Buckleheads Paint Shop

[bucklehead101 29]

Since finding work in the IT field, my addiction for computer based flight sims have gone down with the ever intense retina burn out gazing into monitors for countless hours a day. Getting married, moving out of moms basement, and moving into an apartment has made 1/144 the scale of choice currently. With a house purchase in the works,  the 1/72 fleets may return. Until then, the 1/144 apartment scale grows.

Completed these two earlier this month.


CR is the old revell kit. ZF is the Lee models variant, which is very close if not identical to the old LS kit. About the F-4 kits in 1/144, there arent a whole lot of options even with almost half a dozen manufacturers and boxes. I have a few built and will get pictures up soon of the Phantom collection.

 

On the bench in various forms of completion are

Platz A-4E, Dragon A-6E, Academy F-4E (which has recently gotten a resin RF-4 nose job, an Arii F-4B, Arii F-100D, Dragon F-16C, Lee Models F-20 and Lee Models F-15A.

Edited March 22, 2016 by bucklehead101

[bucklehead101 29]

On trips out of town, I try to bring a kit or two, or three and work on them in the hotel room when Im not onsite doing network installations or surveys. I managed to complete these three 1/144 F-14As over a span of 3 days.

The VF-114 kit is an Academy F-14A. Its an early F-14A with the small chin pod similar to the ones you'll see on the LS/Arii or early Revell kits. Decals are pretty sparse and I had to hand mix the orange paint and free hand the stripe on the nose. 4 AIM-7s are provided to mount in the tunnel.

The second one is a Revell boxing of an F-14A. This kit, somehow managed to leave the factory with an F-15 canopy. I went ahead and ordered a vacuuform(sp?) canopy. This canopy was meant for the newer F-14A Revell kits and didnt fit real well. In my attempt to force it to my will, the knife went free, thrusting itself into my finger. How fitting as Forged in Fire was playing in the background. "That knife will cut" hahaha. A new chin pod was robbed from a D model DML kit, along with A model burner cans from the same D model kit. Decals were very nice. The only issue was the Wolfpack nose arrow printed wrong for one side. I had to cut the decal into several pieces and realign them to make it correct. I lost the weapons in the movement, and will get some soon! 

The third Tomcat is a DML/Dragon F-14A kit. It went together very well. Weapons include 2 AIM-9s, 2 AIM-7s and 2 AIM-54s. You even get little pilots to go inside it!

[bucklehead101 29]

I happen to be out of town a lot.

DML 1/144 EA-6B.

This kit went together pretty well. Lots of extra parts for the EA-6A were included. I managed to save a AGM-45 and AGM-78 with additional pylons. Will have to re-use them for an F-4G build.

 

This is the 1/144 JWings F-4D

On the scale of 1-10 of paint and assembly, this is an 11. Its one of those pre-painted half decal kits that have been pouring out of Japan lately. Ended up gluing it together to hold it together. Put a little paint on the AIM-7s and AIM-9s. Applied remaining decals and it now suspends off my ceiling at home. Only issue was having to cut the doors to make them fit into the recesses. Little bit of white glue acted as a quick filler.

[bucklehead101 29]

I was never really a fan of the Hornet. Somehow it managed to replace or outlast all the "cool" planes on Navy decks. A-7, A-6, F-4, F-14. Now with the F-35 coming online, there is a strange attraction to buy and build them.

The EA-18G and the Black Knights F/A-18F are from F-Toys and come pre-painted. All you need to do is glue them and decal them up. Every single other example here is a Dragon/DML kit. Unlike other manufacturers, DML tends to give you enough bombs, rockets, missiles and fuel tanks to fill every pylon and then leave you a few more to add to other kits. They tend to be fairly priced and easy to assemble as well. While the shapes might be off on some of their early production kits, they have improved immensely. Does it look like a Hornet as I lay on my bed and stare at them on my ceiling? Yes!