Small Scale Military Headquarters

i decided to repaint my f-14 to be more historically accurate to this scheme, i still have a little work to do, but it looks great.

I decided to do the F-14 repaint for the serious case of the measles. I have done quite a bit of airbrushing so all I spent on this redo was $6.00 for the 2 jars of gull gray and I spent about 4-5 hours of masking. I really wanted to mask good as I think this is the most critical of the redo. The nose cone is gray as in pics I have seen. Everything with assembly good except the ladder door was glued shut and I thought something more like the ladder also was there. The gear is not too bad except for the rear hinge piece on 1 side is the same as the other side so it does not set right in the cutout.

thatf14guy wrote:i decided to repaint my f-14 to be more historically accurate to this scheme, i still have a little work to do, but it looks great.

Well damn, you screwed up with the tanks and sparrow my friend

Hi Guys - tired of seeing my F14 with the pox and decided to go for it on the touch up...really, could I make it worse? (lol). What kind of blue tape do you suggest to cover up the decals. I don't want anything too sticky I suppose. Thanks in advance! Mitch

Mitch wrote:Hi Guys - tired of seeing my F14 with the pox and decided to go for it on the touch up...really, could I make it worse? (lol). What kind of blue tape do you suggest to cover up the decals. I don't want anything too sticky I suppose. Thanks in advance! Mitch

I just used that common blue painters tape that is sold at home depot type places.


Masking the markings isn't hard, just time consuming.

I used an airbrush and acrylics and it went very fast at that point.
Then used clear dull coat to reduce the sheen of the markings to match it's new paint job and make for a more blended look.

I use a Tape Made by Iciban and is called a "Rice Tape" it is what I use for architectural models

Anyone know Vexillarius' website? I PM'd him couple days ago but no reply.

GLCANON:

Photo album of Vexillarius 1/18 decals is at:

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/alb ... 2493akGuhe


I bought some 1/18 decals from Vexillarius two months ago, and I highly recommend them. You can email Laird at:

[email protected]

Spent 6+ hours carefully masking my Tomcat (I'm anal retentive) then agonizing over which method to use in getting rid of the spots. Ended up testing the Orange cleaner and Makeup blotting methods (with both enamel and acrylic Testors paints).

I finally settled on the old rattle can using Testors 36440 enamel light gull gray (as I was too lazy and tired of spending so much time to break out the air brush).

The plane turned out awesome! I only sprayed a light coat to subdue the spots (@ 85% cover). The color match was perfect....almost too perfect.

To me the plane just looked too clean for a Navy jet, so I ended up mixing a wash of burnt umber, flat black and Tamiya paint thinner (all acrylic as not to effect the enamel gull gray) and brushed/dribbled the wash over engraved panel lines (especially where they intersected) then let it sit for @ a minute and wiped the plane down. I also applied the wash to the landing gear to "dirty it up" too.

I'd post photos but I don't know how without having to open an account on a photo hosting site.

To summarize, the rattle can worked great. I used 1 1/2 cans for the entire plane (including the rails and tanks). The wash was 1/2 a bottle of Tamiya 46ml X-20A acrylic paint thinner with a a few drops of Testors acrylic flat black and burnt umber. The masking took nearly one roll of 3M 3" blue painters tape (worked awesome with no leaking under the tape).

My suggestion is to take your time. I was lazy on the painting portion (using the spray cans which took all of 15 minutes to do instead of the hours + applying the makeup ) but really concentrated on the masking portion. I liked the other suggested methods but they were too time consuming for me (I could at least watch TV while I masked the plane).

BTW, I printed some of the RC markings for VF-111 that one of the members posted (from a pdf file) onto a decal sheet and they turned out great (if not slightly too big). Now I just have to decide whether I want to drop another 2 to 3 bills on another spot cat to repaint!

trex0770 wrote:I'd post photos but I don't know how without having to open an account on a photo hosting site.

You can open an account with Photobucket.com. Its free and only takes a few seconds to of your time to join. Uploading images are easy and quick and navigating the site is a breeze.

http://register.photobucket.com/step1/index

I must say that the repaint of my Tomcat was much easier than it has been made out to be. I did not even have to break out my airbrush. Went to Hobby Lobby and got 2 cans of Model Masters Flat Gull Grey FS#36440 masked of all of the markings cockpit etc.( it is a lot easier to paint with the aircraft broken down to it respective parts) Then painted. Now for some good weathering. Let the fun begin.

Beeavision wrote:

trex0770 wrote:I'd post photos but I don't know how without having to open an account on a photo hosting site.

You can open an account with Photobucket.com. Its free and only takes a few seconds to of your time to join. Uploading images are easy and quick and navigating the site is a breeze.

http://register.photobucket.com/step1/index

Thanks for the link and here you go.....

[img]<a%20href="http://s868.photobucket.com/albums/ab24 ... ucket"></a>[/img]

See more here(Sorry about the lousy photos, I had to use my cell phone b/c my camera broke):

http://s868.photobucket.com/albums/ab24 ... g&newest=1

http://s868.photobucket.com/albums/ab24 ... 0&newest=1

trex, good work there on the limited edition f-14. Its nice to see all the images together in one place.

TKO211, PM Sent (days ago). Any status on my bird? Thanks.

CW4USARMY wrote:TKO211, PM Sent (days ago). Any status on my bird? Thanks.

You and I connected over email tonight. Hope I put your mind at ease.

Thought I might update everyone here on the status of all F-14's received to this date. with the exception of 3 F-14's all the rest are now finished and ready to ship. Some have been ready for the past 4 days but I needed to hold off on shipping them out until I could ensure the status of those who had chosen to pre-pay with money orders vs. those that are scheduled to pay upon completion.

It's been pretty busy over here on my end and I have been wearing many hats. One project I am working on directly impacts our hobby on a commercial level and scheduled to launch Jan 22nd. (more to come on that front) I apologize for not being more communicative on the F-14's. Until now I am only just starting to come up for air! LOL.

Tomorrow I will get organized and start to send emails and PM's for those folks that need to make final payment and for final mailing addresses and instructions. Don't want one of these going to the wrong place. Once shipped everyone will also receive a tracking number. Like I said there are only 3 left for me to deal with, 1 of which is understood by me the owner to be on delay till around the end of Jan. the other two will be completed early this week and also ship. So almost done will all of them!

Thanks everyone for being patient for the re-paint process. It's ultimately taken a bit longer than I had hoped, and minus 2 silly defective planes has been otherwise smooth sailing.

tko211 wrote:

CW4USARMY wrote:TKO211, PM Sent (days ago). Any status on my bird? Thanks.

You and I connected over email tonight. Hope I put your mind at ease.

Thanks for the update Zach. Was starting to get worried but sorry I started to doubt.

Appreciate your efforts!

Does the sponge method also work on the radome?

Absolutely!!! It's a beautiful thing!!



Model Master Radome Tan

No more spots!!!

Dean

Well I opened the Last 2 Cats tonight to inspect them and to start getting them going. BOTH ARE DEFECTIVE! ARGH!

Again- Same deal! Glued front landing gear that will not budge. And now the ever popular broken Radar assembly on the nose!

so at the moment that is exactly a 25% defective product rate based on this sampling of 20 planes I received (mine included). So- it's official. I am now deciding to stop this service. The planes are simply too expensive and too defective to even attempt to try and help people. In 2 of the instances two of my planes from Bad Cat are defective and a total loss with zero accountability and me left holding the bag. Lucky for me a fellow member is helping me to salvage a good one and put it together from his spare parts. So 1 total loss.

I now have the last 3 tomcats in my possession and all are defective awaiting support from the retailer and the actual owners of the planes.

Did I mention how happy I am going to be to see a new AMERICAN supported and managed company back into the ring!

Some of the finished Cats are on the way to customers as we speak, and the others that are finished are just awaiting final payment / notification and those will ship. It was fun doing this before finding the defective ones and thus spoiling the party.

25% defective rate huh? Not exactly minor fit and finish issues.

Considering the paint job, I'd say 100% were defective.

They released the F-14 covered in poka dots, you think they worried about a glued main gear?

Well I have become a casualty. My front gear snapped at the top at the point where it attaches to the block that pivots.
Either cat or child were the culprit but nobody's talking.

There is a hole down the middle. I am wondering if I can run a metal rod down the center and glue it. I now there is a spring in there somewhere and I don't want to mess that up. Any ideas?
Is anybody looking at making a die cast version?
T

tko211 wrote:

Did I mention how happy I am going to be to see a new AMERICAN supported and managed company back into the ring!

.

What American company?
T

Todd,

I have had the front strut apart now several times.

Very surprised it broke where I think you are saying.

It looks like the hole was intended for a reinforcement rod, but left out for whatever.

If you like, I can test putting a rod in mine to see how that may fix your break.

I am rebuilding the front strut anyway, so this would be no inconvenience.

Let me know,

Dean Kleines