F-14A VF-154 Black Knights 100 In Progress

Brad Furminger
I've been considering this kit. Will be watching your build closely.

Marco S
Watching

Spanjaard
interesting

Patrick Hagelstein
BKR!!!

Sarunas D
Welcome aboard, all! The kit needs more work than initially expected 😄 But the overall shape is looking good.

Ben Schumacher
Shapewise, the Tamiya kit is still by far the best 32nd scale Tomcat on the market. Great job so far, I'll be watching closely!

Sarunas D
Thank you, Ben. It's better not to be in a hurry with this kit and dry-fit everything before gluing. I assembled the wings too quickly and now I have additional sanding to do 😄

Sarunas D
I wrote in the project description that I didn't plan to rescribe the rear fuselage. But because of the lower fuselage and intake fit it looks like I'll be forced to rescribe the raised details that will be destroyed by sanding...

Carl Boehm
Looking great so far!

Sarunas D
Thanks! Got slowed down with sanding and filling the joint between radome and front fuselage. Hoping to move forward soon.

Maciej Bellos
Following!

Sarunas D
Maciej, welcome!

Sarunas D
Roland, thanks for joining.

In certain ways this kit is really good - the overall fuselage shape is accurate, the armament is correct for the Bombcat version. Another great feature is the swing-wing mechanism, strengthened by metal parts and screws - once top and bottom of fuselage is assembled you have a sturdy and reliable swing mechanics. And metal landing gear parts to support this large jet. And nice decals.

However, there are other serious issues with the kit, like decals for cockpit instruments, raised panel lines on almost all surfaces, fictitious panel lines at the front of the fuselage. The fit of major sub-assemblies is really bad. It requires a lot of dry fitting, and filling and sanding afterwards. Many details are lost to sanding, so the fuselage really needs a full rescribe in order to look good. I already started rescribing the part between the vertical tails.

This kit is for those who want to do some "dirty" work and improve their skills. I have a quality that I'd better work on a crap kit and complete it as best and as clean as possible. Considering a modeller enjoys this kind of build, it's still hard to recommend the kit - the kit and Eduard cockpit PE (decals for instruments in the kit) cost about 200$ with shipping costs. So in conclusion, I'd build one of these for sports and improvement, but after that I'd just get Trumpeter versions - Tamiya is simply asking too much $$$ for the level of quality that's in the box.

Thanks for the group build link. I'll go check it out. It's almost the middle of the year, not sure if I'll finish the kit this year 😄

Ben Schumacher
Nice work so far! Still, the Tamiya kit is the only accurate one on the market - at least shape wise. And it's so much easier to add a few groove lines than correcting the massive shape issues of the Trumpeter kit...

Sarunas D
Ben, thanks for your reply. Yeah, the Tamiya kit is better shape-wise. I just wish they would update their moulds to at least have detail in the cockpit and engraved panel lines everywhere.

Ben Schumacher
The best would be if they'd upscale their excellent 1/48th scale kit - the problem is they are still literally printing money with the o.d kits whose moulds are paid since an eternity...

Alexander
Looking good so far, curious how it will look when finished, especially with all the issues you already mentioned. I guess you're probably not finished with all the fit problems, hopefully the landing gear will fit fine and not be skewed 😄 . Even being a 2003 kit, I would have expected something considerably better from Tamiya.

Sarunas D
Ben, that's true. I think they definately can upscale their 48th scale kit!
Alexander, thanks. Well it won't be as precise and detailed as Masa Narita's build of the kit into a F-14D, lol! Most of the kit is actually 40 years old, only weapons and exhausts were updated!
This kit is again on hold so I down burnout myself, lol. I'm doing a few simple kits to keep my skills fresh. But when I return I'll finish rescribing it!

Alexander
Oh yeah, just checked the history of the kit, well..
But yeah, I assume there is only so much sanity one can have when dealing with problems of this caliber. Better being grounded for a while than having only one flight, lol.