank you all for your kind comments! Once my Super Hornet ist finished (which should be the case within next week), I'll get back to the Turkey.
29 November 2017, 08:09
TreehuggerWhy are 3d printed elements tilted? Does the tilted positino during 3d printing, lead to cleaner edges perhaps?
10 September 2020, 10:35
Slavo HazuchaComing somewhat late to the party, but at least I made it - some excellent stuff on show! The exterior details & weathering look great & I really like the way you took care about the wing root gap - an issue that seems to occur on more than a couple of the available Tomcat kits 👍
10 September 2020, 11:06
Ben SchumacherThanks folks, glad you like it! 🙂 Treehugger, inclined parts usually lead to more crisp detail indeed.
11 September 2020, 08:41
Album info
Initially, I only wanted to correct the nose shape of Revell's 32nd scale Tomcat. It turned out to be more complicated than I initially thought, but as was quite pleased with the result, I decided to go a step further and to convert it into a F-14B as flown by VF-102 during Operation Enduring Freedom.
