I’ve
always had a soft spot for the early jets, as they were uncomplicated, with
smooth rounded lines and the air of the pioneer about them. None more so than
the F-86 Sabre, so I decided that the Academy kit would be the next out of the
stash and onto the work bench.
I’d done a bit of internet research regarding this kit before I started it,
and so was well aware of the poor fit of the intake trunking which many other
modellers have disguised with the intake FOD cover. In my case it was taken care
of by dry fitting the trunking to see where the step would be, filing it down to
nothing, and then filling and filing when the fuselage was assembled. It’s
awkward filing inside a confined space like this, but by rolling abrasive paper
into a tight roll I was able to make do. The rear jet exhaust was open
inside up into the fin, so I covered this area over with plastic card cut to
size, and added detail such as ribs and panel lines to the inside of the rear
fuselage.
I took one look at the kit supplied seat and was grateful that I’d invested in
the Eduard PE set for this one. Even so, I scratchbuilt all the seat cushions,
armrest pads, oxygen hose and seat pitot using internet references. The photo
shows the difference between the kit part and what I ended up with. Those are
1cm squares on the black cutting mat, to give you a sense of scale.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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There were sink marks on the
fuselage around the airbrakes which had to be filled, although I left the ones
on the nosegear door and the gun access covers, since they gave the impression
of rippled metal quite nicely, something common on riveted panels.
One thing which I tried for the first time was using a 0.1mm thick piece of
plastic card glued to the inner face of the upper wing roots. When trimmed to
match the aerofoil shape of the wing, it filled the gap between fuselage and
wing root nicely, and made it the first model for ages which didn’t need any
filler at all at this joint.
After the main construction was
over, and the plane was primed with Halford’s grey primer, lots of polishing
with fine wet and dry paper followed until the surface was as smooth as I could
get it. Then it was on to the Alclad. I said after I’d built my Starfighter
that the Polished Aluminium was a pain to use and rubbed off too easily, and
that I’d need a pretty good excuse before I used it again. This, however, was
the excuse I needed, and I decided to try spraying the whole airframe with it
and then overcoating it after a suitable interval with several coats of
Johnson’s. This seemed to do the trick, and made the whole model easier to
handle when masking and spraying other shades of Alcad. I counted six different
shades used on various parts of the airframe, to match as closely as possible
the photos I had for reference.
One area of concern which nobody else seems to have mentioned is the decals.
When compared to those on the instructions they are quite a bit bigger, which
makes accurate placement difficult. The centre fuselage band is in two pieces,
and once the top half was on, no way could the lower half be made to mate up
with it. In the end I resorted to spraying the lower yellow band on with the
airbrush, and using the black border decals to complete the effect. Generally
the decals were the weak point of the kit for me, as they were very thick,
didn’t respond well to MicroSol and the carrier film showed up horribly
against the NMF. After decaling the left wing and fuselage, I realised that the
carrier film was showing up, so cut close around the designs on the remainder of
the airframe, but with things like small stencils of course, this isn’t
possible. As a result, the model looks ok from a couple of feet away, but not so
good in the close-ups or under certain lighting conditions, as you can see from
the photos.
I kept the weathering to a
minimum, just my usual pastel wash in the panel lines, although I did try the
technique of chipping the paint around the lip of the intake by attaching tape
to it and ripping it off to reveal the aluminium underneath. This had limited
success, so the rest of the chipping was done with a sharp blade. I decided I
didn’t like the large cartoon nose art, so simply left it off. I reasoned that
the plane must have been supplied without it in the first place, so that should
stifle the cries of horror from the history buffs.
As a finishing touch, I took the
head of one of the two pilots Academy thoughtfully provided in the kit and
hollowed it out with the Dremel to leave just the bone dome. To this I attached
the oxygen mask (again separate – thanks Academy!) with fine wire, and perched
the helmet on top of the windscreen frame where it’d be handy.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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All in all, not a bad kit. The
only fit problems are with the intake, watch out for the sink marks, and see if
you can get some other decals for it. It’s worth doing...it brightens up the
display case amongst all the camouflage.
Dean
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