Grumman F-14A Tomcat "Frequent Wind"
![Album image #1 Album image #1](/albums/img/2/5/1/1701251-10501-53-720.jpg)
Dug up from the bottom of my stash, a very old Hasegawa F-14A in just the markings that I wanted for my Vietnam War collection.
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The box is crammed full with a daunting amount of parts...
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OMG, what am I getting into… There is even PE in there. Not the usual simple stuff I build.
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First subassemblies in progress. Had to remove al lot ejector pin marks which were all over the place.
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First spraying session with lots of white, gray and burned exhaust metallic.
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Sprayed a light buff color in the exhaust, added some of the PE and heavily stained everything based on images I found.
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More subassemblies in progress. Fit is nice but not everything drops together, care is needed to prevent steps and gaps.
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Assembling the fuselage step by step. This kit is an exercise in tricky clamping.
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The butt end kept fighting me, it was difficult to get the exhausts in later on.
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Starting on the wings. These are clearly designed for the “everything dropped” option, the clean option I want is tricky to assemble.
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Clamping the intake trunks into submission. The RH one went on OK, but could not avoid nasty steps on the LH one.
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In the meantime completed the cockpit, which is very nice, complete with PE instrument panels.
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More clamps needed, widened the rear end a bit to improve fit to the main fuselage.
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Adding the flaps to the wings. Again fiddly. One kept on popping loose...
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nstalled the nose. Despite widening I still had a step on the LH side that required filler.
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Installed the radome (including a nose weight) which did not fit very well. Probably my own doing.
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installed the gun panels, which also did not fit as well as I would have liked. Also needed filler on the lower nose insert.
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The canopy unfortunately has a prominent mold parting line along the top
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Removed the mould line and sanded and polished the canopy
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Looking great after a dip in HG51.
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Preparing for the first primer coat by masking the areas already sprayed white. Popped out an upper intake ramp, duh… Managed to reinstall it.
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Installed and sanded down the navigation lights transparencies. These are so tiny I lost a few which I replaced with clear sprue. Could have done without this level of detail and finnickyness…
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Filling the base of the fins. Quite some gaps here.
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Primer coat on, looking pretty good
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Sprayed the antiglare panel and pre-shaded
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Used some references from the Internet to help with masking the antiglare panel
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Complex masking after spraying the lower surfaces white
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Followed by the light gull grey upper surfaces. So far I have used Revell and Humbrol enamels.
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Masked the upper surfaces and sprayed the light tan radome and red fin tips and ventral strakes
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As I had no red Sharpie at hand I tried a new technique for the red door edges: tamponing. Not a great success…
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Sprayed the NMF bits such as the wing LE and exhaust areas
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Always exciting: pulling off a ton of paper and tape. Result is not perfect but not too shabby either. Good enough for me.
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After a gloss coat of HG51 we’re ready for decaling
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Oops, while decaling I noticed that I forgot to spray the spoilers white. Some judicious masking and a quick coat of white sorted that one…
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The Hasegawa decals worked fine after coating them with a decal bonder. Lot’s of stencils though…
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And decals done! Phew. Missiles came from a hasegawa missile set.
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Before another gloss coat to seal the decals I first installed the landing gear as I can no longer use the spraying handle I used earlier.
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The gloss coat didn’t go down well, no idea what went wrong. Removed most of the upper finish and ploughed on with weathering. Still practising and may have overdone it a bit.
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Followed this up with a Tamiya matt coat but evidently was not patient enough. I guess the gloss coat had not fully hardened on the bottom surface and had an argument with the matt coat. Aarghh!
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After a lot of muttering and hair-pulling I sanded down the carnage as well as possible and resprayed parts of the underside. Remarkably the decals survived the sanding.
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Used some pastel powders to blend in the new white. By now this bird is awfully dirty…
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Sitcking on wheels, gear doors and missiles. Quite fiddle and the pylons did not fit very well.
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Almost there, adding the final antennas and probes with only some detail painting to do.
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A bit of a disappointing end game but we're done!
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15 6 April, 18:18