Started 19/02/2006
Intended Livery using a combination of painted markings and spare decals.
3 Mar 2006
Assembly went OK up until I tried to clean up the fuselage sides under the wings. The mechanism that holds the wings together when sweeping the wings forwards/backwards, is obviously a bit fragile as I managed to break it, and split the left hand side wing box/glove vane housing apart trying to fix it. So far I have not lost too many raised panel lines.
9 Mar 2006
Major fuselage assembly done. Ready for masking of the canopy, for painting the base coat. I have also painted the main tail markings on the tails. I shall finish these during the decalling process, by adding strips of black to the outline of the arrow heads. I didn't feel confident enough to try it with paint.
20 Mar 2006
The decalling is complete and now has a Klear coat on to seal them in ready for an Oil Wash.
As with the VF-202 Academy build, with painting the red arrows on the tails, the only other custom made markings were all in black.
They were printed on to Expert Choice's Clear Decal film using an HP Deskjet 5650 in Photo mode. They were set aside for a day then I sprayed a light coating of Microscale Decal film over the markings, and after an hour brushed on a thicker coating. I made 3 copies of the markings and used about half of them. I found if you cut too close to the markings then the ink will leak out when you dip them in water. The Decal film dries thin enough to allow you not have to cut up to the markings though.
The black outlines on the Tail arrows were applied from sheets I bought from the Fantasy Printshop back in 2004. The remaining stencils were from the CAM Hi-Viz Data sheets #72-012.
Oil wash applied and remain parts fitted.
This will be my first and last Italeri F-14 build. I had a lot of problems during this build and mainly concerning the wings. First the flimsy mechanism connecting/synchronising the wings broke and in trying to recover the parts the left hand wing glove split. Now all I have to do is look at it funny and it comes apart.
Not a kit I would recommend - go for an Airfix or Academy.
