32nd Scale Hasegawa North American F-86F - SAAF Korean War

[Mistral]

II got hold of the old Hasegawa 32^nd Sabre F-86F-40 from a fellow modeler. I wanted to build this as a South African Air Force (SAAF) aircraft which saw combat in the Korean War. And my SAAF Korean War P-51 needed a friend 😀. So, what followed was a bunch of head scratching as to how to achieve a SAAF version using the Hasegawa kit. The SAAF used the F-86F-30 Sabre with the short span narrow chord slatted wing - this is unfortunately not what Hasegawa provides in the box.

 

As has been well researched and discussed on various modelling forums, the Sabre wing design was subject to progressive development which resulted in various different wings. The initial wing can be described as having a narrow chord with the original short span and leading-edge slats (Sabre A, D, E and early F). Then came the F-25/30 versions which had larger wings fitted : the wing area was increased by extending the wing chord at the root and tip resulting in the so-called “6-3” wing. At the same time the slats were removed and a single wing fence installed at approximately 70% span on each wing – this was called the “6-3 hard” wing. The wingspan remained unaltered. These 6-3 hard wings were also variably retrofitted to some Es and early Fs.

 

The next version of the F-86 Sabre, the F-40, had a 12” extension added to each wingtip and had the 6-3 hard wing modified to reintroduce leading edge slats resulting in the ultimate Sabre version. And here we have the subject of the Hasegawa kit.

 

What then of the aforementioned head scratching ? The SAAF didn’t use the F-40 version of the Sabre, but rather the earlier F with the narrow chord slatted and short span wing fitted. The Sabres used in Korea were not owned by the SAAF but were USAF machines flown by SAAF 2 Squadron (“Flying Cheetahs”) in full SAAF markings. 2 Squadron was attached to the USAF 18^th FBW.

 

So how to modify the kit’s wings ? Sean Thackwray (Madmax on this forum) did a sterling job of modifying the wing to a narrow chord early F-86F. But I wasn’t looking forward to chopping out a spanwise section of the kit’s wings and even less enthusiastic to attempt to detail the rather rudimentary slat actuator detail provided by Hasegawa. So, the head scratching continued until a fellow modeler noted that the SAAF did fly one singular late F version with the 6-3 hard wing and original short span wing. This was #622, aircraft code “Q” and named “Lady of Lorette”. 622 was a replacement for the original “Lady of Lorette”, an early F version, tail number 616, which was lost in combat. And there we had it. All I had to do was glue the slats in the retracted position to make a "6-3 hard wing”, add the wing fence and cut off 12” scale inches from each wing tip

 

After the Korean War, the SAAF did later procure several Canadair CL-13 Sabres (Sabre Mk. 6) which had the short span slatted 6-3 wing. These were painted in an attractive buff/green camouflage.

[Mistral]

So, the obligatory photo of the Hasegawa boxing :

 

 

 

Here's an image of a SAAF F86F-30 with the short span, narrow chord, slatted wings (from Squadron Signal book) :

 

 

 

And here's the 2nd incarnation of "Lady of Lorette" / "Q" / #622, F86F-40 with 6-3 short span hard wing....no slats deployed because there aren't any 😀.

 

 

Q / #622 on the left - the lack of slats and the wing fence on the port wing are visible  :

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mistral]

So then, stuff to do on this kit :

Glue slats in place, fill and smooth out leading edge of wing.

Remove 12 scale inches from each wing.

Add the wing fence.

Remove all raised surface detail and resize / rivet - this'll be a first for me....😝

Close the holes in the main landing gear bays.

Detail the cockpit and seat as well as the canopy read decking and sliding mechanism.

Add detail to port gun bay.

Correct the angle of the airbrakes when open and add detail inside both the airbrake doors and the bays.

Add a blanking cover inside the rear fuselage above the exhaust pipe.

Open the intakes beneath the wing trialing edges as well as some of the other vents.

 

I tried to fit the entire intake, engine and exhaust assembly inside the kit but this was an utter mess - most probably my fault. So I cut the intake short - I'll use the kit intake covers.

 

Here are the major offending articles - the slatted wings, extended span....it all looks OK, but on closer inspection the slat tracks and detail are horrible ! Refer to Sean's (Madmax) lovely Sabre build on this site to see the lengths he went to in correcting these. I wasn't in the mood...

 

 

 

[Mistral]

 

Above : looks like a Sabre....

 

First point of business - check how the slats would look if placed in the retraced position...not too bad but a bunch of filling and sanding coming up, particularly on the lower surface. This would also be an initial gauge of my enthusiasm to fight this kit into submission....

 

This is a loose fit of the slat. I strapped the slat tightly into position using masking tape and then ran liquid cement down the mating surfaces.

 

 

 

 

The portion of the wing which needs to be removed to get to a short span wing - 12 scale inches :

 

 

 

I used some "Dymo" tape as a template / guide for the razor cutter...

 

 

 

Rough cut - that little circular saw placed in a dremmel tool is a nasty piece of machinery and can take some skin off if not used carefully. Safety glasses also a must as it sheds plastic bits in an unplanned manner 🤨

 

 

[MikeMaben]

Interesting ... 

[Madmax]

Clever move not to tackle the chord and the slats Malcolm! I'm afraid that, regardless, you still have quite a job on your hands. The nice thing about this kit is that you will know every panel line and rivet on an F-86 by the time you're done... 

[Biggles87]

A good start on an ambitious project.

The F-86 is one of my all time favourite jets so I’ll be watching closely.

 

John

[Mistral]

On 5/9/2025 at 10:32 AM, Madmax said:

Clever move not to tackle the chord and the slats Malcolm! I'm afraid that, regardless, you still have quite a job on your hands. The nice thing about this kit is that you will know every panel line and rivet on an F-86 by the time you're done... 

 

Thanks Sean. Yup, it's all riveted and scribed now....but I cheated by following the kits ghost rivets and panel lines, accurate or not 🙃. It's certainly not your average Tamiya "shake & bake" kit....

[Mistral]

So then, here are the slats tightly strapped into place as best they could fit, and then Tamiya Super Thin streamed into the upper and lower seams in copious quantities....

 

 

There you go.... relatively nice fit.

 

 

[Mistral]

Underside of the slats needed some filling. Initial rough filling done using long strips of Evergreen plastic bar.

 

 

And then I used Tamiya UV light curing putty to fill the locations of the slat actuators and smooth out the holes in the initial plastic card :

 

 

 

The two holes in either wing are for the Sidewinder pylons. These will be filled as the SAAF Sabres were not equipped as such. The outboard slot is for the wing tank pylons. I'll need to scratch build two inboard pylons of the bombs.

 

 

[Mistral]

Quite a bit of filling with Tamiya UV curing filler on the upper leading edges :

 

 

 

 

 

This UV filler sands and polishes beautifully at a very similar consistency as the kit base plastic.

 

In the image below the aileron is loose fitted. You can see that the trailing edge of the wingtip is gone. The kit plastic is brittle and the tips snapped off. These will be replaced with some plastic stock and filed to shape. The happened on both wings.

 

 

[Mistral]

Initial rough sanding. All raised detail gone. This will need to be replaced with a riveting wheel and scriber. What is interesting about this old school silver plastic is that having removed all raised detail, there remains ghost lines and rivets as can be seen below. Very useful to follow when scribing and re-rivetting...

 

 

In the image above, that "saddle" shaped part must be cut off. Mine clashed with the engine and the wing would not fit...maybe my engine was skew 😎.

 

The rear wing tips replaced with a block of plastic stock. Note how the original raised panel lines appear to still be in place with an odd 3D effect - quite confusing if building with a beer at one's side...

 

 

 

[Mistral]

Next will be the port side gun bay - a bit of additional detail / simulated structure will need to be added. The two large lightening holes were opened and a backing plate offset with a spacer to provide some depth. Reinforcing frames were also added around the gun barrel holes as well as around the edges of the gun bay :

 

 

 

Kit guns will have to do :

 

 

 

A whole array of piping / tubing etc. also added - I used images as a rough guide but the detail appeared to vary from one Sabre version to the next. But it'll look suitably busy once painted.

 

 

 

[Mistral]

So, whilst looking at photos of short wing F-86s, it suddenly dawned on me that I have the wingtips wrong. I simply cut out 12 scale inches from the Hasegawa F-40 outer wing which resulted in the entire wing tip moving inward. This is not entirely correct. It would appear that all short span F-86 Sabre wings had the ailerons all the way to the wingtip, in essence forming the trailing edge of the wingtip and not as I've depicted it as shown in images above. This is true for the short span narrow chord and 6-3 wings (both slatted and unslatted). So I'll have to chop off the extensions I added to the trailing edges of the wingtips and extend the kit ailerons. This makes sense, as by not extending the ailerons, they would be a scale foot shorter and in reality would compromise aileron effectiveness (well that's my theory and I'm sticking to it...😁).

[Mistral]

So, I've chopped off the wingtip trailing edges and extended the ailerons using plastic stock.

 

Port wing :

 

 

Starboard wing :

 

Photographic proof from the Squadron Signal F-86 In Action book (love these books 😀:

 

 

And whilst I was wasting time scratching my head (yet again...) wondering about these damned ailerons, I saw an image Madmax had found on the interwebs and sent me a while back - I believe this is the definitive guide to the Sabre wings - I've attached this below (apologies to the originator for not crediting you as I don't have any details of who created this....) :