Greetings!
Herewith my current build of the 1/48 Academy F-14A.
It’s a rebox of their Tomcat apparently with new molds. I was given one as a B’day present some 30years ago, (Top Gun was all the rage at that time) but as I was only 7 yrs old then, I only managed to glue it together without much detailing and no painting at all.
Now abound with much nostalgia, I decided to make a serious attempt to build and I am going to make it to represent “Cougar’s” bird, as everyone/everywhere has built Maverick’s mount.
Starting off with unpacking the kit, seems that the parts tree are quite slimy with mold lubricant, so I washed them in a detergent solution first.
As usual I started with the cockpit and generously weighed down the nose with nose weight to ensure that it doesn’t sit on its rear end once closed up.
I dry-fitted the fuselage havles as I remember that the Academy bird has some fitting issues and bound to be putty galore when it’s glued together, but may be it’s a “new mold”, seems that the fit is fairly snug . I started to airbrush the white stuff, such as undercarriage, wheel wells, missiles and most importantly the jet intakes, as it will be a nightmare to paint when affixed. Then I masked off areas pre-painted like the wing glove and engine nozzles.
Manage to get the black primer sprayed, but unfortunately the airbrush just gave up shortly after!
It just keeps blowing bubbles in the paint cup and no paint outflow, I tried to clean it completely and tightened up the nozzles etc., but no use at all, so I’ll need to go to my other workshop to change the needle/nozzle etc. to see if it can be repaired. So I’ll take a break from 1/48 to switch to 1/35 armour for the time being!
Hi there!
Having spent the weekend with family, great to be back at work on blue Monday!
Spent a couple of hours painting the VG wing and trying to do some scrubby effects on the wing root, to simulate the grime gathered when the wing is swept inside the wing glove most of the time (on deck/in hangar). Got this idea from seeing some kits having decals for this effect, but it doesn’t seems too realistic.
Then I started to close up the 2 halves and as feared, there are massive gaps in the nose and the leading edge of the wing glove between the top and bottom halves, despite dry fitting before, when it seemed to fit together. So out come the putty and dollops of it was rubbed onto the gaps and much elbow grease applied to sand them smooth.
Been away from this project for a while, for Rugby training sessions and just managed to make some little progress on the painting, overall not too satisfactory with the result, and also I’m hampered by the never ending abyss between the top halve and bottom halves of the fuselage that I used up half a tube of putty to fill, but with no success. So I guess that I had to move on and airbrushed the big kitty.
Topside I’ve used Tamiya XF-66 “Light Grey” to be an equivalent of FS36320 and XF-19 “Sky Grey” for FS36375 on the underside.
I’ve also painted the missiles and will use a 2xAIM-54+2xAIM-7 and 2xAIM-9 outfit.
Again I’ll have to leave this project for the time being and go back to the 1/35 CA-30/HQ-2 kits in progress at the other workbench, hopefully as all strategists desire, everything will be over before Christmas and the lads will be able to go home to their families!
At long last at the end of 2024, this project is “finished”, decals applied and missile pylons filled. Coincidence that the Academy kit was released some 35 years ago, and this is my 2nd attempt of this kit.
Still there are gaping holes in the fuselage that I gave up filling and also difficult after market decals.
Colours and Markings are of “Cougar’s” mount in the 1986 movie Top Gun and the kit is completely built out of the box.