1/32 F-14A: Bending it to my will

[mconnelley]

My next large scale build will be the 1/32 F-14A by (sigh) Trumpeter.  

 

Here's the obligatory picture of the box, and some of the goodies that I've collected for it. I got the Teknics cockpit set ages ago with the idea of using it on the Tamiya kit.  More stuff is in the mail, and there are items that I plan to get but haven't ordered yet...

 

Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, or maybe Trumpeter has a knack for picking things I like.  But they always do one thing that just boggles the mind.  I'm wrapping up the 1/350 USS Enterprise, and on that kit it's the hull plating.  On this kit, it's the intakes, which is where I've decided to start.  

[geedubelyer]

Good luck with this one. 

 

Any plans to address the wonky intake mouths or just put up with them?

[mconnelley]

Dear Mr. Trumpeter:  The intake of an F-14 is just a rectangle.  This is actually a pretty easy shape.  

 

 

Let's see how we did:

 

The bottom isn't parallel to the top lip, the sides aren't perpendicular to either, the bottom of the intake lip is wider than top front lip, and the 'roof' inside of the intake (near the air exit vent) is twisted.  On top of that, the bottom corners are too square and the edges of the lip are too flat.  There are other things amiss in this area, but that'll do for now.  

Edited March 10, 2025 by mconnelley
Changed "are" to "aren't"

[mconnelley]

Let's deal with each of these problems in turn:

 

Problem #1) Width of the bottom is wider than the top by about 3 mm.

My solution #1) I decided to make the bottom of the intakes narrower.  Making the top wider would make the front pointy parts of the intake wider than the matching part of the upper lip, so that's out.  I cut a V out of the bottom of the intake, about half way to where the internal duct part attaches, since I didn't want to mess up that interface.  At the base of the V, I cut a cross slot to provide relief for the plastic that pivots aft as I pinch the side walls inwards.  

 

 

Problem #2: The sides aren't parallel to the bottom

My solution #2: I just used good old fashioned brute force with some pliers to bend the side walls to be perpendicular to the bottom.  I did this gradually, checking with a square periodically, but otherwise there's nothing fancy here.  

 

Problem #3: Corners are too square.  The front face of the bottom lip is also too square.

My solution #3:  I took care of most of this with just a file.   The inner corner is trickier.  I glued in a block of sheet plastic, used a Dremel to rough in a concave curve, then went in with files to finish shaping the curve.  A generous amount of putty blends it all in, especially aft to the inner duct part.  

 

   Here's what things look like afterwards:

 

[Squizzy 78]

Having done this kit years ago, I was lucky at the time to have the zacto models intake to correct the issues with the Trumpeter intakes. That’s not possible now, but what a great fix you’ve come up with! I’ll enjoy watching this build 

[mconnelley]

    Lately I've been working on the 'ceiling' of the intake.  This is the area that the ramps attach to and has that square opening for the air to exit the vent on the top of the plane.  The picture below illustrates the nature of the problem.  On the left side of the picture, you can see that the aft part of the 'ceiling' (where the square exit vent is located) is twisted relative to the front edge of the intake.  On the right side of the picture, the problem has been fixed.  

 

 

 

   On the inboard side of the 'ceiling' there is this wall of plastic connecting the 'ceiling' to the belly of the fuselage.  I decided to cut out a section of this so that the wall can be shortened, to allow the inboard side of the 'ceiling' to go up to take out the twist.  

 

 

   Here is what it looks like with the section removed, and glued back together.  One thing I did was to twist the 'ceiling' part with a fair amount of brute force.  If you just glue the 'wall' together, then it'll pull down on the fuselage as much as it'll lift up on the 'ceiling' (pesky Newton's Third Law), and you won't get as much twist-fixing action.  I twisted the 'ceiling' unit it looked parallel with the front edge of the intake, then glued it.

 

 

Mike

[mconnelley]

   The kit wants you to install the intake ramps partly down/closed, but I wanted them as open as possible.  At this point, it'll surprise no one that it took some brute force twisting to get the aft end of the fore ramp parallel with its front end.  I also did some bending to straighten it out front-to-back.  For the aft ramp, I shortened the actuator piston, and added a shim under the inboard aft corner so that its front edge would be parallel with the front ramp.  So far so good, but you'll notice a huge space between the inboard edge of the ramp and the belly of the fuselage that is not closed by the intake part.  Since the kit expects the ramps to be somewhat closed, the inboard intake wall only goes up just far enough to close this space with the ramps in that position.  

 

 

   The solution is to add to the inboard edge of the intake wall.  I traced the profile onto some thick sheet styrene, cut it out, glued it on, and blended it in with a lot of putty.  I had to cut a notch at the back tp get clearance around something.  This wall now slides neatly between the ramps and the belly of the fuselage.  

 

Mike

 

[Oldbaldguy]

To my limited knowledge, there are three LSP F-14s out there - Tamiya, Revell and Trumpeter.  I’ve yet to build any of them altho I have at least two. Do the others have these same wonky intake issues or is it limited to Trumpeter?

[Dave Williams]

1 hour ago, Oldbaldguy said:

To my limited knowledge, there are three LSP F-14s out there - Tamiya, Revell and Trumpeter.  I’ve yet to build any of them altho I have at least two. Do the others have these same wonky intake issues or is it limited to Trumpeter?

This is mostly a trumpeter issue.  The old Revell kit has very simplified intakes and the Tamiya kit intakes are OK.

[John B]

Well done on the engineering fix to the intakes, a lot of Modelers out there will thank you. Thanks for sharing your work.

JB

[Grunticus]

What a nifty and ingenious way to tackle the issues with the intakes! If you were a pilot your helmet would read "Brute Force Mconnelley" 😀 JK of course, I really admire how you improved it so dramatically in this clever way! And, it's a Tomcat. No-brainer me likes.

[Aigore]

I'm taking notes... love the way you are tackling this issue!

[Phil Smith]

Great work on solving a tricky problem. 

 

(I'm also quite interested in how you came along on the 1/350 Big-E, as I recently dusted that one off and it has distracted me a little from my 1/32 Bf-109 and F4U.)

Edited April 18, 2025 by Phil Smith

[dsahling1]

A couple years back I did a super-detailed Tamiya 1/32 F-14D, I used lots of aftermarket and kit bashed for all kinds of things including some parts of the Zactoman intakes for the Trumpeter kit (it has the most detailed bleed air vents/"box") I used on the Tamiya kit.  I also used some parts of the Trumpeter kit  itself on the Tamiya (the wings) and they were practically a drop fit, only a slight modification was needed.  The reason I bring this up is you may want to try test fitting the intakes from the Tamiya kit I think you mentioned you may have, and see if they will fit on the Trumpeter kit.  As the Tamiya intakes are the correct shape; since it worked with some other parts it might work with other parts.  If so you could probably get a spare parts tree of the Tamiya kit on eBay or from tamiya direct so you can still do that tamiya kit later on if you'd like to.

 

Always glad to see more Tomcats!

 

Good luck!  Looking forward to seeing it come together

 

Dan

[Jim Barry]

That’s quite a wrestling match! Good work!