SPA Modeler

Very cool to see this back on the bench Chris.

speedgraflex wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 5:23 pm I was actually excited to see lighter fluid for thinning enamels, too. Looks very clean, Chris. I am still mulling over the humorous “it’s a model, the brain knows that” comment you made. I don’t think I would apply that to any aspect of your work. For me, this falls under the “it’s a cockpit, you won’t see anything” category of detailing which is valid but extremely subjective to me! I think in both cases it’s a question of how much will be seen versus the chance to build small details that require hand forming and more mental capacity than large areas. One of my unofficial rules that I like to follow is to build at least one 1/72 kit per building cycle to sharpen the skills for larger scales; although this could be seen as silliness, I suppose.

Nope , Not silly Bruce, if it works for you and it's providing a beneficial hobby experience, go for it.

I should expound on my 'the brain knows that' comment. Obviously your brain knows it's a model even if you don't paint anything either, so it's a bit more nuanced than all that. I apply this philosophy to things that are taking way to much time and effort and adding way to little to the end result, to say nothing of killing the fun of the build. In the end I want every model I build to be the best version of itself that it can be, but there are limits. I just posted, in the What's on your work bench atm thread, a picture of two nearly identical F-14A projects I have going. The first one stalled because I could not clean up the intake seams to my liking. That's nearly an impossible task on the Monogram F-14. Even if I did get them cleaned up, ok, now how are you going to paint them, especially with the engine front installed? Bottom line is that there are some things in model building you can't fix, without an absurd amount of effort, and in the end, you have to ask yourself, is this really worth it? Granted, if your purpose is to win an award at the IPMS Nationals, this approach may not work for you--but in that case, you would probably not be building a Monogram F-14A to begin with.

Stuart wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 6:27 pm Very cool to see this back on the bench Chris.

Thanks Stuart -- So many models, so little time!

Stikpusher wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 11:19 am

This organization does not tolerate delays…

I get it Dr Evil, That's why I'm not filling the intake seams! Please don't drop me into the shark tank!

That's nice - such a cool looking aircraft and now I'm thinking about getting mine out of the stash and building it.

I think you've got the right attitude to be honest. Life is just too short and how often are you going to pick the aircraft up and look down the intakes anyway? If it was me, I think I'd do anything that was easy to get to from the intake mouth and leave it at that - chances are you'll catch anything that easy to see and the rest will be in shadow anyway. '

Nice work! I haven't done an F-14 Tomcat since the 80s as a teen. Need to save up for the Tamiya Tomcat.

cbaltrin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 01, 2025 1:13 pm

Hi Chris,

Sorry for raking up a post from several pages ago, but whilst re-reading this thread I just had to comment on how bloody good that cockpit looks, man that is awesome

I was wondering how you painted it. I'm assuming a grey base, then paint in the black panels and then a grey dry brush to bring out the switch detail etc?
What grey did you use for the base?

(I do have a reason for asking).

Thank you Stuart. I think you are correct as to the steps. Probably did a little extra touch up on some of the switches after dry brushing with a took pick. I don't really remember what I used for the base color. it's supposed to be dark gull grey (DGG). I have a bottle of Model Master DGG as well as Polly Scale DGG, I am guessing I used one of those. The real question is how did I dry brush it. I Picked up some AK Lt grey 'Dry Brush Paint' about the same time as I did this work. It's possible I used that but my old brain honestly can't remember at this point.