This is my 1/48 Hasegawa F-14B Tomcat.  The construction went well without any troubles, but the project is very challenging and required about two months to complete (I worked on the model one or two hours per  day, but not every day)!  

Sparrows are from the Hasegawa weapons set.

I used the photoetched parts from the kit and some parts from an Eduard set dedicated to the F-14A (for canopy and  sidewinder rails).

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I used Verlinden seats and I painted these and the interior of the cockpit with Tamiya and valleyo acrylics.  At this point I made a wash with oil colors heavily thinned and a final drybrushing with Testors enamel. 

The exterior of airplane received a coat of Testors enamel, then I airbrushed  all the panel lines with dark grey very thinned and I gave the model another light coat of the first grey heavily thinned to keep down the contrast.  Another coat of Tamiya clear gloss to prepare the model for decalling.  

I used  an Aeromaster decal sheet for this airplane, but I preferred to spray the walkway without using the decal for this particular plane. 

When the decal was dry, I applied another  coat of Tamiya clear gloss and then it was time of weathering.  I did a light spray of  many kinds of Tamiya grey heavily thinned  to give an appearance of sunburst and a wash of oil color in the panel line for the dirty look.  Finally I hilighted the panel lines with a sharp pencil.  A final coat of Humbrol dull coat gave the right finish to the airplane. 

The navigation lights are Tamiya clear red and green.  For the jet exhaust  I did a drybrushing of Testors metallizer on a base coat of semigloss black and I used Testors metallizer for the other metallic parts and for the used parts of canopy and cockpit.  I added some electric wire to detail the undercarriage.

This is my third 1/48 airplane and I liked it very much (the first was a Italeri F-16 and the second an Italeri F-14A).

Massimo

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