Grumman F-14 Tomcat

Patrick Hagelstein This is the first look I ever had at the infamous Fujimi 1/48 Tomcat and yes, it's a kit I would stay away from...

Patrick Hagelstein Their 1/72 version on the other hand is a very close rival to the Hasegawa one!

Steve H. It has a very weird combo of raised and recessed panel lines , strange kit .

Patrick Hagelstein Indeed!

Konrad Limmer Watching this

Urban Gardini Felix Rules!

Patrick Hagelstein I'm in!

Pierre Thank you all for your interest. This is a classic kit and scheme I have been wanting to do since I was 12, hopefully I don't botch it!

In any case, it isn't gonna be a fast build, given the kit complexity and the crazy temperatures around here which prohibit any kind of spraypainting right now.

Marko Nice. I've done it, and I enjoyed it very much. Excellent kit to work on. I've done mine in flight. Will be watching.

Martin Oostrom Oooh! This I want to see

Jos Jansen Interesting to follow, I've the same kit in my stash....I

Marko Nice. Count me in.

Michael Hickey You're all welcome aboard.

Jos Jansen Great plane, great new kit from Tamiya...definitely following!

Patrick Hagelstein All of those kits have their benefits and 'shortcomings'.
Hasegawa: Can be built for cat launch and is well engineered but fiddly in places.
Fujimi: Can also be built for cat launch but is just a little bit less detailed than the Hasegawa one but builds up more easily.
FineMolds: The wings are closed up but everything else can be built opened up for a maintenance scene. Overall better detailed but the panel lines need some getting used to. As with the Hasegawa one this kit doesn't come with weapons but if you get the extra weapons set this is the set with the most modern weapons and a great LTS pod.
Overall all these three kits build up really nice with varying effort and can be turned into detailed masterpieces just OOB. Let's see what GWH and Academy come up with hopefully this year!

Cuajete Thanks Patrick!
I forgot that also Academy release a new mold. Good news!
Weapons set you mention is from FineMolds?

Patrick Hagelstein Yes, it's FP31 which numbers directly in between FP30, the older type F-14A and FP32, this mid 90's edition.

Cuajete Thanks again Patrick. You think this set is better than Eduard's weapon sets? (Phoenix, AIM-9, AIM-7...)

Patrick Hagelstein I haven't seen the Eduard set in person but for injected styrene the FineMolds set is really crisp.

Cuajete

Scott Higginbotham The decals for FineMolds weapons look good too.

Cuajete Thanks Scott

Patrick Hagelstein Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Tomcat!!! I'm in!

Cuajete Me 2.

Patrick Hagelstein Looking at your cover picture, that would actually be cool to do. A sparkling new and unweathered Tomcat prototype. Gets me thinking...

Martin o well yes, my fascination with early block alphas will probably never allow me to get to a TPS build.. also, the vf-1s will be brand new, more decals though..

Patrick Hagelstein Nice, bring it on! In the meantime I ponder about that prototype idea......

Ekki Following.

Martin o actually the aircraft in the picture is a later production alpha. It has new beaver tail, gun vents and alpha probe. these three details by themselves are fairly easy to find even in 1/72 but the first six(?) prototypes had different, rectangular wing glove sealing plates and larger wing glove fences on top of the fuselage. These details are available in 1/48 for the Tamiya kit (at least I saw them somewhere) but would have to be scratchbuilt in 1/72. also, welcome gentlemen

Patrick Hagelstein Yes, now I see it. Well, liking that picture as such with the spotless paint job, no markings and only some dirt from the wing gloves, I think I should be able to build it only using an FP30 or a Hasegawa one. I only need to find/build those finned drop tanks.

Martin o I will be looking forward to that

Martin o yes please

Patrick Hagelstein I've got the aftermarket stuff in. I only need some plastic to slap it onto. I preordered the Tamiya F-14D kit as it comes as close to the updated F-14A VF-154 used in the end. I might wait for the AMK kit though to see which of the two is the better detailed and better buildable.

Michael Phillips Count me in on this one for sure!

Patrick Hagelstein Welcome Michael! I have a special task for you though: Guide me through this to reach just a fraction of your level, that would be really appreciated.

Michael Phillips Ha, I am sure you can reach that level with ease! I have built the Tamiya Tomcat, so I can advise that it is a REAL pleasure to build. Seriously, it is the most pain-free build I have encountered (30 total models now). I love the markings you chose, so this will be sweet! If you have any questions or requests for tips when you get to this, just feel free to give me a shout. I will be glad to lend any assistance I can!

Clifford Keesler I'm in.

Clifford Keesler I'm sure the AMK kit will be less expensive. From the CAD drawings I have seen of it, it looks nice.

Patrick Hagelstein Welcome aboard Clifford! And thank you Michael for the encouragements! I'll be picking your brain for sure during this build!

Konrad Limmer Cool ! Count me in as well.

Patrick Hagelstein Cool! Welcome Konrad!

Patrick Hagelstein Let's go!

Martin o yes 1/72 tomcats! never a bad thing

Martin Oostrom Hold your horses, especially Patrick
First some things to finish; F-100, XF-13, TBD-1, before starting something new.

Patrick Hagelstein Aha! Well, my progress is nonexistent at the moment... I'm in the Netherlands for family visits without any kit on my hands.

Cuajete Following!

Brian Fruit FolloWING

Patrick Hagelstein Count me in!

Martin o interesting. how much do you plan to open? just the OOB details or more?

Patrick Hagelstein I'm in! I'm in! I'm in! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Patrick Hagelstein Reminds me that I really have to post some new pictures...

Harry Eder Interesting topic!

Murad ÖZER here.

Ekki I'm in.

Donald Dickson II Yep, I'm in.

Florent Thouret I. am. in.

Cuajete Me too!

Dave Flitton Me 3!!

Konrad Limmer Of course nothing will excuse this once you miss it. I'm in too sorry Dave 4.

Patrick Hagelstein F-14 Tomcats (Microscale AC72-0044, 1:72)
Wouldn't just any Fujimi F-14A combined with the above decals work? The Fujimi F-14 is very fine. On par with the Hasegawa one but in my opinion a lot more buildable because of a less fiddly set-up.

Martin o well, any VF-1 decals are quite difficult to get so I thought I would get two birds with one stone.. will have to give that idea up i guess

Cuajete Also have the following decals:
F-14A VF-1 Wolfpack [The Fir..] (MYK Design A-72087, 1:72)

Academy's kit with VF-1 decals:
F-14A (Academy 12504, 1:72)

Or Airfix kit if you can get it cheaper for obtain the decals:
Grumman F-14A Tomcat (Airfix 05013, 1:72)

Cuajete In fact you have all these options in kits and decals:

SCM Search: 1:72 vf-1 wolfpack*

scalemates nice search

Martin o yes. all of these are very difficult to get/insufficient quality/wrong time period. Whats in the Fujimi box is just perfect for me so I wanted to kinda test the waters to see if it would be obtainable.

Choppa Nutta haha, is that bad of a fit ?
ah well, the practice will do me good !

Michael Hickey Well after viewing Cliffy's Cat I think I need a piece of humble pie. He done a nice job.

Choppa Nutta Reading through the review it does have some shortcomings but for the price and the addition of some cheap PE for the cockpit, also it was a new tool in 2002 so not that old at all really and I've got a rivet wheel !

Feeling tempted actually

H. Wi Still nobody able to tell if the new Tamiya cat can be built overswept or not?

Markus Antonius what does overswept mean?

Patrick Hagelstein Markus, overswept means that the wings are completely folded for storage or moving around on a flight deck. Overswept means that the wings hang marginally over the stabilizers, so no movibg of those is possible.

Markus Antonius ahh i see! never recognised this in photographs of tomcats in carrier-bays... thanks patrick!

Mathijs Beenhakker Markus The F-14's wing sweep can be varied between 20° and 68° in flight and for storage on deck or hangar they had the oversweep of 75 degrees

Patrick Hagelstein Shouldn't be any problem. The doors are all separate and knowing Tamiya in exactly the same size as their corresponding openings.

Markus Antonius ok, but it is not intended in the instructions? thanks anyway

Patrick Hagelstein Who needs instructions anyway?...

Ekki Watching.

Michael Phillips Uh oh, Murad's doing a Tomcat! I gotta watch this one!!!

Murad ÖZER Guys thanks a bunch but this no one will be a no show, i bought the kit for it's decals.

besides this italeri kit i built many times i consider it not even as a kit, simply awful probably the worst tomcat in this scale out there.

Martin o I actually buy a lot of kits for decals as the standalone decals cost about the same The Gunfighter is certainly a kickass topic.

Murad ÖZER yup i am meaning to do a proper vf124 outta this with a hase or probably hobbyboss depending on the price/availability

Patrick Hagelstein That's a build I want to follow! I'm building it too waiting for my order of FP-32 to arrive.

Gluefinger Unbelievable - more than a year has passed since I wrote my comment above. And still no product in sight. Good thing Tamiya is coming to the rescue with a D now.

Florian Ayers Maybe they're fine tuning the mold to make it perfect. AMK's attention to detail is really superb, so I don't blame them if they want to maintain their high quality standard.

I'm annoyed as well, but I have 100 other models to take care of first.

Augie Oh well, plenty of time to build the rest before its released

Urban Gardini I'm glad that I haven't pre-ordered the kit...

Maciej Bellos Following! It will be a BIG bird!

Michael Hickey Cool... Having built this myself I'm down for this one. Such a beautiful scheme.

Michal Richter Hi, Tomcat is beautiful in every scheme This one is still future project.

Michael Hickey That is true.

Oliver Peissl Sehr schön geworden mein junger Padawan!

Es-haq Khosravi Nice to see another Iranian bird standing in line in your schedule!

Dutch Es-haq, Actually I built this one as a teenager back in the late 1970s. I just added it this week because I remembered it when I looked at my F-4N VF-142 project and realized that I used the "NK" and "VF-142" from the F-14 decals. Sorry, but I do not think I have any photos of it and all my models from that era have long since disappeared. I remember that I used the IIAF decals from the ESCI F-5A sheet. It was fun painting the Asia Minor camouflage scheme. R/ Dutch

Konrad Limmer Eine sehr sehr schöne Tomcat! Bericht auf Modellversium schon durchgesehen!

modellversium.de Und wir freuen uns natürlich immer über neue Einsendungen unserer Leser !

Konrad Limmer Werde daran arbeiten !

Kevin Ekstrom The kit builds into a great replica with some elbow grease. It's not really a starter kit, just a kit that needs some muscle to make it shine, and having that muscle to make it into a winner goes way beyond being a so called "starter kit". I don't believe in the moniker "starter kits", it's a fallacy calling any kit a starter kit. It comes down to degrees of difficulty in the build and the effort the model builder is willing to put into it. Just because a kit is sparse does not mean it wont shine.