Entry Dated September 10, 2009 - Working on the Revell F-14A

Well, the kids are back at school today so it gives me time to crack open the F-14A Tomcat and start working on it. As a matter of fact, I started doing some of the wheels, the control sticks and the yellow loops on the ejection seat handles.



As I am brush painting the wheels, I'm going to be doing several coats of black on the wheels. All I have at current is gloss black. I actually should have gotten flat black. But when you're a two zone bus-ride away from a hobby shop, you do what you have to do in order to get what you need done.



I also worked on the cockpit a bit. The Revell-Monogram cockpit tub isn't completely accurate so I didn't bother doing an pit with the switches being coloured accurately.

As it was, I took great pleasure in getting this part of the cockpit taken care of and out of the way.



As far as the wings were concerned, I took great pains to make sure that the edges all measured up and were accurate. They will probably require a bit of sanding. The fit isn't all that great but it's one of the better Tomcats for the price. I'm not looking forward to fitting the body though. The gaps are enough to drive any sane person crazed.

(pic did not upload, will try later)

The wings had this gap when I first tried to set them together, so I had to rip the wings apart and re-glue them. Luckily the Tenax hadn't set yet, so it was easy to get them to set. I'm still trying to decide if the gears that make the wings go properly should be cut off with a band saw or what. I've had a nasty time of setting them because every stinking time I've tried to set the stupid wings, the damned things didn't match up or they fell off when I was trying to set the top half of the fuselage onto the bottom half.



After all that hassle with the lining up of the two edges of the wings, I set clothes pins to get the Tenax to dry and hold the wings together. Normally, I use Testors tube glue in order to set the match pin points on the wing so that I can Tenax the rest of the wing together, but the Testors glue had hardened in the tube and I had to throw the Testors glue out.



This isn't a sharp picture, but I also got the ejection seat loops all painted yellow. The stripes will have to wait until later. I also painted the control columns black. I'll do the red dot with the 15/0 brush later.