Hasegawa F-86 Sabre

[Dragon]

With my Training Day GB build sent to the SOD, I’m going to join this GB with the vintage Hasegawa F-86 kit, and I’ll be using the Avionix cockpit with the build. I’m looking to build a Korean War jet, and I have a lead on some decals. I’m aware I’ll need to perform surgery on the wing tips.  Are there other external adjustments/change need to make a Korean War Sabre?

 

I began the build by closing up the gun bays and speed brakes. I was pleasantly surprised how well they fit, so minimal filler was needed. As you can see I got heavy handed with the Tamiya Extra Thin Cement along a couple of the panels. 

 

Next up is working on the cockpit.

 

Thanks for looking in on my build.

 

Mike

[Snowbird3a]

All depends on your decals that you get.   Chopping off the 12" extension on the wing tips only gets you a Canadair Sabre 6 wing,   you then have the option of glueing the slats closed and adding a wing fence for a 6-3 hard edge wing, or slice out a section of the wing chord to backdate it to the short chord slatted wing of the 'A','E', & early 'F'.

 

Cheers, Tony

[MikeMaben]

Interesting, I have one of those kits too. One of my favorite jets, Have fun Mike 

[Dragon]

Snowbird3a - thanks for explanation on the different wing types. To keep this easy on me, I'm going to keep the cord as is and make a 6-3 hard wing. I've spent numerous nights Googling Sabres, and I've found a couple of great sites with colored photos of Sabres during the Korean War. I'm starting to enjoy the research associated with the builds.

 

I've made some good progress on the build. I started with getting the cockpit sidewalls installed. After scrapping away the kit's sidewalls, I glued in the resin sidewalls:

 

 

After getting the sidewalls in, I next worked on getting the cockpit to fit, and after several nights of scrapping and sanding, I was able to get the cockpit to fit in the fuselage. Once I was comfortable with the fit of the cockpit, it was painted black along with the sidewalls, and the dial, gauges, and switches were highlighted. The front and rear sections were attached, and the fuselage was closed up. I failed to take pics of the cockpit and the assembling of the fuselage, but here a couple pics of the assembled fuselage.

  

There's cleanup work I need to do on a couple of seams, but overall, I'm surprised and impressed with the fit of the 70's era kit.

 

Next up will be working on the wings: cutting the extension, glueing the slats, and making the wing fence.  

 

Thanks for looking in.

Mike

[MikeMaben]

[Snowbird3a]

did you ever get any Korean decals for your build.   I have just come across 2 MicroScale sheets in my stash;  32-21 & 32-22.

 

PM me if you are still looking

 

Tony

[Dragon]

Thanks gents for the encouragement!

 

Tony - I was able to secure these same decals. Thanks for the offer, much appreciated. 

 

I've spent the past week cleaning up fuselage seams, smoothing out some minor steps in a couple of joints, and blending the intake to the nose. As I was doing this work, I discovered I made a bonehead mistake. I forgot the IP when I installed the cockpit and closed up the fuselage . The IP won't fit into the cockpit now that the fuselage is closed up. I've trimmed the IP down in an attempt to get into position but to no avail. All I've done is scrape off some of the cockpit paint; touchup time. I've set the IP issue aside for now....

 

After that debacle, I shifted my attention to the wings and some plastic surgery. I've cut off the 12" extensions (these pics are of the bottom half wing):   

 

Here's a pic of the wing tip snugged up against the wing:

 

 

After removing the 12" extensions, I glued closed the slats and cut the wing tips to length to match the wing's tip cord. This leaves the reminder of the wing tip short in length to match the aileron's width, so I'll filled the gap with small piece of styrene strip:

 

Now, it's time for some filling, sanding, and scribing of the slats and wing tips.

 

Thanks for looking in on my build.

 

Mike

 

  

[Dragon]

Update time.

 

The bench time has been spent working on getting the wing tips and slats blended into the wing. After a lot of sanding, puttying, sanding, more puttying, and more sanding, I finally got them to my satisfaction. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the panel lines since there is quite a bit of putty; I may try drawing them with a pencil. I need to scratch build the wing fences, but I haven't found a good pic of them yet to know what they look like or their size. I also spent time working on getting the nose cone and fuselage halves to blended better, not perfect, but since my builds are "3 footers", it'll due. I've glued the wing and fuselage together, and it's starting to look like a Sabre, still need to glue the wing roots.

 

Next up is working on the rear deck and the canopy frame.

 

Thanks for looking in on my build.

 

Mike

[MikeMaben]

Lookin' good Mike 

[mpk]

Great stuff Mike. Fantastic work.

 

When I was a kid I built this old kit. When it was complete I fell in love with the shape. The sabre instantly became my favourite aeroplane. The only other aeroplane to have this effect was a Hawker Hunter.

 

Needless to say, I am going to watch your magic. 

[Dragon]

Thanks all for the encouragement and for checking in.

 

Haven't had much time at the bench since my last update due to too much working and not enough play time, but I do have a small update. I removed the rear deck from the canopy frame per the Avionix instructions:

 

 

I used a mini-saw to cut away to deck:

 

Then I used a woodworking chisel to clean up along the inside of the frame

 

Up next will be securing the canopy brace and guide rail to the frame then some painting and adding the canopy.

 

Not much of an update but it is progress. 

 

Thanks for looking in.

Mike

[Dragon]

Over the past several weeks, I had been searching the internet looking for pics for confirmation the rear deck should have been removed and what the canopy frame and associated assemblies look like in comparison to the Avionix pieces. I was having zero luck, until I stumbled across this site:  http://silverhawkauthor.com/canadian-warplanes-6-jets-canadair-cl13-sabre_676.html. In one of the pics, two airmen are holding the canopy up in the vertical position, and it's clear the rear deck was to be removed. Additionally, the pic provided me with a better understanding of the canopy frame and associated assemblies. With that, I was able to assemble the pieces and attach them to the frame.

 

Here are the pieces for the canopy frame and assemblies:

 

 

And here they are assembled and installed in the frame:

 

Because the canopy glues directly to the frame, similar to the Tamiya Phantom, I added strips of tape along the frame edge for paint protection which hopefully provides a better adhesion surface when I glue on the canopy.

 

That's it for this update and thanks for looking in.

Mike 

[Dragon]

Thanks everyone for following along with my build. 

 

Before I started painting the build, I needed to complete the wings. From what I've read, the 6-3 wing had wing fences, and I found information and images on the web to give me a sense of their size, what they looked like, and their location on the wings. One web site said the fence was located 90 mm ( in 1/32 scale) from the fuselage, and a build said the fence was 86 mm; I split the difference and went with 88 mm. Using a piece of tape to mark the distance, I applied a piece of Dymo labeling tape as a guide to cut a slot in the wing where the fence would go.

 

I used a pice of brass strip to make the fence. I cut it to size then filed it to the approximate shape. Here's a pic of the fence installed in the slot before epoxying it in place.

 

And here are pics of the installed fences along with my attempt at the angle iron bracing the fences had (well, at least in the pics I had seen). The bracing is on both sides of the fences.

 

I need to do a little cleanup on them, but overall I'm happy with how they turned out. 

 

Next up will be getting the windshield prepped and and installed then it'll be time to lay down the gloss black as the base for the Alcad finish. I'm sure I'll find areas that'll need to additional work to get the surface in satisfactory condition for a NMF finish.

 

Thanks for looking in.

Mike

 

[Ayovan]

I'll be doing the same wing mod to my Sabre. I am doing an F-30 model of John Glenn's "Mig Mad Marine". Im still trying to find the Avionix resin cockpit set. I had found one a few months back around X-mas time,and like a bone head didn't buy it when I had the chance. Then New Years I came down with Covid-19.  I wound up with complications from covid and in n out of the of the hospital 3 times over the last 3 1/2 months (been home for a week now). Now Im sitting here all jacked up on steroids, anti-biotics, blood thinners, and sucking on oxygen (steroids give me acute insomnia) I'm still on disability for another month at least. But hey, I got plenty of time for building models and posting at 3 am. LOL

 

I have had 2 of these kits, one was with the Black Angel decal set (wish I still had that) the other is the same as this build. I found the "Mig Mad Marine" decal set on Warbird Decals site.  I did find a CMK F-40 cockpit set which should arrive next week. I also have an Eduard's f-30 interion PE I'm not sure what all, if anything really differs between the the F-30 and F-40 cockpits, but between the 2 I should be able to make something work. Im a little nervous about the NMF, as the both times I have attemped it,  I did not get the results I wanted. 

 

For now, I'll finish up the Trumpy BF-109-3 build I'm in the middle of. I look forward to seeing your Sabre progress, and will be watching this thread close

 

Andy

Edited March 14, 2021 by Ayovan

[Ayovan]

Just found me an Avionix f-30 set. YAY!