1/48 Hasegawa F-14A by Laurens Steffers

Well, when I opened the box the amount of parts, the level of detail and the crisp of the details just took my breath away ...... Owh God, I hated every bloody part of the Hasegawa 1:48 F-14.

Lets start off with the Academy kit before 95. Straight from the box....that's without the decals and I finished it in a single weekend. After a few weeks I thought it was funny to paint it all red...with watercolors..... Screw up number one

I bought the Monogram kit for a few bucks (12 Euro). Screw up number two, just hated the fit of the parts.

Italeri: Just don't say a word. Ferris scheme doesn't work if you have just one picture Screw up number three.

Project

SOMEONE, WHO WILL REMAIN ANONYMOUS BUT WHO WE ALL KNOW BY THE INITIALS H.D. persuaded me to join in with a group of so called “enthousiasts” who had the idea to build a very VERY large display of a particular Carrier Wing. The project started more than a YEAR ago and everybody had the idea to build one (or two) of the eight aircraft. I started with a F-14A of the Jolly Rogers

Unfortunately I owned a F-14A+ "Well, what's the problem?" you could say. The engines and the tailfins are different. So I posted some messages and decided to trade the different parts with a person from the US. Well, that didn’t work.. Long story which I will not ventilate here.

To get a little bit on schedule again I decided to build the Academy kit. Well, that "process" s*cked just as bad!! It was not just the kit, but the frustration working with it.

After a few weeks, owning a bad F-14A of academy and an incomplete Hasegawa bird....I decided to buy a new F-14A.......that's what I thought.....the "new" A types of Hasegawa all have the new fins that they didn't had in the seventies (at least, not on my JR).

I finished almost all of the main parts, painted them etc etc until I just had the fins left....I was planning to save those until the end of the project.

The display....aaaah yes, well, the design was really cool. I spent many hours working in the backyard with a good friend of mine. After a few weeks working on the displays....EVENING IN, EVENING OUT...I could just....well, SHOOT this specific H.D Pure frustration, irritation, blue glued fingers and little sleep.

The 'tarmac', or 'aircraft carrier deck strip' if you will, had to be designed and created too. It took me more than 22 hours to draw all the necessary lines, drill the 150 tie down holes by hand and drill the 600 holes for the streched sprues. Pure frustration and Irritation. Especially when my so called "friends" managed to find a way to drill those same 150 holes in 10 minutes!!!!!!!!! ARGHHHH. Well, it took me less than 10 minutes to kill all of them (in my mind).

Aaaah, ready so you say? Noooo, what where you thinking!? Someone had to paint ALL of the patches that are in the top corner of the large display. It took me almost a complete night to make sure the patches would be ready to glue into the base before the start of a large scale modeling event in the Netherlands....when my so called "Friend" said: "Well Laurens, I think it's better to wait with gluing the patches on. We don't have the time to spare". Pure frustration and Irritation.

Our own nationals where coming. Spending pounds as Dutch Guilders at the UK Nationals at Telford couldn't avoid that. Some models and displays had to be finished. Well, in the days between the UK Nationals and our own Nationals something strange happened. For the first time in my life I actually saw a few "big mouth" modelers WORK on their models. They had to finish a particular Academy F-14 of the Black Daisies and a A-6 of the Black Panties. Well, the builder of the Daisy actually DID build his own F-14, unlike the Black Panties "owner".....a "not-to-mention-but-F14-hater-person" had to build a A-6 within three days!!!! He succeeded. (I have to say that the work H. D had to do would be something my girlfriend and I could benefit from in the near future :-) )

Aaaaah yes, almost finished.....the display....the carrier deck......the F-14....the F-14? Hmm, wait, the fins......They must be black but I had some bad experiences with gloss black.....

While momma bear made some more chocolate milk and cookies great bear sprayed the fins black. The fins looked ok but this so called inexperienced "F-14screwupper" wasn’t good enough to handle the large decals....

Adding a Su-27UB to the bet the great bear, the superb modeler who won Gold at this years UK Nationals, would create the perfect fins for me.......................................returning to the great bear I saw some great fins....pure black with no silvering (there was but he almost started to cry when I mentioned it). "Is this it? Is this the moment I have been waiting for? I've had nothing but problems with every F-14 I tried to build....YES....this could be it!! The first F-14A 1:48 without any problems!!! Without a single error….. Without a si........wait a minute........say it isn't true......

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. You STUPID great Bear we all know by the name of H.D What have you done?!??!?!? ..............................I won't tell, you just have to find out for yourself

Despite all the problems, I had one of the best times with my six good friends! We had some great laughs, great drinks and some nice models too. Next will be a Phantom project and I can't wait to build again with these guys :-)

And finally, many MANY thanks for my international modeler friends: Homer from the US and Richard from the UK. Your words have been a great support for me. Thanks!

History

Kit

Project