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GROUP BUILD ENTRY no.97
Raffle no. 88

Hasegawa 1/48 F-14D, VF-213 Black Lions
by Christian Blachford
White Lake, MI

This is the Hasegawa 1/48th F-14D Tomcat “VF-2 Bounty Hunters” kit 09374, I used Black Box’s beautiful F-14D Cockpit, Cutting Edge wheels, and Yellow Hammer Decals. I also opened up and scratch built the in-flight refueling probe, and the ground refueling point, as well as adding Bare Metal Foil RBF tags, an LANTIRN pod and bomb racks from Hasegawa’s F-14A “LANTIRN” kit, an Aim-54C from a friend of Singapore, and Aim-7M’s and Aim-9M’s from Hasegawa’s 1/48 Weapon set C. My original plans were to kit bash a Revell Monogram F-14D with an Italeri F-14B, but after some research (Three months) and after I test fitted the Black Box cockpit, too wide for either of the kits, I decided to take the plunge and buy a Hasegawa F-14. I originally order the F-14D CVW-14 kit from Squadron, but it was out of stock so I ordered this kit, which was also less, from Great Model Web Store. The kit came with a HUGE decal sheet with 2 VF-2 aircraft, but since I already had a 1/72 VF-2 “D”, I decided to go with something else.

The only other options available were to do a bird from the VF-11, VF-31, VF-213, or VX-9. At the time I started the kit there were no decals for the VX-4 or XV-9, and I had just bought a 1/72 VF-11 kit, so those were out, so my only options were for the VF-31 and VF-213. I couldn’t find a decal set for the new VF-31 Red tailed CAG bird, only the Black tail bird, but then I found Yellowhammer’s F-14D/B Pacific Squadrons. It has a VF-103 F-14B, a Red tailed VF-31 CAG F-14D, and a VF-213 F-14D. I decided to do the VF-213, as the “Rat Head” was irresistible”.


Construction

A lot has been said about Hasegawa’s F-14s, there are only a few things I’d to say about my build. One is that I had to sand down the fuselage sides when using the Black Box cockpit, and I found that it’s easier to install the nose gear bay to the inside of the fuselage, instead of to the bottom of the cockpit. I did some extra detailing to the Nose gear bay, also I had to cut out panels for the IFR probe and ground refueling point. My major problem was with the spine, because I had to re-attach the bottom of the forward fuselage after I forgot to insert some pieces for the IFR probe, so the lower fuselage was lower than it should have been. Following the directions of David W. Aungst’s master Hasegawa F-14 article (Here) I attached the lower fuselages first, this created a 1/16” step on the fuselage!

I used lots of old credit cards, finally a good use for them, and putty, then I had to rescribed all the lost panel lines, luckily, the contours look good, and accepted paint well. Also, because of all the horror stories about the intakes on Hasegawa’s F-14s, I decided to use intake and exhaust covers, thus all I had to the intakes was build them, not worrying about seams. My next bad decision was to attach the shoulder pylons before I painted, I ended up having to scratch build attachment pins. I originaly used Cutting Edge wheels, but the casting did not include axles, so when I had to drill them out, I messed up and had to build new metal axles for the main gear. The wings did not have any problems.

I used Testors Model Master Acrylic for most the major airframe camouflage and detail painting with Metalizer on the exhaust nozzles and on the oleo struts. I used my Testors Aztec A4704 Contempo for airbrushing, with Black, Yellow, and Grey nozzles the airbrush is very versatile. Because I wanted a contrast my late 70’s VF-142 F-14A, I heavily weathered my F-14D. I used pastels for the wing walks and gun exhaust, and the sludge technique (Here) to accent panel the lines.

Final assembly went very slowly for me. I had attached the shoulder pylons and stabilizer before painting, and had to be very careful when attaching the landing gear, weapons, RBF tags, and probes. Many of us have to deal with some sort of pet when we model, I have to deal with two cats and a dog. One of the cats jumped up on my worktable and knocked over a large picture and totaled this F-14, another F-14, an F-15, a B-1, and a P-61. The damage to this F-14 was broken gear all around, detached drop tanks, and separated stabilizer, and just one week before the IPMS Livonia / Warren contest! I took me the whole week to repair the F-14D, with the last piece going on 2 hours before the beginning of the contest!

I made the carrier deck section out of a large piece of laminated particleboard. I made tie down recesses with a grinding bit in a Dremel, then painted them light gray. I then painted the deck with a custom mix of artist’s acrylic paint, the thick type, I covers much better than model paint, and at $0.99 a bottle, you can afford to experiment with colors! The removable dust cover is custom cut Plexiglas secured to the base with four 1/8” dowels. 


Conclusion

This has been one hell of a project, a lot of blood sweat and tears went in to this bird and I’m proud of it, she earned me several awards at contests in Michigan, but I thinks it’s time to retire old rat head. This kit has given me some gray hairs, never mind, that’s just paint, any way I never want to build another Hasegawa 1/48 F-14. Lets just see how long that lasts, one Hasegawa F-14 down, only 10 more to go. D’oh!

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