Small Scale Military Headquarters

Greetings

In case anyone wants to see here are the PTE pilots in the cockpit. They fit nice and there is no cutting involved.

Will paint the helmets yellow at some point.



Corey

gouchy wrote:Wow, what an interesting development on BC

How certain are they its really Robert Miller of BC? Could be unlikely coincidence because of common name?

I've read from here there are neg vibes of this company but this is a real eye opener for me, totally mythbusterly busted

He mentioned himself he was kicked out of here by P51 for his posts, anybody knows what was it about?

Badcat Rob registered under the alias "Onwu" with a chinese avatar and typed like he was chinese. Lucky for us he used his personal email address which is the same email address used to register his store's domain. Paul is quite the internet sleuth.

My BBI F-18 and F-16 pilots fit well. In the front one there is a extended leg space on both sides. It is hard to get the boots in there, but once you get them in there they fit. The both fit under the ejection handles very well.

pcsguy88 wrote:

gouchy wrote:Wow, what an interesting development on BC

How certain are they its really Robert Miller of BC? Could be unlikely coincidence because of common name?

I've read from here there are neg vibes of this company but this is a real eye opener for me, totally mythbusterly busted

He mentioned himself he was kicked out of here by P51 for his posts, anybody knows what was it about?

Badcat Rob registered under the alias "Onwu" with a chinese avatar and typed like he was chinese. Lucky for us he used his personal email address which is the same email address used to register his store's domain. Paul is quite the internet sleuth.

Yes good sleuthing though I feel he was just waiting to be caught out by being too lazy to cover his tracks.

Due to recent developments, I may be getting my cat soon now. I thought it was dead in the water when my source stopped replying my emails when I was in the process of confirming my order. Just received their reply yesterday explaining the problem and all is good now. Woot!

It'll be great and appreciated if someone here would be kind enough to post a pictorial guide to assembling the cat, especially the landing gear and fragile parts to look out for.

I'll worry bout the spots later, I have zero paint skills, nicotine & caffeine induced shaky clumsy hands and dont think my country stocks GoJoe

What is it going to take to get some instructions on applying GoJo? Do I have to make a whole new thread? I've asked twice, and sent a PM...anyone?

Diego

Greetings:

No one has done this yet so I figured I'd take the opportunity to pose our two models of Grumman Cats together, the F6F and the F-14. I always love doing this as I think it really shows how aviation has changed over the years in size and scope.

Everyone here knows I pride myself in taking good photographs. These are the best I could do in my collection room. The snow yesterday kept me from taking the planes outside. I won't risk them in the snow, wind and cold.

Enjoy

Corey

The Grumman Cats (F6F & F-14)

Great comparison. Thanks for the pics.

I did the comparison shot when I first got mine last week. All of the Grumman planes are in the pic:

Also, I do not get where you guys are having trouble with the pilots fitting.

I have had numerous people question and pm me on seeing the actual 25th G.I. Joe figs in the cockpit. I can confirm it is an easy fit that looks great. I used Hawk and that Hot Dog ACE. Here you go:

Here is a BBi Pilot comparison:

Here is a shot of my F-14 cockpit with pilot and RIO figures.



The figures are my BBI F-16 pilot (front seat) and BBI F-18 pilot (rear seat) with customized helmets. I got the extra helmets from Brokenarrow toys, which makes custom 1:18 gear. Obviously, the helmets are not the correct type, but they still look good to me in the black and yellow

Can someone post a comparison shot between the F14 and a 1:18 P51 or Me 262? Just want to compare it to my models.
Thanks

diegomenendez wrote:What is it going to take to get some instructions on applying GoJo? Do I have to make a whole new thread? I've asked twice, and sent a PM...anyone?

Diego

Diego,
Well I asked the same thing and no response. Anyway, I tried it out on one of my fuel tanks. I used an old Cotton T-Shirt. Just put a dab of the GoJo on it then started rubbing on the spots. I did both circles and vertical or lateral rubbing motions. I tried to keep it random.
The spots go out but the base color also is affected. When finished the base color goes fromt the grey it is new to a more "tan" grey which I think is actually closer to gull grey which the VF-84 Hi Vis is suppossed to be. From all the rubbing, you also get a little "gloss" or sheen to the finish which if you don't like you could always spray over with a dull coat. I haven't decided yet if I will do this to the entire plan or just get TKO211 to repaint the whole thing. It will take a long time to do the whole plane and make it look right the way I want it. The spots under the decals will be there no matter which way you go repaint/overspray/or GoJo. I'll try to post some pics when I get a chance.
Hope this helps

Plus, there are many different types of GOJO, I have seemed to buy three different types within the GOJO brand and none of them actually work. What is the name of the actual GOJO product?

toykdjh (spelling?) posted a picture in an earlier post. I used the GoJo Orange Pumice hand cleaner. It comes in a white container with an orange lid. It comes in different sizes but 28oz for like $3 is plenty I think.
Here's a couple pictures hopefully you can tell from these that it changes the overall color of the item from the grey it is new to a more "tan" grey. I think you can see it in some of the earlier pics posted by others who did more of the plane itself - the color definitely changes. You can also hopefully tell it has more of a "shine" to it after GoJoed. The tank on top is the GoJoed one (obviously the one without spots!).

My apologies for not giving any updates lately. I’ve been super busy with all the holiday fun. Today I was blessed with getting into it with one of Santa’s elves at the mall while trying to get some Christmas photos of my kids. Ahhh… Christmas!

Anyway, holiday cheer aside here is where I’m at on the old gojo F-14. The entire top is done and she is now hanging in my office. I need to get the rear stabilizers as well but for now I’m pleased with the look. This was definitely the hard way to do things but I didn’t have to pull out the old airbrush and stink up the entire house over the Christmas break. This is a great plane.

^^^

Impressive. I need to give that joe stuff a try.

Hello all. New guy here that registered to talk about my experience with the JSI F-14. I just received it on Saturday night and naturally was pretty excited. I don't have many 1:18 scale items as I am mostly a GIJoe collector. But this was a gem I had to have.

Before I pulled it out of the box I found that one of the tabs holding the radar dish on was broken. After pulling it out of the box I found the nosecone hinge was frozen. I fear forcing it because it might break. The nosecone goes on but it doesn't open and close. I simply have to pull the whole thing off.

During the process of setting it up, I found it a little frustrating that there were no instructions on how to operate the landing gear which is pretty complex. I had to figure some things out to get it to work. After I had it deployed, I put the plane on top of the box it came in and rolled it back out of the way. During this gentle roll (no forcing) the rear landing gear just snapped half.

After having this experience I think it is clear that too much focus on the realism of the landing gear was made and not enough on function. It is far to unstable to support the weight of the aircraft. It should it have been made out of die cast metal if they insisted on going this route. I know some complained about the non-realistic landing gears on the BBI stuff. But I own the BBI F-18 and F-16 and neither of them have broken in the few years that I have owned them. The F-14 broke inside 24 hours of ownership.

Needless to say I am really disappointed with this model. It still looks fantastic, but it is broken. A really bitter sweet feeling. So I contacted JSI about getting a replacement. I hope I get some satisfaction on that effort but I am not really having a good feeling about it for some reason.

See? I didn't even complain about the spots. They really don't bother me.

I do believe BadCat pulled the F-14 piece out of their blog. Hmmm.

firefox91 wrote:Hello all. New guy here that registered to talk about my experience with the JSI F-14. I just received it on Saturday night and naturally was pretty excited. I don't have many 1:18 scale items as I am mostly a GIJoe collector. But this was a gem I had to have.

Before I pulled it out of the box I found that one of the tabs holding the radar dish on was broken. After pulling it out of the box I found the nosecone hinge was frozen. I fear forcing it because it might break. The nosecone goes on but it doesn't open and close. I simply have to pull the whole thing off.

During the process of setting it up, I found it a little frustrating that there were no instructions on how to operate the landing gear which is pretty complex. I had to figure some things out to get it to work. After I had it deployed, I put the plane on top of the box it came in and rolled it back out of the way. During this gentle roll (no forcing) the rear landing gear just snapped half.

After having this experience I think it is clear that too much focus on the realism of the landing gear was made and not enough on function. It is far to unstable to support the weight of the aircraft. It should it have been made out of die cast metal if they insisted on going this route. I know some complained about the non-realistic landing gears on the BBI stuff. But I own the BBI F-18 and F-16 and neither of them have broken in the few years that I have owned them. The F-14 broke inside 24 hours of ownership.

Needless to say I am really disappointed with this model. It still looks fantastic, but it is broken. A really bitter sweet feeling. So I contacted JSI about getting a replacement. I hope I get some satisfaction on that effort but I am not really having a good feeling about it for some reason.

See? I didn't even complain about the spots. They really don't bother me.

Great to see a familiar face man! I had no idea the landing gear was that fragile. I mean I knew it was fragile but not to that extent.

After seeing images and the tutorial of how the gears work, I think they are very, very impressive, but I wish they were designed to be far more sturdy.

Anything with rolling wheels should be expected to be rolled. I hope the S2 has far more durable gears, diecast or POM if need be.

vulgarvulture wrote:I do believe BadCat pulled the F-14 piece out of their blog. Hmmm.

Well, after the crap BadCatRob pulled over at fighting118th, nothing is surprising now.

Ooops! Gone down the memory hole indeed. Who knows? Maybe Bad Cat Rob decided to pull ALL the F-14 posts from his Tales of the Spotcat blog after watching a rerun too many of The Final Countdown? Must have figured if a time-space glitch could take the USS Nimitz back to 1941 without anyone really noticing, no one would pay any attention if his insightful posts on JSI's F-14 disappeared in the run-up to Christmas.

No posts between November 5 and December 8. Ay, caramba! Hey, dude, your JSI Spotcat better watch out for BBI Zeros in that parallel universe you just created out of whole cloth.

Greetings:

I personally do not think the landing gear are that fragile if they are all connected properly. I realized once everything was locked into position and every tab inserted, etc, they work quite well.

The problem is when you put the plane on the gear, you have to make sure the springs work. If one depresses and the other one does not, you get a unstable model, I suspect that is what is happening to many.

I also found that when you are lowering the gear, if you manually depress the spring a few times, everything goes down properly a lot easier. It seemed to me the more I have used the gear, the better it works. I have rolled mine gently on the floor and haven't had any issues.

I think I have had them up and down at least 10 times. You have to be careful, but it does work properly.

Corey

Badcat also has removed owner reviews about the F-14. That's odd considering the reviews I read yesterday were good, overall.

dragon53 wrote:Badcat also has removed owner reviews about the F-14. That's odd considering the reviews I read yesterday were good, overall.

It looks like Bad Cat has limited/moved all the F-14 reviews from their blog and they are now under the Review tab under the listing. Open up the F-14's listing and you will see a tab labeled "Reviews" that you can open. You'll find customer's reviews of the F-14 there.

The reviews are pretty positive overall.