21st Century A6M2 to A6M3 conversion

[Sabre F-86]

Spent  an hour last night chasing down, filling and fine sanding all the little divots and over scribe marks, cleaning up the fill on the wing and elevator joints. Next thing to do is the scribing of the widened plate on the of the wing spars. About the 5th time now, made up a new template, hopefully this will work. 

[MikeMaben]

 

                         

[Troy Molitor]

Looking forward to an update.   

[Sabre F-86]

Going with this scheme. More or less. I've seen half a dozen models of this aircraft, wildly different ideas as to what it looked like. I"ve done the IJN Grey, upper and lower surfaces, then roughly sprayed on IJN Dark Green in splotches so the grey shows through in spots. I've also painted on the yellow leading edge strips. Looking at this, I'm wondering if I should shoot some OD green or maybe Khaki in spots. It was shot with Alclad under all of the color, so chipping should be easy. The patterns for the masks are just about done. Major bummer, I've lost the scoop under the nose. Going to tear apart my modeling area, it likely fell out of the  bin and onto the floor... Somewhere. If not I'll have to see about scratching one. I have a drop tank from a Swallow kit, should work nicely with this build. 

 

[Sabre F-86]

Coming  along, hardest part were the stencils for the tail numbers. First attempt, the mask didnt cut all the way through. Scaled them up a tad, (The 9 was giving me fits) and had them cut twice. Solved the problem. Working on the hinomarus, upper wing done, stbd side of the fuselage done. Getting ready to do the lower ones, and the red stripe. I did put some OD Green splotches on, but I can see the fuselage band is not wide enough. I'll bump it about a 1/16 or so on the trailing edge to widen it. Working with the masks is getting easier, being hinomarus makes it easier to practice on. That glossy area around the band is Microscale masking gel. Just painted it, so the tape and goo isn't off yet. Any idea where I can get a white builders stencil found on the port side, just in front of the tail? I can find black ones, for the IJN Grey scheme but not having any luck with a white one. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sabre F-86]

Slowly coming along, working on the landing gear and external fuel tank. Grabbed one off the Swallow kit. Bit of a glitch, dropped the canopy center section on the floor and didn't notice til I heard the crunch. Glued the bits back together, cleaning them up and pouring some epoxy to make it all one solid mass, then I'm gonna try my first push molding.