1/48 Hasegawa F-14B Tomcat - Part VIII

Decals complete, this took about 8 hours spread over 5 to 6 evenings

All decals went down well, except the 2 big diagonals on each side , which wrinkled badly. No amount of decal softener has helped. I've never ever experienced this from Fightertown / Mircoscale before. Unfortunately you cant see how bad it is in these photos

This side is just as bad. I'm not getting a warm and fuzzy about this

The same wrinkling affected the 2 drop tanks. These and the diagonals on the fuselage were the first decals I applied, And I used Microset/Microsol of those, but I used The Gunze Mr Sol/set and Tamiya Mark Fit on the others

I painted the silver ring with Model Master Chrome Silver

Here's some better photos after a clear coat. I was hoping the clear coat, which was Gaianotes Lacquer, was going to 'smooth things out. Unfortunately it made it worse.

The Drop tanks are OK, I managed to smooth the worst of wrinkles out, plus the worst bits are on the so they won't be seen.

The repair commences. First a little sanding to smooth things out

Same on this side. But then I thought , why not try and scrape the decal off.

Bad move. Now I have a trench to fill. This photo shows the first application of Alclad Spray Primer. I like this stuff for filling gaps when doing repairs like this. It dries fast, sands easily and spraying it makes it easier to flare in.

After what happened on the other side, I decided to just sand this side. I did scrape the stars and bars off earlier when attempting to replace the black section with a black parts from the kit decal sheet. But this wasn't successful.

Here we are after a careful sanding session> I used a Flory Models sanding sponge, I really like these for sanding as they take off a decent bit of material but leave a a nice smooth finish.

I think I'll need another thin primer coat, just to fill those last few depressions and then I can touch up the paint. I couldn't find either of the 2 Fightertown decal sheets that depict this jet so I've ordered a Jasime Models Sheet with this jet on it from eBay. I wonder if maybe they are knock offs of the Fightertown sheets, but I'm not prepared to strip the aircraft right back and do another jet at this late stage. They do appear to have each of the diagonals in different yellows which is correct. So I'm hoping they are useable.

1/48 Hasegawa F-14B Tomcat - Part VII

Yellow on. I used Mr Hobby RLM 04 as an undercoat with Mr Color FS13538 over the top. The anti Col lights are red resin super glued in and sanded to fit. The Hasegawa clear parts didn't fit

More grey shades and a test fit of the wings

Painted the EW antennas with a mixture of Tan and flesh (on the wing leading edge) The underside ones were brush painted with Vallejo Iraqi Sand. These vary in colour depending on the age so I didn't sweat the colour. In fact these look a little to uniform. I may mess them up a bit later.

Fitted the upper and lower position lights and painted with Tamiya Clear enamels. I've used enamels because as the base coat is lacquer/ acrylics I can easily wipe them off with white sprits if I stuff it up.

I need to paint a silver ring on the rear of the exhaust shrouds.. Not looking forward to this masking attempt. I may attempt to brush paint it with model master enamel paint. The Fuel dump tube was brush painted with Vallejo flat red

 Silver leading edge of the intakes done with Alclad Durallium

 Fitted the Arrestor hook assembly, however I've managed to break it on the line where I'd cut it it to shorten it.

And finally, the finished, for now, Aires exhaust Nozzles. These were painted with Alclad Pale burnt metal mixed with some Duralumin to try and reduce gold colour of the pale burnt metal. Then there was a marathon masking sessions to mask out the black paints with were painted with Tamiya Nato Black. The white ceramic is Tamiya XF2 flat white (is there a better white paint? If so I haven't found it) and a thin black wash was applied.

1/48 Hasegawa F-14B Tomcat - Part VI

Slowly plodding on with this. Managed to get a shot up it's bum

Primer on. I've used Mr Surfacer 1200 thinned with Lacquer thinners and sprayed through my airbrush

Another Hasegawa boo boo is the size of the camera pod. It should go all the back to the nose gear bay. I've used a bit of card and some filler to extend the pod to the correct length.

The F-14 has a green tinge to the centre panel of the windscreen. I chose to simulate this by airbrushing light coats of Tamiya Clear Green/X 22 Gloss thinned with Mr Color Thinners. This was my first attempt, to many coats so it's to dark. To remove it just use Isopropal Alcohol. This will not damage the plastic

Second attempt. Maybe a bit light. The hardest part is not getting any dust on it. I painted it on the inside of the windscreen as it should be less likely to get damaged during the rest of the build.

Pre shading, I'm not usually a fan of this, but the F-14 did get quite dirty, and light grey overcoat should mean I can get a decent result.

Happy enough the with finish that I can move onto the next stage. I've used the Mr Color and Mr Hobby Paints, called out in the instructions for the base coats. The other "50 Shades of Grey" are Mr Color, Mr Hobby and Tamiya from my extensive collection of grey paints

Before I do the back I have to fill the windscreen. I used normal cement, applied carefully to secure the windscreen. I'll used Perfect Plastic Putty to fill the gaps

Hours of masking, for 2 mins spraying - Still what choice do you have, its the only way to get the a good finish.

The Black is Tamiya NATO Black decanted from the Aerosol can and sprayed though my airbrush.

A few touch ups were needed after the masking came off. Particularly the rear of the black , which wasn't symmetrical 

Masked out the wheel wells, this took another 60 mins but worth it as I got a nice finish. After this dried I applied a black Wash. I couldn't be bothered going to town in there. Very little will be seen.

At the same time as masking the wheel wells I did the step wells. 

She now looks OK. Time to do the yellow (I hate painting yellow) and fit the clear anti col's