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Monogram F-14 Tomcat


RGronovius

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Many years ago, prior to 1977, I got this 1/72 scale Monogram Tomcat F-14 kit as a birthday gift. I've stumbled across it once again and wonder if it's worth building or one of those old kits "not worth the glue or time"?

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/monogram-5992-tomcat-f-14a--161285

As a kid, I don't recall much issue with it besides my using white gloss Testors paint from a small dime bottle and it looking like crap, but that was 40 years ago. It's not my normal modeling genre any longer, but the nostalgia sets in.

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The kit dates back to 1970-1971.  It was based on early information and wasn't one of Monogram's better kits--it lacked detail.  The cockpit, seats and all,  was molded in to the fuselage, and the wheel wells were greatly simplified.  The exhausts were molded in, and the small parts were clunky.  It was produced during the Mattel era, when all Mattel wanted was a way to turn model kits into toys that kids could play with.  This was one of the first models that was compatible with the short-lived "Skystick" controller.  The Tomcat was the only new-tooled airplane kit produced under Mattel--all other airplane released during that period were reissues of Monogram's older kits.

If you want to build it as a nostalgia build, do it and have a blast.  If you want something close to being an accurate, well-detailed model, there are better choices in 1/72 scale.

Cheers!

Ralph

Edited by Ralph Nardone
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I agree....nostalgia builds are fun, and you can even limit what you do to them to make them a bit more "authentic" to their past. Look at some of the builds Ron Bell has posted here for very good examples. Here's my rebuild of the old 1/48 Aurora Me-109....which I built a few years ago to commemorate (and duplicate) my very first model build...minus the gluey fingerprints!

1940319542_006(7).thumb.JPG.a3fc9daca5cefe8c65959fddd159e53d.JPG

GIL :smiley16:

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