Went to Micheal’s today armed with a 40% off coupon. It was a hard decision between the 5 models they had that I liked, so I went with the Revell Monogram 1/48 F-14D Super Tomcat. It was a steal at ten bucks. The cockpit it comes with is actually awesome compared to other ones Revell sends with the models. The raised paneling is a pain and I’m still new so I will leave it at that. Does anyone got any tips for me on this kit? FItting problems? Anything?
Overall, the model is pretty good. (I have three of them). The cockpit is actually that of the F-14A. If you want to depict a F-14B or F-14D, an aftermarket update will be needed. They are also a lot of AM decals so if you have a favorite squadron, you can pretty much make that Tomcat.
Check the shape of the Radome (nose cone). I had to do a lot of sanding and reshaping. Some filling and sanding will also need to be done, so since the sand paper is already out, you may want to sand down the raised panel lines and rescribe them. It’s totally up to you. It’s really a straight forward kit to build. I had fun building mine and it helped me polish up on some basic skills. Have fun!
Thnks Dragon, I’m not much of a modifier yet so this one might be the one to start. I need to buy a good scriber tho, got any suggestions on that. I prefer non-online.
I’ve actually found scribes and other tools at dollar stores, yard/garage sales, hardware stores, and medical stores. Sometimes, just let your fingers do the walking through the yellow pages.
Yup, my local hardware store sells all manner of dental tools and scribes for one dollar each back in the Dremel tool section.
The cockpit is great, however, the fit between the upper and lower fuselage required a lot of cutting, filling, and sanding. I had two of these kits, one was a "Friday at 5 " kit and the fit was so bad that the plane was never finished, the second kit had fit issues with the front but not as bad. It ended up looking sweet in the end.
Scott,
You’re right about filling and sanding around the forward part of the aircraft where the fuselage halves come together. Wasn’t fun but the results were worth it.
hey TAG_LK;
I’ve built that kit a few times, the cockpit is pretty good, but it’s of the A model as said before, but if your not a total buff then it’ll do for now, as for your experience on building airplane kits I’d go ahead and build it out of the box and after a few more kits under your belt then try something outragious like rescribing panel lines (the best ones to start on is WWII planes they are smaller and have less panels to re-do), but the cockpit’s sake I’d go for an AM seats like True Details set and be done with it until you get that urge to go ballistic and go for broke on the detail side, I’ve done a few Revellograms kits that I completely scratch built the interior and re-scribed the panel lines and with my experience in building it was alot of extra work, but not to put old Revellogram kit down but if you want a more correct F-14D try and build the Academy’s kit it’s the closest one out there and it’s better then the Hasegawa’s (though it’s strange to say that) but it’s true the Hasegawa’s not so great in this instance
I tossed one out into the garbage a few weeks ago. The wings and fuselage were warp beyond repair, I wasn’t going to mess with it.
Scott…which kit did you toss?