Ayovan

I had originally wanted to do this build for the Out Of Africa GB, but...got shot down! . George Beurling was Canada's top scoring ace of WWII with 32 victories. 27 of those were achieved over Malta in just 14 days I'll use the Hobby Boss Mk Vb trop kit with a fair amount of AM to depict one of Beurling's spitfires from Malta in 1942.

Thanks Kev.

Just make engine noises with your lips when you look at it...

She still needs the canopy, speed brakes, and landing gear plus a TACAN blade antenna on the nose. Most of the painting is done except the hinomaru's, but it's getting close.

Starting an F-100. Dry fitting the Zacto nose, and compared the fuselage to the F-86. Big bird...

Progress..........

So does that make me twice as smart?

I'm ambidextrous.

Took a couple hours to mask, and 10 minutes to spray, but got some blue on the fuselage tonight after dinner. Edit: the blue is darker than it looks in the photo.

It's white... Got the silver (MRP Super Silver) on the bottom of the wings and inside of the leading edge slats. Shot white on the fuselage and top of the wings. Next comes some serious masking...

Looking really good Dave.

UPS man dropped my Sprue Brothers package off today just in time for the long weekend. Might be a little painting in the forecast...

I got the wings glued together and then put some lead in the nose. About 2 ounces ( 55 grams). Might be a little more than it needs but it will definitely not sit on it's tail. Since I brain farted on putting the weight in before closing the front half of the fuselage up, I had to go to plan B. I mixed up some 5 minute epoxy and 2 ounces of #2 bird shot and poured it into the fuslage from the rear and let it run down into the nose. It was an easy fix, but would have been even easier if I had put the weight in BEFORE closing up the fuselage. Hopefully that's a lesson learned. Next will be matching the wings up to the fuselage. I think I'll need to mate the rear fuselage to the front first then attach the wings.

I found the wing panels online before trying to straighten them out (just in case). Dipping in boiling water did soften the plastic. Too much. Did all kinds of funky stuff to the leading edge slats. I have 3 more Hasegawa F-86 kits. I'll just rob the one panel I tried from another kit for now and put the replacement back into that kit when it arrives. Thanks Alex, it was worth a try. Edit: I ended up using a blow drier on the other wing panels to flaten them out. Much more control over how much heat and where to apply it.

Thanks Alex, I'll give it a try.

Found a little time after work today to start fitting the wings on. The Sabre wings are pretty thin, and the plastic has a fair amount of warp. I tried running the wings under hot water while bending them in the opposite direction. Didn't really do much except burn my fingers. Just taped together, it's a lot of warp. I need to do something about it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I have a Fisher F9F-2 I haven't started yet, and had the same question. Like OBG said, there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer. Most active service pictures I have seen are black and white, and appear to show GSB struts and wheels, but don't show much as far as wheel wells or gear door interiors. Pictures of the wheel wells I have found usually show interior/zinc chromate green with green doors, but are from air museum walk arounds. Some of those show white or aluminum struts, while others show GSB struts. Then you get into model painting instructions, where most say either white or green interiors with white struts and wheels. Best I can tell is that it's time and aircraft specific. I'm going to go with the best pictures of the aircraft I decided on, which looks to be GSB struts and wheels with interior green wells and doors, and an uneducated guess.

I'm using the ResKit F-86 Sabre wheels, and decided to use the SAC F-86 metal landing gear for 2 reasons. 1) The main gear in the kit are supposedly too long, although they don't looks to be much different in length to me. 2) The SAC gear just looks way better. The OEM nose gear in particular looks kinda crappy.

LMAO, my wife read this thread. She said it was not a senior moment, and that I have a terminal case of CRS.

I'll be 62 in about a week. Does this qualify as a senior moment ?

I think I can put weight in the gun bays before I close them up, and just leave the guns out. Once closed you'll never see the guns anyway, or I can maybe mix epoxy and lead shot and pour some in from the opening for the wing and let it run down into the nose on either side of the nose gear bay. It should be an easy fix. Just that I already had figured out where and how much weight to put in, and didn't even think about it until I was posting the pictures...sometimes I dunno where my head is. LOL

Spent most of today trying to get the cockpit to fit right. The tub sat too high, so the seat was too high. Touching the canopy in the open position. I removed more material from the underside of the tub, to where it's pretty thin, and then sanded plastic from the intake tube. I finally got it to fit right, but it leaves a small gap at the IP to the dashboard. Once the dash and gunsight are done, I don't think you will notice. Since I got the cockpit to fit right, I got all excited and joined the fuselage halves and glued the rear deck on. Dumbaxx...I forgot to put weight in the nose...Doh!

Thanks Bill

Thanks Mike.

Had a short day at work today, so I had some time to do a little on the cockpit. It still needs a little touch up and a wash.