1/48 Revell F-86D Sabre Dog

by Peter Doll

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This is my Revell F-86D Sabre Dog in 1/48 scale built right out of the box. The quality of this kit is really excellent and that's the reason why I did not use any aftermarket product. Outlines are absolutely correct and the fit is outstanding. 

For my finish I have chosen markings of an F-86D ,54-4102, the personal aircraft of the commander of the 86 FIW, USAFE stationed at Ramstein A.B. in Germany. The aircraft retained basic 526 FIS colors (Black Knights) with the addition of multi- colored fuselage and drop tank stripes. Colors from front-to-back were red-yellow-blue-orange-black.  The 86FIW Sabre Dogs  were initially painted with a red and white sunburst design on the vertical fin, whilst on the nose a red scalloped design was applied, outlined in white. But later the nose scallop had to be removed due to special directive.

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As a great Fan of colorful bare metal aircraft, I plated my Sabre completely with simple kitchen foil using only the backside of the foil. Before doing this, I sanded all the rivet detail and rescribed them on the foil again later. That's indeed a lot of work, but it's worth it, because such a finish comes close to realism. It's impossible to reach such an finish with silver lacquer. For an adhesive a not too fast drying clear lacquer was used.

All decals are handmade except national insigna and squadron emblem on the vertical fin, which I took from an F-102-sheet of the same scale.

When shooting pics of my Sabre Dog, I could'nt resist putting my model in front of a 1/48 Shelter I'm just working on although no Shelters were in use at that time. In my opinion it looks very realistic. It's a "what if" !

Peter 

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Photos and text © by Peter Doll,Germany