karimb Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Good evening everyone, Having just finished the trumpeter JU87R two days ago, and seeing how time flies (some of you know why i am in a 'model after model' mode), i decided to take on a very different kind of build. Something you dont see very often here on the forums, for many reasons (in my opinion) ill tell you about also below. Youll see what i mean when i say you dont see this very often here... First photo is of the actual subject i will model in this WIP A closeup of the fore part of the subject with the 'optics' looking very strange in this light and angle, as well as a closeup of the antennae equipment The reference book i will be using And the aftermarket finishing products to get an even covering coat Well thats the plan then... it might be a long long project scratchbuilding such a structure and the likes but together we can hopefully come up with a nice model... I couldnt resist doing this intro, ive been giggling for the past half hour lol ... i hope my humour wasnt of bad taste. No cats were harmed in the process i can assure you... Now on the other hand the cat we will be building is this The box it comes in is HUGE...i couldnt place it on the work bench with all the other stuff there in order to take a photo of it, so i used my bed... Having decided to go 'all out' on this build and having ordered the items previously, we'll throw the following in the mix too Half a kilo of photoetch lol... In order to be accurate doing the job, we will also need those And this is what you get in the box... The fuselage is massive The wingspan is 62cm and the fuselage length is 60cm...i think this is the biggest bird ive yet to build... Now we'll start all the nagging, after having had a good laugh. I bought this kit on a whim a couple of months ago, without having really read any reviews or related material to this kit, just because its a tammy. Now here is the part that was the bad surprise... This kit, out of all kits from tamiya, is supposed have the 'worst; reputation (although the revell one comparatively is really bad). I dont really beleive in bad kits to be honest, just kits that need more tlc and more work to get them up to par, and this is one of those... The sprues are well bagged (usual tamiya one,or two sprues per bag, with the bag stapled) and i didnt find any damage on the parts. The kit itself is a reboxing of the 90s F14 offering with the addition of new sprues, and its age shows pretty well... There is flash almost everywhere on the old sprues and on the fuselage halves, and yes half the fuselage has recessed panel lines, and the aft part has raised panel lines that will have to be sanded and rescribed (along with missing panel lines and added ones that dont exist) but when did that stop us from undertaking a project?? Good Lord,i realise i AM a glutton for punishment And this kit is definitely going to need major work. Okay for a heads up of things to come in the very near future: The whole aircraft will need corrected rescribing, the gearbays have almost NO moulded detail in, inaccuracies will have to be corrected all over the fuselage, part fit is not what we are used to with a tamiya so probably alot of filling and sanding, alot of photoetch to be used, and basically the massiveness of the aircraft and the challenges of getting it all painted up and weathered down the road... and we got a recipe for a project that will be alot of fun, and keep us occupied for a while I wrote before that you dont get to see many of those here on the forum, no wonder...To get her done properly, it looks like its going to need proper 'commitment time' lol Im very excited about this build and i already started work on it today afternoon... another epic battle between sanity and styrene Ill go grab a bite, then come back and write about all the exciting stuff i managed to start on the kit today All comments, suggestions, ideas and criticisms are as always highly valued and appreciated. Its always great to have a 'touch' of everyone in the build and it makes it feel like everyone contributed to the end result (i dont know if i said it right, but i hope you guys understood what i meant ) Well off i go, be back in a jiffy Karim Whitey, Derek B, Out2gtcha and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loic Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Looking forward to this kitten being built Karim !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 Okay guys back now just managed to swallow a sandwich lol... Inside the box youre greeted with a good amount of sprues, the part count is not massive on this kit unlike other new 1/32 kits. Part quality is a mishmash ( not what i, for one, am used to getting in a tami kit but its not that bad)... being curious, i looked at the sprue mold dates, and they range from 1980 (older than i am lol) to 2003 (for weapon sprue Y). The obvious difference between the old sprue molds and the newer ones is the obvious copious amout of flash on the parts. below an example I cut the main fuselage (comes in 3 parts) and forward fuselage (comes in two parts) parts off their sprues to do a dryfit test, and the part fit is not the best in the world...nothing CA and putty cant fix i reckon, ah yes and the thin liquid cement trick Mal told me about too Also a point of note in this kit is there is quite a bit of ironmongery going on... you get a pretty sizable bag of screws, pins and bushes, along with a reinforcement joint made in some sort of alloy...quite impressive I cant stress enough how 'big' everything is in this kit, from the wheels to the fuselage size to the wingspan lol....fantastic. Now i need to buy myself a nice chunk of realestate in order to park her once she'll be complete lol The clear parts are clear and shiny but the main canopy has a really thick line running down the middle of it, the front part is crystal clear with no seams or anything. I left the front part undisturbed, as i like to apply the saying: if there's nothing wrong with it, dont fix it . On the other hand, after the debacle with the JU87R canopies in my previous build, i decided to go full on and give this canopy the proper time and treatment. First i slowly got the seam off with the scalpel blade, after that i lightly sanded the seam with 1000 grade sandpaper. After that i gave the whole compound sequence treatment. I started off with (i use the gunze polishing compounds) the coarse, then fine then superfine compounds, periodically washing the canopy with soap and water to get the compound residue off. Since i wanted to do this properly this time and the canopy is so big and visible on the aircraft, the whole process took me quite a long while... all that done, and the seam gone, i applied the 'shining' agent lol as i call it, mr hicoating. Its a transparent coat that gives a glossy sheen, is antistatic, and protects the finish under it from dust and scratches, to the front canopy and the back part... photos below The middle photo is with the mr hicoating product applied. It looks like the canopy is spotty and this is how it looks while its drying. after its dry (couple of minutes) buff the canopy until it starts 'squeaking' (thats how you know the product is on okay, and youre done). It becomes smooth as silk and all shiny... I carefully wrapped the two parts in kitchen paper separately and placed them in the plastic baggie that they came in. Moving on, i decided to tackle a couple of the nose section inaccuracies, mainly removing the BDR looking plates port and starboard, and opening up the naca vents for the gun and the gun fairing itself. On the other half of the canopy, the in flight refueling probe is depicted as a recessed panel and this is wrong, it has been carefully filled and set aside to dry until tomorrow. some photos below I opened up the gun port with a 2mm drillbit, and then widened it up until it looked right (as the gunport will have a photoetch part in), i also drilled many little holes with .75mm drillbit in the naca vent then cut across the holes and sanded to get the opening like this. Im still thinking of a good way to open the other two as thy are considerably 'thinner' and have no bulge like the one in the back... Now the daunting part of this whole build surely will be the correction of the recessed panel lines, and the rescribing of the 2/3rds of the fuselage. The reason why i will be using 3 references, along with whatever i can find on the internet that is verifiable, is to get amongst other things, the correct panel lines layout. In order to rescribe this whole kit, ah yes and i forgot.... very important too, riveting, as this kit has almost no rivet detail on the fuselage bar for the two round hatches... we'll need all this, and tons of sandpaper ( got ten sheets of grits 320/600/1000 ) I also bought a flexible metal type ruler a while back knowing it would come in handy someday. I cut it down in chunks that are easier to handle and can fit between the two engine bulges that run down the fuselage in order to get correct straight scribing line. The way i will do it is scribe the lines in their correct location first (running down the raised panel lines) then sand the part until it is smooth. I also have found that running a wash helps in seeing where you need to rescribe, what you havent rescribed, and what needs to be filled in either with CA or putty. Just as a test i rescribed the small part that fits in the center of the lower fuselage (why on earth is it a separate piece?? theres nothing you could add under it and dryfitting it i found it to leave a sizeable gap all around the part to fuse joint i gotta get used to that from now on lol). The scribing lines are crisp and nice, just some over extension of some of the scribing lines, but ill fix that and im sure it will get better with time....photo below Basically that pretty much how far down the road i wanted to go today lol Tomorrow i have to go get my pilot medical renewed its almost time, and then the rest of the day will be spent working on this kitten Ill try to get a headstart in the rescribing and riveting department as this is going to take the longest time in this build i guess Thank you everyone for checking in Stay safe and happy modeling Karim Whitey 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 Looking forward to this kitten being built Karim !! Loic... alot of work to come i guess Thanks for dropping by Karim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbk57 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I started building Tamiya kits in the 1970's and the old stuff is really good but is not what we expect now. The Tomcat I think was their first 1/32 Fighter. I bet it fits together really well so you can focus on fixing the details. Usually the engineering on the old kits was just as good as today but time has moved on to newer and better. Tamiya has moved on from just great design to what we see now in their 1/32 kits. I look foreword to your build as I think you have a great base to start from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagar Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 (edited) I'm watching the build with interest. I'm not quite seeing how your going to convert all that grey plastic into a cute furball though. Will keep watching and maybe it will make more sense as more stuff is glued together lol James Edited December 3, 2014 by Hagar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tnarg Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 I was wondering if we'd see some amazing and furry scratchbuilding skills for a minute. They do make several 1/35 scale animals, even some sea birds for dioramas, but I don't know about cats. good luck with your cat. Tnarg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Peterpools Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Karim As the saying goes" Anytime Baby" Looking forward to following your Big Cat build from start to finish. There are quite a few excellent books on the Tomcat but in my opinion for a modeler, the one you have to have: DACO Publications Uncovering the Grumman F-14A/B/D Tomcat by Danny Coreman. It simply is a gold mine of up close and personal detail color photos, data and very accurate drawing that will answer all your questions on the panel line locations and then some. Can't highly recommend a book and more then the DACO series. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dandiego Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Karim, good luck on your build. I built this kit last year and although not perfect it was an enjoyable build.I added a PE cockpit set, resin bang seats, some new stencil decals (the kit decals were really bad..) and some resin wheels. The wheel wells need lots of work. I also reworked the intake ramps. I built as an early A model with a full missile load. Took about 8 months. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out2gtcha Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Looking great Karim!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek B Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Karim, Great subject intro' I like the Tomcat, so I shall watch this build with interest. Regards Derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alaninaustria Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Ha ha! Karim you had me going there for a minute! Being a big cat lover I had my doubts!! I really can't believe how fast and how well you build your kits!! Amazing! Looking forward to your Tomcat, always liked the lines of this big cat! BTW, may I ask what bird you fly and for which company? I'm a left seat driver on the Q400 at Austrian... out of choice of lifestyle! Good to see another pilot on LSP! Cheers Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 Good evening guys... I never thought this build would stir up so much interest lol im glad....might have been the topic title Id like to thank everyone who posted a comment and checked this build thread, so ill answer all you guys here, then ill post an update on todays long hard work I started building Tamiya kits in the 1970's and the old stuff is really good but is not what we expect now. The Tomcat I think was their first 1/32 Fighter. I bet it fits together really well so you can focus on fixing the details. Usually the engineering on the old kits was just as good as today but time has moved on to newer and better. Tamiya has moved on from just great design to what we see now in their 1/32 kits. I look foreword to your build as I think you have a great base to start from. CBK57 i reckon the F14 was tamiya's first LSP kit. The black knights version im building is a reboxing of the original with extra sprues and some little updates, but i think overall it is basically the same kit that they came out with a long time ago...and true, i think the more our hobby is moving forward, the more we are getting spoilt and expecting kits to have a higher standard (of fit, more multimedia etc)... its not bad to sometimes go back to 'basics' and get your hands dirty lol Thank you for checking out the build thread and thank you for posting a comment I was wondering if we'd see some amazing and furry scratchbuilding skills for a minute. They do make several 1/35 scale animals, even some sea birds for dioramas, but I don't know about cats.good luck with your cat.Tnarg Tnarg, my scratchbuilding skills are still 'bad' to say the least. I find it hard to scratchbuild wheel bays, let alone a cat lol... And just as a note lol, ive got a couple of cows in 1/35 i use for armour ww2 dioramas... Theyre hell to paint, let alone weather, and they look sick and malnourished (but that goes well with the diorama theme lol) How would someone apply weathering to an animal is still beyond me, no panel lines there Thanks again for taking the time to post a comment I'm watching the build with interest. I'm not quite seeing how your going to convert all that grey plastic into a cute furball though. Will keep watching and maybe it will make more sense as more stuff is glued together lol James James, thanks for the comment lol... this whole thing still makes no sense to me. i hope it will down the line when i start gluing and painting stuff, because up to now its just been 'scribing' lol VERY therapeutic i guess... At least im glad the neighbours didnt complain from having to listen to pinkfloyd most of the day Karim As the saying goes" Anytime Baby" Looking forward to following your Big Cat build from start to finish. There are quite a few excellent books on the Tomcat but in my opinion for a modeler, the one you have to have: DACO Publications Uncovering the Grumman F-14A/B/D Tomcat by Danny Coreman. It simply is a gold mine of up close and personal detail color photos, data and very accurate drawing that will answer all your questions on the panel line locations and then some. Can't highly recommend a book and more then the DACO series. Peter Peter my friend... Im glad youre going to be along for the build As always, your suggestions are spot on fantastic. I managed to get a hold of the 'uncovering the grumman f14' book and it is FANTASTIC... I found alot of stuff in it that i wasnt really able to find in the three other reference books i have, and some great closeup shots of the wheelwells and some more details on stuff i needed... I dont know how to thank you enough for all the continuous support on previous builds, and on this one too... Again, im really happy to have you along for the ride my friend, its always a joy Thanks again Peter Karim, good luck on your build. I built this kit last year and although not perfect it was an enjoyable build.I added a PE cockpit set, resin bang seats, some new stencil decals (the kit decals were really bad..) and some resin wheels.The wheel wells need lots of work. I also reworked the intake ramps.I built as an early A model with a full missile load. Took about 8 months.Dan Dan, thanks for posting a comment... up to now its only been scribing and riveting done lol... half of the load i have to finish. but find me weird, i actually enjoy it because there's alot of comparing to the references and going through books and the such, so i enjoy it... Not having alot of access to the am stuff where i live (i buy my stuff mostly online from eduard and the such, we only have two proper modeling shops and people here mostly do armour) im going to have to do one of the three schemes in the kit...ill try to paint on vs using the decals as many of the stuff as i can... On the other hand i have all the am stuff i need for the next build, if i ever come around to finishing this one. I received the resin MB seats, resin wheels and the biged set for the tamiya f4j in the stash ive been keeping my eye on lately lol Thanks again for posting a comment, i hope you will enjoy the build Looking great Karim!! Brian, thanks for checking in and leaving a comment Karim, Great subject intro' I like the Tomcat, so I shall watch this build with interest. Regards Derek Derek, im glad it made you laugh...it still gives me a kick when i read it over lol... Thanks for leaving a comment, i hope you will enjoy the build Ha ha! Karim you had me going there for a minute! Being a big cat lover I had my doubts!! I really can't believe how fast and how well you build your kits!! Amazing! Looking forward to your Tomcat, always liked the lines of this big cat! BTW, may I ask what bird you fly and for which company? I'm a left seat driver on the Q400 at Austrian... out of choice of lifestyle! Good to see another pilot on LSP! Cheers Alan Captain Alan... again im a sucker for praise, but thank you so much for being kind about my previous builds lol... I flew a flacon900ex for 5 years corporate, then flew for a year on the airbus 300-600F cargo (for a company that went bankrupt three months ago lol) and in january i am moving to qatar to fly for qatar airways on the a320/321... im still a right seater though lol but im sure in time when we'll deserve it we'll get upgraded, im still 33 theres no rush i guess lol I love the dash8, and to be honest i think the flying you do must be much more interesting that flying a 4 or 5 hour sector from A to B... and when you say choice of lifestyle i definitely understand what you mean... The only reason i went from corporate to airlines is for the 'choice of lifestyle' (having a young daughter and being divorced, i needed to have a more structured life flyingwise), but at the end of the day what matters is for someone to be happy doing what he does, as long as there is flying involved... The reason why im going build after build, is that i have to go to Doha end of january to start the initial TR for the 320 family, plus the SOP indoctrination, plus i have the line training until i get released, plus its an actual 'move' to another country which entails all the stuff i have to set up etc... so i foresee myself being busy up to my neck for at least 4 to 6 months... I also have a friend that flies on the q400 with austrian... you might have flown with him maybe, hes an FO, ill pm you later see if you know him... Im really happy to get to talk to another pilot here too.... now we might even be able to 'talk shop' as well as modeling My best regards to you Alan, and thanks again for leaving a word and being along for the ride Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 Well good evening again gals and guys... Today work proper started on the kit... a whole day at it, after having finished early morning some 'real life' stuff i have to attend to... All i did today was mostly rescribing, riveting, and studying reference materials... This kit needs 2/3 rescribing, and some of the already engraved panel lines are very shallow (almost a ghosting) so basically the whole kit needs a run... The first couple of days and posts are going to be pretty boring for you guys since the updates will be about the 'catches' and little niggles i ran across in the process of rescribing.. To be honest, i thought about starting some of the internals on the side, but knowing how i function, ive decided against that the reason being, i would become too lazy and just focus on the assembly and painting of the stuff i can paint, and then id do the scribing in a hurry and not give the kit the loving care it requires... Am i making sense here? So, ive decided to get her all scribed, riveted and prepped, then we can focus wholly on the detailing assembly and painting... I also took the time to annotate the kit instruction manual with where i need to refer to the eduard etch in order not to miss out on anything, and i ended up with a note on every step of the instructions... theres going to be alot of juggling, so to say, needed to get everything mounted in the correct order (painting etc) but its going to be great fun... ive also run through the now 4 reference books i have at hand and keep finding little 'nagging' things on the kit, but nothing that cant be fixed... First of all let me show you how i set myself up for the rescribing at the workbench This is by the looks of it, what its going to be like for the following couple of days lol... I started off with the forward part of the fuselage where there are a couple of issues that need to be fixed, like i told you guys yesterday The starboard side of the forward fuse has a big recessed area that is supposed to represent the in flight refuelling probe. In real life its supposed to be flush with the surface. I also read that in alot of cases the IFR probe was locked in and not used at all, for some reason. Also on both sides of the forward fuselage, on the right side behind the IFR probe, and on the left side, there are (were ) two patches that look like BDR plates. I looked all morning through all the references, those dont show anywhere...i dont know where tamiya got those from. So they had to go lol I gently got them off with the scalpel blade, then put some putty on top in order to smooth out the surface afterwards, then rescribed the panels the way they should be In the second photo you can barely notice a dip in the putty, to the right of the 'hole'... i dealt with it subsequently after noticing on the photo... Now the way i decided to tackle the scribing and riveting is the following First i draw down the panel lines i need to scribe, for this i usea fine tip felt pen marker Second, i scribe the panel lines Third i sand down the raised panel lines and clean up the 'seams' from the scribing For the riveting, i use a rotary riveting tool (to be honest, that i dont like much) as i have no acess to a riveting head for the pinvise, I place a piece of the aluminium ruler and roll the riveter along it to get crisp rivet lines (i WISH, crisp rivet lines ) Below a couple of photos of how i traced the panel lines to be scribed, and some of the problems i found A couple of comments on the photos above. I dont know if it shows well in the photos, the drawn lines i have added ' // ' to, are panel lines that are non existant on the kit and that are there on the reference material. The areas that have ' O ' on, on the picture above on the left, are raised panel lines that come with the kit and that should not be there as per references. easy enough, you sand them smooth...Also on the photo above to the right, the NACA vent with a question mark is on the inside of the right engine fairing when it should be in reality on the outboard of the engine pod... my skillset are not good enough for me to carve out a new one from scratch, so i just filled it with thick CA, then putty and sanded it smooth... Also below a photo i hope that explains well another issue i ran across Below photos of part of the backside of the top fuselage already rescribed and riveted... The extra rivet lines have been puttied in and are now from the past lol... its just frustrating using the riveter wheel i use, its faster than punching rivets one by one, but on the other hand you get sometimes a mess like this and its hard to do the same line twice... At this point, i decided to putty in the horrible 5 ejector pinmarks in each intake in order for them to dry while i worked on something else (scribing, what else ) so photo below Ill continue on the post below, so i can fit the photos left to post Thanks everyone sandokan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 Leaving the putty dry, i continued work and finished rescribing the back part of the upper fuselage... that one's done. I moved on to the front part of the fuselage and same process there... some photos below First photo the scribing was in the process, second photo the scribing was complete The areas outlined with a pencil are for the nonslip areas... having taken a look at real life references, and looking at the decals, i opted to paint those rather than decal them... and apply my own antislip texture to them... this way i can weather them the way i want and i can fade them etc... The way i did the antislip texture is with putty... i first masked off the areas i wanted to have demarcated, and to make sure i didnt get any putty outside of the areas where there should be. After that i applied a liberal coat of tamiya basic putty there and stippled the putty with an old brush dipped in lacquer thinner... you let that dry, and if you want you can tone down the effect by lightly sanding the area... photos below of the how to do it , along with how it looks with the front top of the fuselage scribing completed... i still have some riveting to do tomorrow on it though but oh well... Theres still alot of work to be done on the top part of the fuselage, but thats for tomorrow... Put that aside, i went to work on the engine intakes. I sanded the inside surface that i had puttied and got rid of the ugly ejector pinmarks...now im going to have to figure out a way to make those intakes nice and clean on the inside as there are many humps and bumps molded in. Ive already thought about rolling up a .5mm sheet of styrene or something the likes... still have to sort that one out when the time comes. If any of you fine gents or ladies have a suggestion please let me know. I also rescribed the outside of the engine pods as the recessed panel lines were very very shallow.... photo below In the photo above, the engine intake on the left side is the one i filled in the naca vent on. Still hadnt sanded the surface smooth in the photo Well thats it for today i guess One more thing... in order to be able to see the scribed lines well, i just run a thin wash in them and wipe the wash off the part straight away. If it stays in the panel lines, then it means the scribing is good enough. The ones where the wash gets wiped off of, i just run the scriber on a couple more times until the panel line becomes deep enough to hold a wash in it... I think we finished 80% of the top part of the fuselage today... still needs some touchups, and riveting in specific places as per references... im going to work on getting that bit done tomorrow, and start working on the scribing and riveting of the lower fuselage part... so that going to be the plan for tomorrow i guess....after that, hopefully, we can start building this model proper Let me know what you guys think, Comments and criticism is always more than welcome. I thought tackling the rescribing of a whole kit would be much more difficult, but until now its been quite okay (except for scribing across bends and curves ) Off i go to grab a quick bite, then some shuteye Stay safe and happy modeling thanks again everyone Karim sandokan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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