F-14 Tomcat Group Build idea...

Looking good bstrump! Please tell us the method you used for the spot priming. It just goes to show you there is more than one right way to model a Tomcat. Do you plan on applying a wash? I got my nosecone sanded down nicely last night and weighted, then glued to the fuselage. Will be applying the putty to the seams as well. Holpefully I will have some progress pics by this weekend.

Thanks guys!MA Cooke: See, I told you the blue was dark!It's darn near impossible to tell the difference between this color and black unless you put the two side-by-side. I think you're right on the lighting issue. We need a crash course in photography!

As for the spot priming, my method involves cutting the basecoat with about 20% white to tone it down for scale as well as accounting for the fact that a wash will darken it a bit. Then I use the colour straight out of the bottle for the spot priming. Using a DA airbrush and tightening the pattern as much as possible, I randomly spray liittle blotches around the model, keeping in mind that it needs to look like someone actually went at it with a spray gun. It helps if you have a photo for reference but generally the places to hit are access panels, along movable surfaces and the like.
After all this is done, I apply the wash. Finally, I grind a pencil on some sandpaper and use an old brush to sweep various places with the dust to add more grime. This step can be easily overdone so go easy.

Thanks! I currently do not own a DA airbrush but I appreciate you sharing your technique and will use the ground pencil lead idea when it comes time. I also like the idea of lightening the basecoat to account for scale- very cool!

If you have only a single action airbrush, you can still do the spot priming. To clean up the spatter around the edges of the "spots" you can use a brush dipped in thinner. Just wipe off the excess thinner and drag the brush around the edges. This will clean up the overspray and tighten the pattern. You just want the brush to be damp, not soaking wet.

bstrump-1st excellent job on the weathering and spot job. Your technique is the technique I use. I use a single Paasche H airbrush and have been using it for so long that I can free hand the spot jobs on my weathering without the splattering. Your scheme is 16440 Lt Gull Grey overall. Same scheme that is being applied on my VF-41 F-14. Yet it looks more like 36375 Lt Ghost Grey in photos. Just depends on the lighting, and time of day. A flash would wash the details out. Sometimes it's not the camera, it's the lighting.
I do the pre-shading along with changing the base color and adding a darker grey tint to spot the airframe as you did. I will do this after the base coat is applied. Can't wait to see the finished project.

Chuck
Fly Navy

Wow niceee on the spotting job on the cat coats. I din do mine by the lighthening spots.
Thanks for tips on doing the spots

But for a any cat i feel it is a must as most of them are thinly shaded in most areas. But i still new to airbrushing i will just use some preshading techniques and maybe applies some pastel weathering .

However the brushing dry thinner may do some of the lighthening job. well back to spray the cat belly now . good work trump and all too

By the ways guys , just want to know , as i seen from some pics, is the front windscreen of the cats are tinted in deep jade green color ? does this applies to all cats ? A n D ?

I'll post pics of the two that I am building when I am done. One is a B and the other a D. They will be early versions so no modications to drop bombs just pure air to air. The kits are both Italeri since I cannot seem to get the Revell-Monogram kits to look right. I am using the Revell Monogram kits for parts though.

thought the windscreen was tinted blue, contrary to what you see on almost everybody's kits



pics from http://www.anft.net/

sentry- as far as I have seen they have been the jade green on both but... I have seen some D models without.
tomcatluvr- Welcome to the GB!!! Glad to have you on board. We figured this GB would be a great send off to the last sexy plane in the Navy. BTW- how is that Italeri kit? Fit, lines recessed or raised and accuracy?

Welcome TOMCATLUVR. Where on earth did you come up with that name?

Look forward to seeing your builds...right now, some of us (me) are posting every few days, but haven't actually made ANY progress in weeks. I'm almost ready to shoot my D model 'Cat, but I'm waiting on my new Badger 155 airbrush to arrive...my Paasche H lost an argument with a 3 lb. sledgehammer. Temper temper.

Hope everyone has a kick-a** weekend, and gets some progress on their birds. Take care!

Well, I am hoping to get some progress done this weekend myself. If I can make it past the sanding phase I will be alright. It's supposed to rain here though, so looks like painting is out! Best of luck to all on their builds. :-)

roejn...you mentioned that it's supposed to rain, and that painting is out. I've read that a few times, here and on other threads. I'm a bit uninformed..I know that humidity affects how a paint performs, particularly when airbrushed.

Do you not have a "climate controlled" home? Or, is it that your modeling room is probably in the basement, and that area is not heated or AC'd? We have a humidifier to keep it from getting too dry in the winter, and our basement has a stand-alone dehumidifier, so the weather has no real impact on my painting. At least I haven't seen one.

Just curious.

Mitch

No, I have a climate controlled home, I just do not have a basement, or a "real" modeling room with a vented airbrushing booth (yet ;-) ) where I can spray so I have to use the garage which is not climate controlled. So, with the humidity in the air when it is raining not to mention tempereature fluctuations all limit my ability to paint when I want.
All of you guys that have a modeling room where you can leave your projects out with all of your paints, brushes, etc should all go home tonight, kiss the wife and thank God you have a space you can call your own! Until one of my kids leaves for college I will be banished to the kitchen table and the garage! But the other side of that coin is when they finally DO go to college I won't be able to aford the hobby anymore....Yikes!!

Well we haven't been immune from the wet weather this year here in So. Cal.
Not the typical mid 70' s we normally enjoy this time of the year. Again a freak storm today with a hail storm unlike I've ever seen here in this part of the country. I wish I had my camera as this event took place. As the storm moved on the hail actually stuck and did not melt. Now the nearby mountains are absolutely gorgeous with the snow on them. I love this time of the year. But with less rain.
Anyway rain is in the forecast for Saturday, so painting is going to be limited again. Hopefully Sunday will be a much better day. As the Lord wishes. So I'll get some more work done on both Tomcats with the Fujimi kit much closer to completion. The Revell F-14D is having major seamwork being done and Saturday may be a great day for that.

Chuck
Fly Navy

im sorry to hear u guys on the weather things , but hope thing will get better soon. . my side no weather problem as hot and humid all year round . Nowadays it is damn hot here bush fire all around and the worse is the tsunami thing happen here .

thanks amour and out04 for some info on the tinted front windshield. i din know there is blue tinted windshield.

i done some body on th cat hope will get some photo in here soon

I am still progressing on the filling and sanding on this model. Man, there is a lot of it!!! Most of the airframe is complete. I am going to shoot the gear, doors and missiles with white. I will paint the AIM-54 in the more current gray scheme. I have shot the innner parts of the engines with Alclad II Jet Exhaust. One nice thing about painting here, the humidity is always lower. During the summer it never goes above 20% except during the infrequent rain. Good luck to you all.

Since a few of us are in the filling and sanding phase, I would like to ask what methods/products do you use? Any good tips fpr the less experienced? I have tried thinning squadron green with acetone (nail polish remover) and it works well. I then brush this on and let it dry, then sand it down. I still seem to have a lot of sanding to do even with this method, perhaps I'm trying to lay it on too thick. Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this topic. :-)

I prefer the Squadron White Putty because it is a bit thinner and has a smaller grain to it. Sanding it goes quickly and almost never needs additional filler in the same place. I also have engineered my own 'liquid plastic' that really helps in hard to reach areas and requires little to no sanding. But only works with small areas and gap filling. I use Micro Mark's Flexi-File for curved areas and it is fantastic. The Testors Sanding Films is what I use on flat surfaces and it is adequate.

roejn: I too use the Squadron White Putty; however, I thin it with denatured alcohol, this allows it to be brushed into small, tight areas.

Mixed blessings today, I got a bit of build time in today; but I think I have the flu. I've had the weirdest headache today, felt like a tension headache that starts from a stiff neck (or a "crick), and I've been dizzy and out-of-sorts. Felt like someone went into my brain and rewired half of it.

My Tomcat's got leprosy!! Close, but not really...I went wild and pre-primed my 'Cat. It's sort of like pre-shading, but I painted a lot of the mottled primer patches with dark colors...my plan is to airbrush dark ghost grey (lightened) lightly over the pre-priming and pre-shading. I took a huge roll of the dice, but we'll see in another week or two...after my new airbrush arrives.

I also got the burner cans painted and installed, and painted the exhaust nozzles. It was about a 5-step process...first spray painted (w/ cans) black, then misted white, then misted a chrome I found at Lowe's. The insides then got washed w/ a mixture of Tamiya German Grey and silver. The outsides just got brush painted w/ Tamiya silver.

Yeah, today was a BIG progress day for me. Fuselage is assembled (top to bottom) and the dreaded Academy zig-zag seam has been tamed thanks to Zap a Gap. The intakes are complete and the wheel bays have been shot with some Tamiya white. Jeez, once you get over that hump of a seam than it's all down hill. Knock on wood. I think I have the camera but since the chica is at a party she may have taken it. I'll check. If it's here I'll shoot some photos and post them in the am.
I gotta say, Mitch, that the pre-shading scheme you are trying out looks incredible. I can't wait to see what it looks like when you get some 'ghost' on it. NICE WORK!!!!
mark(ipms33206) it's good to see you back. I literally have made no progress for a month but my lady has driven four hours away to a bachelorette party and WHAM- big things coming together.
Anyways- I'm heading back to the bench for some more work. Adios!
-anytime sentry!!! When you got a question let us help ya out.

Hmmmm, MA Cooke, that's sure a different way of doing it. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out. I can't wait. - WARNING The following is sort of off topic. - Just got back from the LHS today. I picked up some Leading Edge Decals for a T-33 from 414Sqn Black Knights 75th Anniverary and (Da Da DaDa)..... Italeri's 1/24 Volvo VN-780 big rig!Can't wait to crack this thing open!

I knocked on the wood too soon... HOLY S#@!! Okay there are more seams that make the zig-zag look like nothin'
Intakes are mounted- the seam where the rear of the piece (over the compressor fan) is so far off it's not funny. I'm using a rough sanding stick and a lot of filler and I'll cross my fingers that it comes out okay.
At the forward fuselage where the lower piece mates to the upper fuselage- there is so much putty there that after all the sanding the whole nose will have to be rescribed. I hate rescribing. I suck at it.
I gotta stop for tonight or else my eyes will pop out. You know, the RM Tomcat I put together a long time ago wasn't this bad. But then again this Academy mold is +/- 22 years old. So is the RM I think. Hasegawa has some issues that can be delicately(read: carefully) dealt with but this Academy kit just has bad fit, period. For 30 bucks I expected better.

I use 3m Red Glazing automotive putty for the major seamwork. This tube I bought in a Milford, Ct. auto paint store back in 1992, needles to say it has lasted this long. Haven't even used 1/2 of it yet.


And Squadron White putty for the minor and pinhole fill ins.
Tenax is great for easy does it seams as a natural filler when used on fuselage halves... Most of the time eliminates the need of any putty. Like on the leading edge seam on the main fuselage upper/lower half on this current Tomcat from Revell.


And of course we need to keep this tomcat away from the plastic ones.


Chuck
Fly Navy

Hey nice plane spot and paints on the cat - mitch. hope to see the finished model soon. No wonder u been testing all those paints color on the yellow paper note. i tot of doing that but i have fear a for uncharted territory.

Nice sanding too Uscusn . one more tip for putty i wonder is those yellow ones can be use

i just paint the body no pic yet need to double check some area first.

take it easy amour , i understand your frustration. hmmm if there is a way to lessen the sanding i wondering too

Jon, that's what you get for buying a cheap kit!!

uscusn, those seams are looking good. Cute cat, too.

Check out this Has. F-4G on e-Bay...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5961337252&fromMakeTrack=true

Check out "sellers other items"...this is the guy in No. KY. I told you about a couple of months ago, he's got hundreds of kits filling a room in his house. He literally has more than enough to stock a hobby store. Wow, I really want a couple of these items....

no kidding Mitch!! LOL

IMHO, next time it's HASEGAWA or BUST!!!
Mitch- I think I am going to bid on that F-4G! I've seen this guy several times on ebay and heard he's a good one to buy from. I know what you mean- I wan't a couple too.

Jon:

If you notice, he has a lot of stuff that's rare. He showed me that he has a database of all Hasegawa U.S. releases, and he collects new, unopened Has. kits. He explained that people go overseas on business trips and buy kits, bring them back, etc. He has over 1,000 kits, that many just Hasegawa alone. He also has rare Monogram stuff, too.

I think it's interesting to note the time of posts...like last night, Jon posted around midnight. If you go back to Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, I posted around 11:00 and midnight and 1:00 am....I spent New Year's doing exactly what I wanted. Cool that Jon's fiancee was at a bachelorette party, and Jon got to build.

funny ain't it? Now that you mention it a lot of it is rare. Looks like that F-4G might? go for a reasonable price too.
Got the nose cone on and I'm rescribing the front fuselage. That'll probably be all for today. I might jump back on the M1A2 that I started a while back. Armor is so much easier. These nice Dragon and Tamiya kits have almost zero fit issues and NO rescribing.
Probably get to the preshading on Tuesday night if all goes well. We'll see.
Hope everyone had a great weekend!

MA Cooke, I sure hope you feel better soon. It's going on all around here too, my wife just got over it. Thanks guys for all the tips! All the progress pics look great and I hope to post some new pics soon. uscusn I am bulding the same cat as you so it was good to see your progress pics. I hope I can do as well on mine. I think I have one more layer of putty to do and I will be ready for paint. The weather turned out nice here this weekend, but I had sandingg to do anyway. Hope you all have a great rest of the weekend!