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

[mconnelley]

Hello:

   Thank you for all of the support and helpful comments. 

 

   Unfortunately I don't have the Tamiya F-14.  I had a few partly built ones (and a few Revell ones) with the idea of bashing one good model out of them a long time ago, but that didn't go anywhere.    

 

   Regarding the Big E, I have a build log over on the Modelwarships works-in-progress forum:  

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=351463

   The real 'why-did-Trumpeter-do-that?' head scratcher on the Enterprise kit is the hull plating, which is way over-scale.  It might be right for battleship armor plate, but not a carrier hull plating.  That was the main thing that put me off from doing the Big E for so long, despite it being one of my favorite ships.  

 

   Back to the Tomcat.  After a lot of filling and sanding, I painted the inside of the intakes today.  I used the 'flood it with house paint' technique, specifically white primer.  Once I paint the grey near the front, it'll be time to mount them up.  

 

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

 

   The two pictures below were taken when I was about done with the filling and sanding inside of the intakes.  I think I had a few one or two more rounds after I took the pictures.  They show the bit of plastic at the inner corner of each intake, to help make the inner corner more rounded, and the putty behind it to carry that larger radius aft.  A lot of putty also went to the area where the duct joined with the outer intake part, no so much because there was a large gap (but there was a bit of a gap), but more so because the two parts join in a shallow valley that I wanted to fill.  

 

 

 

   This last photo shows the intakes after painting.  I used house interior white primer, and a pipette to drip/run the paint down the walls until they were completely covered and the duct was partly flooded.  Then I took the tape off of the bottom that was sealing it to drain the flood, then wiped up drips that were collecting near the bottom.  In this picture they're hanging up drying, front end up to help the pain flow aft as it dries.  

 

 

Next step: More intake painting and then installation.  

 

Mike

 

[Oldbaldguy]

I’ve read about this technique for painting intakes for years but have yet to get it to work for me.  Obviously I am not holding my mouth right while attempting it because yours turned out just fine.

[iaf-man]

Any follow on?

[mconnelley]

Hello:

   I've been focusing on getting the F-8 finished.  Decaling is done, next is flat coat and some light weathering.  Your regularly scheduled programming should resume in a few weeks.

 

Mike

 

[mconnelley]

Hello:

 

   I'm declaring victory on the intakes.  The intakes are glued on now.  Here's a look at where things are:

 

This is the inside of the lower fuselage.  The flat area between the engines wasn't that flat, and was distinctly wavy front to back.  I added a brass U-channel piece that was originally meant to be the wing spar on a 1/72 P-3.  That ought to keep the bottom of the fuselage nice and flat, and add a bit of stiffness.  

 

Here's a look up the intake, showing the internal ramp and the gray/white paint transition.  The intake part was quite tight over the white internal ramp part (probably because I narrowed the intake).  After I installed the outer intake, I needed to reach in with some needle nose pliers to straighten out the internal ramp part, hence the paint got a bit messed up.   

 

I ended up with some big gaps between the inner walls of the intakes and the bottom of the lower fuselage.  Nothing that couldn't be solved with a bunch of little bits of sheet plastic.  I suspect that this is due to all of the hacking that I've done.  I'll eventually smooth things over with putty.  

 

So how did we do?  Here's the head-on shot:

I'm pretty happy with how this came out.  Not perfect, but it looks a lot more like it's supposed to.  I hope that this can serve as a guide to others who might want to correct the intakes on this kit.  

 

    Moving forwards with this project, literally, to the cockpit area, where a lot of things have already happened in the background.

 

Mike

 

[mconnelley]

Hello:

   

   This is where things stand with the cockpit.  My immediate goal is to close up the front fuselage.  I'm using the old Teknics resin cockpit set.  I got this ages ago, and it's made for the Tamiya kit, so getting it into the Trumpeter kit is a bit of the 'square peg in a round hole' problem.  
 

 

   Looking at this photo, the pilot's seat might be a bit too high...

 

   Now without the wind screen:  

 

 

   A lot of the work has been trying to get the resin parts in the right place.  I think I've got the front instrument panel / dash board at about the right height.  

 

 

Mike

Edited January 4 by mconnelley

[mconnelley]

Hello:

   

   Here's what actually needs to be in there in order to close up the front fuselage.  The instrument panels, and even the rudder pedals, come in from above.  I'll add those things later.  

 

 

   The Teknics cockpit is made of two large casting blocks: one for the front seat and one for the rear.  One of the challenges is figuring out how these two parts should be located relative to each other, and relative to the fuselage parts.  The aft deck (where the canopy hinge is) also took a fair bit of tweaking, to get it on at the right angle, and to put a bend in it to match the fuselage sides.  

 

 

   This picture shows a lot of what had to happen to get the cockpit to fit.  I needed to build up the nose wheel well to have a place to set the two main castings.  Note the stacks of white sheet plastic to set the height of the cockpit parts.  I also cut away a lot of the parts for the gun bay and electronics bay to help get the cockpit to fit (I had no interest in displaying that open anyways).  Also note the sheet plastic aft of the rear cockpit that is there to define the location of the rear cockpit casting.  It took a long time to get this all figured out, but now I'm quite happy with the fit and position of everything.  

 

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

   Gun vents:  These F-14A's got the later NACA style gun vents.  I bought the sprue for the F-14B/D kit for just these parts.  

 

   I had no interest in displaying this stuff open, so my goal was to get a good fit on the 3 parts relative to each other and to the fuselage.  I first glued the three gun cover parts together, in an attempt to get good alignment between those parts.  Then I tackled the gaps between the covers and the fuselage, mostly with thin sheet plastic.  The white strips at the upper edges of the gun bays are the plastic strips that I added to close the gaps.   

 

 

  Here's what it looks like with the gun covers in place.  The color of the replacement parts is slightly different from the rest of the kit plastic.  The remaining gaps will be filled with white glue.  

 

 

Mike

[Biggles87]

I thought that the Hasegawa 1/48 F-14 was a difficult build but it was a walk in the park compared to this monster.

Great work so far, are you humming Tom Lehrer’s ‘Masochism Tango’ while building it?

 

John. 🇺🇦

 

 

[mynameismatt]

Great job on this build, keep going!!
I've got a  1/32 Trumpeter F-14D in queue after a 1/48 F7U cutlass. Luckily, I managed to snag some Zacto intakes for it, but it's so good to see the correction you've done yourself!
Do you intend to tackle the mad riveter that went nuts on the forward fuselage?

[Marcel111]

A beast of a build, but you're tackling it!

 

Marcel

[mconnelley]

On 1/7/2026 at 2:00 AM, Biggles87 said:

are you humming Tom Lehrer’s ‘Masochism Tango’ while building it?

 

   Usually it's more often 'Danger Zone'.  That's still my favorite opening scene of a movie.  'Danger zone' is, in its own way, an appropriate description for this kit; there's a clear and present danger to your modeling mojo (perhaps one's own sanity as well).  And there's also danger to kit having a high velocity interaction with the wall.   

 

   I don't think I'm at the 'Masochism Tango' level of having a toxic relationship with this kit.  But let's check back in a little while...I think I can see some rough spots ahead.

 

Mike 

[mconnelley]

Hello:

 

   Recently the goal has been to get the nose halves together.  The fit is ok, but to help make sure there aren't steps at the seams, I've added alignment tabs where needed.  I put these where I saw a step, and I put them on the high side to help bring that side down (or the other side up).  I put the bulkhead in that supports the radar just to reinforce the front part of the nose assembly.  

 

 

 

   Just for fun, I decided to put the lower missile 'tray' (part E6) on the underside of the nose, just aft the the nose wheel bay.  This fit ok, with a few tabs.  I also started gluing at the front end, and adjusted alignment as I worked my way aft.  When I test fitted the nose assembly to the aft fuselage, this is what greeted me:  

 

 

  The misalignment is about 1.5 mm.  I suppose at this point it would have been a bigger surprise if it fit well.  Sigh...

 

Mike

 

[Biggles87]

Oh #&*%! Good luck sorting that out, I think you’re going to need it.

 

John. 🇺🇦