1/48 Hasegawa F-14B - Part 1

Everyone who builds modern Jets needs a F-14 in their cabinet so I've finally built up the courage to tackle Hasegawa's offering.

I've been collecting aftermarket for a quite a while, but until I actually got it all in one spot I didn't realise how much I actually had. 

Now obviously I'm not going to use all of this :) and I'm not sure which aircraft I'm going to model, but VF-103 is the early favourite.  

Here's the base kit. It's decal sheet is printed by Cartograf which is good as I definitely want to use the stencils. I think the same aircraft is on the Fightertown decal sheets which gives me some spares for the inevitable stuff up.

I'm also using this build as a reference and for inspiration, it's outstanding. Although I'm going to go to level John has.

First of all I fitted the gun vent. The fit is, to be blunt , crap.

This is the best image I've forund of the vent. Thanks to the owner (whoever you are). I'm not sure how I'm going to scribe this. Is there an aftermarket option?

I've run a scriber over the panel lines to deepen them slightly. I find the panel lines on some hasegawa kits can be a little shallow for my taste.

Originally I was going to use the Aionix F-14B set, but it was pretty disappointing from an accuracy and detail quality perspective so I went with  the Aires set. You can see a photo comparison with many of the issues here .

The biggest (most visible) things in the Aires set that needed correcting were the rear cockpit Tactical Information Display (TID)

 The pilots HUD
 

And the Lantirn Stick controller. For this I used a grip from the spares box , originally from a Hasegawa F-4.
 

 

As I'd already fitted the Avionix Tub, fitting the Aires one was pretty simple. There wasn't much grinding of the kit required, I just attacked the tub with my rotary tool removing the resin where it fouled on the kit pieces. I did thin the rear of the steps a little though.

 

This page has a good set of photos showing you what you need to remove from the kit and resin to get the tub to fit

I did get a bit carried away with the sanding stick and knife so I've got some filling to do. But I'll wait until the tub is glued in place before I fix this.

For a bit of break from playing with the resin I decided to paint the front wheel well. This need to be fitted before the front fuselage is put together so it has to be done sooner rather than later. The details isn't Aires, the to be honest I can do without the hassle Aires wheel wells bring

It's simply Tamiya flat white with details picked out with Vallejo paints. I also added a couple placards from a  Eduard F-4 Placard set

To be continued.