Sergej I
Wow... sadomazo... full respect and admiration of your effort.
Can't wait you start scribing. Pls record all, the teaser did it's job!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Sergej! In the end I decided to only rescribe very little. Like not more than 10 specific lines. The rest is gonna remain flat

Sergej I
Interesting! Can't wait to see it painted.

Patrick Hagelstein
Fujimi pilots are pretty nice. Quickboost also has a set of pilots already attached to GRU-7s.

Patrick Hagelstein
Pilot and Operator (Aerobonus 720 027, 1:72)
Sorry! Aerobonus...

Martin von Schreckenstein
hey Patrick, aerobonus pilots are already in. pictures incoming!

Martin von Schreckenstein
uploaded the pics of the aerobonus pilots. They almost look too good for this kit. I glued the canopy closed, masked it and did some sculpting to improve the fit. I also started on the paintjob but covering the black base with all that bright paint is a lot of work so i'm gonna start with white surfacer first. I will try to make the skunk stripe with masking only but I have little faith for this

Patrick Hagelstein
Gotcha!

Martin von Schreckenstein
I progressed on the Lutzow as well. No pictures there yet tho

Dave Flitton
Nice start!!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thanks Dave!

Martin von Schreckenstein
I finally managed to spray the hangar. With the basic details on the deck complete, I will be able to finally put the two pieces together and seal the deal with the elevator. Looking forward to starting with all the details, the kit looks pretty basic right now.

Norbert Steffens
Hi Martin,

great. I'm in...

Martin von Schreckenstein
The deck is now on the hull. The details I am adding are mostly inaccurate, sadly. Gotta use up those PE parts. Putting the 1/700 crewmen on will be fun

Martin von Schreckenstein
After going mad several times from gluing the railings, the LSO post, rigging and stern lights are the last details separating me from the last and most anticipated build part. The small crewmen. The tiny metal sailors are overjoyed about hopping aboard their ship soon.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Casting the Trackers/Tracers. Depending on how they go I am thinking of replacing the Greyhounds entirely to have the scene more accurate.

Martin von Schreckenstein
The casting wasn't looking well so I opted for the Greyhounds. I am slowly adding the tiny figures with the tower and the left side of the hull remaining. After that, its only the rigging.

Andrew P
Nice, clean build on your carrier. I like the activity.
One thing, though: I don't think Antietam ever operated with C-2s. Even if she did, she wouldn't have carried more than one or two at a time. Don't forget, they are utility aircraft, only used for COD (not for strike), and not a normal part of the airwing. Carriers typically deployed with a 2-plane detachment from the shore-based squadron.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Andrew. I know, I just wanted to make the deck super busy and C-2s were the only things I could find in large numbers.. I found out later that there are like 60% of all Greyhounds ever built on that deck.. Oh well.. It looks nice

Andrew P
In that case, let's just pretend that VRC-40 was out in force doing squadron-level carrier refresher training on CV-36! She does look nice.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Haha, yes Andrew. That was my reasoning. A crowded deck ops exercise. Thank you for your kind words.

Bart Goesaert
very nice work on this one.

Ata Turgay
Nice weathering and details

Maciej Bellos
Following!

Roland Gunslinger
Very nice black cat

Spanjaard
nice cat, I hope stays long in one piece

Tom M
very nice flyer

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Roland, Spanjaard and Tom!

Łukasz Gliński
Lovely! The orange one as well

Slavo Hazucha
Came out really nice Particularly the upper side metal & surface finish has a very good MiG-feeling to it! Your method really worked, good job!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Łukasz and Slavo. I am very happy about the result myself . The MiGs look nice together too. Next one will be dark and camouflaged 8208 fresh from repairs at Dresden

Neuling
I agree with Lukasz and Slavo.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Well then I thank you too Neuling!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Posting results of my Alclad coating efforts. In the end my full panel preshade was toned down to a very subtle effect. I like how the difference in panel color and surface reflection varies depending on the observing angle. From the top, the dark panels are actually quite prominent but against the sun/light the difference is negligible. I have also dimmed the gloss on the darker panels and on the nose with flat base.

I will now continue with some more highlights (the nozzle mainly) and decals.

Łukasz Gliński
That panel differentiation looks grand. I tried to have it on my MiG-15, but ended up with much stronger effect.

Alexander G.
I can't believe it, I had literally the same idea for painting my Tu-128!!
Thought about this "panel checkerboard preshading" and then thin coats of Metal color. Now I am speechless

Looking good btw these Eduard kits are such a pleasure to build...

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Lukasz and Alexander. Can't wait to see the results of this technique on your Tu-128 Alex!

Alexander G.
No, now I have to come up with something else

Slavo Hazucha
Came out really nice, will definitely keep this in mind when I stumble about into a NMF-story... looking forward to the finale

Martin von Schreckenstein
Finishing up here and I really love the look. Gonna put it on its own legs today, add the small detail and maybe some varnish work as well to seal some of the decals.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Project completed. Album with a little bonus here: Complete | Album by mnn (1:72)
Thanks everyone for support and advice.

Martin von Schreckenstein
My compressor broke and then was fixed and I moved a little further with painting. The painting though was just procrastination from the looming task I have been putting off. Finishing the decals.. Should focus on that tbh.. anyway, the paintjob is a good base with some more work to be done. I put the wash down now though as I plan on toning it down a little when the fuselage is assembled and blending paint layer and highlights are put down.

Gareth Burge
Watching with interest, looks good

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Gareth!

Treehugger
The white on gray looks lovely I think, and all the panel lines looks nice too.

Gareth Burge
Agreed Treehugger. Am still struggling with panel lines looking neat, despite following several YT guides!

Andrew P
Nice work so far. Watching with interest.

Slavo Hazucha
Ah, another small one!

Looking good, nice lines and clean build & (so far) finish

Patrick Hagelstein
Darn! I've been missing out for a while... Great stuff going on here Martin!

Roland Gunslinger
Watching with interest.
I built the initial realease of the kit:

Messerschmitt Bf109E-4 (Airfix A01008, 1:72)

IMHO a great kit for the price.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Hello Roland! I would wholeheartedly agree but two things were very annoying. The clear canopy parts are quite bad with varying thickness, broken detail and bad fit, and some deep panel lines I had to fill to appear more realistic. The price is very inviting though.

As Emil is my favourite 109, I wanted to basically do an inflight formation in Airfix 1/72 109s but in the end I decided for a pair of Eduard kits instead.

I wish they made a 1/72 Emil on Eduard/Tamiya level of quality but all we have are Gustavs haha. Maybe in the future. I do not have much faith in the AZ upcoming Emil

Martin von Schreckenstein
nearing completion. have to add the small parts and i lost the tailwheel somewhere. gonna mount it on a stick in a small block of wood.

Pierre Rinck
great job love it!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Merci Pierre

René "Bilbo" Bartholemy
Nice build! I see nothing "sad" about it and I wish I could equal it...

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you, you are too kind Rene. The wires sometimes curled from clumsy application of glue, there are very numerous CA glue stains, the rigging mounts are all kinds of messed up, there are no turnbuckles.. I don't wanna bring it down so much, I love how it turned out but I feel these needed to be listed

Roland Gunslinger
Very nice, it's a beauty

Patrick Hagelstein
Looks great Martin!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thanks Roland and Patrick!I hope this build has prepared me well for my VF-1 Project

berni
I can't find any mistakes

Oleg Bogolei
Very nice model!

Daniel Klink
Wonderful Tomcat...

Juergen Klinglhuber
Tolle F14 ! nice

Mike Rogsch
Good job, Martin! I like the F-14 and you prototyp build too.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Berni, Oleg, Daniel, Juergen and Mike. You are very kind.

Neuling
Schön geworden!

Patrick Hagelstein
A real dirty girl! Splendid weathering Martin! One thing I might ask, did they have the BOL launchers already back then?

Oleg Bogolei
Very nice paint work!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thanks guys. The BOL launchers certaintly aren't on my reference picture but this being a late F-14A I just put them in there. I think the pic is from 94 so maybe not.

Patrick Hagelstein
Gotcha!

Łukasz Gliński
Wish my wife was so dirty Great job

Patrick Hagelstein

Neuling
Interesting weathering. Looks good!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thanks Łukasz and Neuling

Martin von Schreckenstein
More training for my VF-1 build. The vertical stabs are from a Hasegawa kit leftovers as the Fujimi kit inexplicably does not have them, despite having almost every other option in the box. going to seal this in clear varnish and then go on to polishing and washes. Thinking about how to do the reference tapes too. that is going to be difficult. thinking of spraying a decal sheet black and then just cut&apply the tape as a decal.

Roland Gunslinger
Oh, a cat! I'm in
That project was on my "To-Do" list , too. But i was to lazy and inexperienced printing the decals.
Now i'm happy that a cat-lover is implementing it

Martin von Schreckenstein
welcome Roland. I picked prototype number 10 precisely because I did not want to start another decal printing chase. Apart from the stencils of which I have plenty, this jet only needs the tail number 10 which I will mask.

Patrick Hagelstein
Just seeing this... In off course!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Build concluded. Gallery here Complete | Album by mnn (1:72)

Martin von Schreckenstein
TPS is so much easier to paint than hi viz..

Patrick Hagelstein
Man! You're putting these out like a factory assembly line!

Martin von Schreckenstein
wanted to do a little photoshoot to try and recreate my reference picture before putting the gear on and completing this build. I have to say my underestimating of the Hobbyboss kit was unfounded to say the least. I now firmly believe it is the best option for cheap 1/72 tomcat for an oob no nonsense build. the result is really great. it looks very much like a tomcat even with closed canopy (looking at you hasegawa), the build is pleasant, no crazy sanding was necessary (as opposed to Fujimi which I am building in parallel) so if I ever want to just put together a tomcat for some leftover decals, Hobbyboss may well be my go to option. I am gonna rewrite my reviews once I finish all my builds. only Finemolds and Academy left.

Patrick Hagelstein
Tony Oliver did a whole slew of them over at Britmodeler. A very interesting read and will definitely get you through another Corona-day. I can only agree, that's why I keep a couple of them spare for parked and intake covered decal options. The only downside is that they need some work mounting them in flight as the landing gear doors are molded open and the intakes are very basic. But....if one doesn't care or (and that's what I use them for) if the plane is to have covers over the intakes, this is the ideal Tomcat.

Patrick Hagelstein
'https://britmodeller.com/for..-172-hobbyboss-f-14-tomcats/'

Martin von Schreckenstein
Yes I saw that thread. incredible effort. guess I had to try myself. I have to aggree now. Also closing gear bays is gonna be difficult in every kit. I do not see the open molds as that big of a drawback considering the amount of effort needed anyway.

Patrick Hagelstein
True... I only found so few kits that can actually be built with gear doors closed. Even some Tamiya kits have that issue and they are known for their flawless fit. Positive example is the Hasegawa F-35A.

Roland Gunslinger
Nice! Thx for sharing!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thanks Roland. There are more pics trapped in my analog hipster camera. They will be added when the film is finished.

Maciej Bellos
Thank you for the photos and respect for the analog "hipster" camera. Got one on my own, pitty that I don't use it anymore.

Holger Kranich
Thx Martin, really cool!

Martin von Schreckenstein
You are welcome Holger and Maciej. I would like to carry my hipster camera with me all the time but it is a bit heavy and also I rarely find good things to snap. Like this Tomcat for example

Martin von Schreckenstein
I think the graph is wrong in this case. there is no way they would do this with the old tool

Cuajete
Thanks Martin... It's possible. ¥3920 in HLJ... A bit expensive to be old mold,
although it seems to include an emblem for the 2002 Mediterranean / Persian Gulf Cruise:

https://1999.co.jp/eng/10674855?utm_source=scalemates

Patrick Hagelstein
Nah... The old mold can only be built as an F-14A. The extra parts for a -B are designed for the new mold version.

Cuajete
Thank you, Patrick!

scalemates
can someone fix the timeline in that case please?

Patrick Hagelstein
Almost goofed it up but it should be correct now.

scalemates
thank you

Patrick Hagelstein

Martin von Schreckenstein
On the other hand, I firmly believe that, despite the mistakes we found, this is still better than what is available on the market. The entire squadron is there on the sheet! Nobody has that in this scale

Dominik Weitzer
super work on the decals! looking good in my view.
love the F14.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Thank you Dominik!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Hello, I am gonna be printing another sheet and I am looking through the original sheets to see if maybe there is something I could reuse. What do you guys think of the last pics in this album (#12-15)? The screenprint technology obv makes the edges a little fuzzy but the modex numbers at the very least are quite usable, no?

Patrick Hagelstein
As you said, the edges are a bit fuzzy but the modex numbers are crisp.

Spanjaard
Nice job on those decals

Martin von Schreckenstein
Going for round two on the decals. the new sheets will hopefully be picked up for printing by a very solid company everybody knows. Each sheet will have two jets on it too, including all the stencils. I am also making the instruction sheet for them.

Patrick Hagelstein
One modeler is interested for sure!

Roland Gunslinger
No why, but they were skipped:
anft.net/f-14/f14-squadron-cvw.htm

Michael Phillips
Interesting, I actually never noticed this despite my love of Naval Aviation. Here is an excerpt from joebaugher.com/navy_serials/navyserials.html where he discusses this:

According to one of my sources, the digits in the side numbers beyond the first one are in octal format (the digits going from 1 to 7, then from 10 to 17, 20 to 27, etc), with digits 8 or 9 never being used. This was supposedly done because maintenance actions were originally recorded on punched cards and had to be processed through IBM electronic accounting machines and computers which could only handle octal numbers. Curiously, the side numbers remain in octal format to this day even though computer systems have since been upgraded many times. However, I have seen side numbers beyond the first digit that do indeed have an 8 or a 9, so this restriction must not have been universal.

Another possible explanation for the origin of the octal side-number system is the nature of the early IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) systems. With the arrival of the Navy's E-2A airborne early warning aircraft, the side numbers changed from base-10 to base-8 numbering (e.g 500, 501, 502,..., 507, 510, 511, etc). The E-2As automatic tracking system required such a change, since its computers could only deal with base-8 numbrs. IFF is used by controllers for 'positive control'. There are several modes: two entered by the pilot at the direction of the controller, one for squawking altitude, and one reserved for military use. Early transponders were set by positioning toggle swithces ON or OFF, with there being four columns of 3 switches for a 4096 code or two columns of three for a 64-code. 4096 is the number of different four-digit numbers that can be created without using an 8 or a 9 and including 0000 which should never be used by airplane transponders. In such a scheme, there are 12 binary swiches. IFF can only handle three binary places, thus 8's and 9's are not used. IFF systems at that time (and I think they still do) used the octal system and the highest "squawk" in mode 2 was 7777, mode 1 and 3 was 77. Hence the appearance of octal numbering system on aircraft. There are no doubt a few reasons why octal rather than decimal is used, for one thing it accurately reflects the underlying "bit-oriented" nature of the codes. If decimals were used then for mode "A" (civilian, "3" military) only numbers ranging from 0 through 4096 would be useable, probably harder to understand than the ability to use any 4-digit number (0000-7777). Also, a previous military mode (mode "1") only allowed 6 bit codes (00-77), upward compatilbility is simplified if considered to be a doubling of the number of digits than if it were a case of suddenly being allowed to use numbers in the range 64 to 4096. The latest addition to radar technology, Mode-S, expands the squawk codes from 12 bits to 24 bits thus making it possible to permanently assign codes to individual aircraft without duplication. However, despite being a recent invention these codes are still represented using octal (as 8 digits) or hex (as 6 digits/letters).

Very interesting!

Martin von Schreckenstein
awesome stuff! thank you Roland and Michael!

Melchior
Heavy maintenance! I'm in!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Welcome!

Pierre
Wanna see where that project leads!

Martin von Schreckenstein
Welcome Pierre! Me too!

Calvin Gifford
Good luck! That album image looks like the hulk of a bird VF-154 gave to the USS Kitty Hawk when she arrived for ABE training! :-D

Patrick Hagelstein
I can totally understand your remarks on panel lines and rivets and see that a high gloss CAG bird doesn't need that particular level of detail. It's a different thing when going for a grimey beat up line bird; that's when all those details add up to the weathering and mottled look. Still, looking at this particular build: WOW!!! Just WOW! Really well done!

Martin von Schreckenstein
thank you!

Patrick Hagelstein

Oleg Bogolei
Looks fantastic!

Oleg Smilyk
Looks very nice!Well done!

Martin von Schreckenstein
thanks Olegs

Holger Kranich
Oh these beautiful lines! Well done Martin!

Calvin Gifford
Very nice looking Tomcat! Only one thing - VF-154 never flew the F-14D Supers. But if they had it would have looked just like your build!

Patrick Hagelstein
Today I received the kit! Not only did G.W.H. cut out the wrong vertical stabilizers (I can live with that, as my build had the scab plates retrofitted anyway) but also cut out the P&W engine (rounded) shrouds!!! The shrouds in this kit are the carbon fibre GE-110 (square) shrouds for the -B and -D..... Why go through ALL the hassle of cutting out those parts (I certainly think it's more labor intensive hence more expensive to cut the parts out than to leave 3 grams of plastic in the box) and ending up with an 'unbuildable' kit? WHY???.....

The AIM-54As look cool though...

Patrick Hagelstein
Otherwise I'm just totally flabbergasted by the insane level of detail now that I'm holding it part for part next to FineMolds offering.... The Hasegawa and Fujimi Tomcats are great kits coming from the late '80s. The FineMolds Tomcat blows those completely out of the water! Then comes G.W.H. with even more refined details and just those rivets and little thingies one would only see up close next to a real Tomcat. I have to come up with a solution for those missing parts but this is definitely the Tomcat I'm gonna build up as a detailed representation.

Simon Zhang
they are starting to send replacement parts in China

Patrick Hagelstein
Is there a way to contact G.W.H. from outside China then?

Simon Zhang
All I can find is an email address: marketing@lionroarmodel.cn

Patrick Hagelstein
Great! I'll give it a try!

Patrick Hagelstein
Well... Sent an email to Simon's address but heard nothing back.......

Pierre
So they basically cut the wrong sprues at the factory... Will be interesting to see whether there is any support for western customers.

Patrick Hagelstein
So, basically the gun vents and the refueling probe cover then?

Martin von Schreckenstein
yes, just that when they are inserted, they sink a little too much. I would maybe use something to put under them next time

Sergej I
In

Martin von Schreckenstein
The colors are on. some fixes still to do but varnish and decals are close now

Patrick Hagelstein
That is some serious masking there, Martin.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Not entirely happy with the wash so I am gonna try to take some of it off. Otherwise, the decals look nice and the cat stands on its own legs now

Patrick Hagelstein
Other than that, it's coming along really well!

Martin von Schreckenstein
This build is concluded! Pictures here! Complete | Album by mnn (1:72) thanks everyone for following, ecouragement and help!