This is my first 1/48 Hasegawa F-14 Tomcat I've ever built. I have heard and read a lot regarding this hated-and-beloved kit and I believe you know it too, so I won't go into step-by-step article.

One thing I got after finishing this is, it is a tricky kit. Needs hard work to finish it but it's all worth it. It's the most beautiful Tomcat kit in 1/48. Period.

Weathering was done. It's easy to over-done on weathering the Tomcat so I chose to keep it pretty clean.

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Nearly finished...

I used old Hasegawa P23 F-14A Plus Tomcat in 1/48, Black Box F-14A/B Bombcat resin cockpit set, Eduard P.E set, Eagle Design BOL launchers, LTS pylon and bomb racks, TwoBobs VF-32 Swordsmen decal and Hasegawa Weapon Set D (LTS, JDAM and GBU-12).

Bought the kit almost 15 years ago, it did showed some age when I opened the box. The fuselage was wrapped, some parts were broken, decal yellowed badly, etc, etc.... Hmmm, additional work, I thought..

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I modified the intake ramps, add GPS dome, Sparrowhawk HUD and silver-colored ring in front of the nozzles. Paints are Gunze lacquer FS36375, FS36320 and FS35237 which are the best paint I ever used. Weathering was done using oil paints and pastel from Tamiya Weathering Master Set.

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Well, after 2.5 months of hard work, day-and-night, finally I brought the finished Tomcat to my local modeling club meeting on the last day of 2005, the dead-line date of our local Tomcat Gathering Group-Build. From 13 modelers who signed-up for the group-build, only 5 were finished.

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