Trumpeter F-14 Intake Fix on the cheap?

[Ryan]

Hello,

Thought I would start a separate topic for this as not to take over the other post about Trumpeter F-14 issues. When I bought this kit I went straight for the intakes to see if there was a fix for them rather than buying resin replacements. The biggest issue bugging me with the intakes is that the lower intake "floor" is not parallel with the top of the intake lip resulting in a twisted rectangle shape when viewed from straight ahead. Look at this first pic you can se that the lip and floor are not at the same angle.

image by The 3rd Placer, on Flickr}

Now here is a shot of the side I have corrected, note the upper and lower intake lips are now parallel...well very close anyway, this whole thing is held together with tape so you'll need to keep that in mind!

image by The 3rd Placer, on Flickr}

A head on shot of the intake fix...

image by The 3rd Placer, on Flickr}

Ok so how did I straighten it out, well here goes. After staring at the problem and thinking about it during work commutes I decided to approach it this way. Starting from the tape line I removed heavy 1/16" of plastic from the outboard side of the intake doing this slowly as not to remove too much material. This will allow you to glue the now shortened side to the intake ceiling and get those upper and lower edges parallel.

image by The 3rd Placer, on Flickr}

and closer..

image by The 3rd Placer, on Flickr}

Now after all of this and your still with me there is one last step...you will need to add a sliver of plastic to the face edge of the shortened side of the intake to make it the same angle as the one that is not shortened. If not your sanded intake side will fall short of the other one once glued up. I recommend doing one side at a time and making templates of the amount of plastic removed AND the sliver of plastic needed to add to the angle side of the part. I have not done that step yet in the pics...hope my description is clear.

So there you go at least you can true up the intake faces using this method. There is still much work to be done to finesse them into shape and this only fixes the intake shape at the front, I haven't even dove into the internal details, so keep this in mind.

Hope this is helpful, i'm not an expert on the F-14, just trying to correct a visible shape issue.

Ryan

Edited June 28, 2015 by LSP_Matt

[Guest Peterpools]

Ryna

 Nice fix to correcting the intake problem. I was thinking along those lines myself but decided to go with the Zacto correction set, as all he little extra goodies that are included, just kept calling my name.

Peter

[LSP_Ron]

Nice tip!

[Vitali]

Great tip and it will help those that don't want to or can't afford the Zacto intakes.

[Ryan]

Ryna

 Nice fix to correcting the intake problem. I was thinking along those lines myself but decided to go with the Zacto correction set, as all he little extra goodies that are included, just kept calling my name.

Peter

Yes Peter my kwik fix idea is nothing like the great work Zacto has done. Even if you just true up the faces as I described there is still a bunch of sanding and finessing to get them to look right. My motivation was what could be done as an OOB approach.

 

Thanks

Ryan

[LSP_Matt]

Great job Ryan.  I'm sure that will be appreciated.

 

I just added some tags to your thread topic title.  They can help when someone needs to search for this sort of tip in the future.

 

Cheers Matty

[Ryan]

Thanks Matt, should of did that myself.

 

I wanted to clarify something, in this shot the OUT BOARD SIDES are taped together, you will want to reduce the out board side only.

 

Pic could mislead someone that the intakes are sitting left to right, when really they are reversed. You would want to tape them together after you have sanded down the edge to mark the other intake to the correct height with a pencil.

 

image by The 3rd Placer, on Flickr

 

Ryan

[Ryan]

Actually did more work on this and will post pics soon.

[bushande]

A quite clever fix that is done pretty quick.

I would imagine, you put the kit part quite on a strain once glued to the fuselage?

 

However it is only a help for those that are not too anal about the Tomcat. Those intakes are just so messed up in not just one aspect. At least one other point that can be worked on in terms of a cheap fix: The intake lip does not just have the wronge angle, it is also too long extending from the angled sides of the intakes. However, you can reduce that at least a little by sanding it round and thin a bit. It's to fat and square anyways and thus has a lot of plastic left for that endeavour.

Edited August 21, 2017 by bushande

[Ryan]

Yes you are correct there will be a little strain as well as a little filler needed on the in board side as they meet the fuse, my taped up test seemed it wouldn't be a big deal.

 

And right again about the other issues.

 

Ryan

Edited February 16, 2018 by Ryan