This set is designed for Great Wall Hobby’s recent F-14D Tomcat kit. As has become standard for these sets, the set provides masks not only for the canopy and the windscreen, but also for the tires or wheel hubs.

There are three parts to the windscreen mask, one for each side and the central panel. The main canopy has 4 parts for each section, two for each side. The instructions advise you to cover the rest of the canopy area with liquid masking, but I prefer to cut small strips out of the unused parts of the masking sheet and use these strips to mask off the rest of the canopy.

After masking the canopy, but before tacking it in place over the cockpit, I hand painted the center panel of the windscreen Tamiya clear green to get the green tint seen in some photos of this panel. I then tacked both sections of the canopy onto the model for painting and painted the canopy frames with flat black as this is the interior color of the Tomcat canopy. When this had dried, I then painted the model in the Navy TPS colors. According to Great Wall’s instructions on the VF-2 aircraft both canopy sections were painted FS 35237, so after the first two greys were painted, I taped off the canopy and the top of the nose and painted this area with Vallejo AV71114.

After painting and decaling were complete, I removed the masks from the canopy sections and discovered a perfectly painted canopy.

For the wheel masks, I first painted the tires NATO Black, then applied the masks leaving the hubs open. I then used a circular template held against the tape to paint the hubs white. I have found that this combination helps to minimize overspray on the black wheels.

This is a great set and is so much easier to use and results in cleaner finish than my old method of Scotch tape!

Very highly recommended.