Jump to content

1/32 Italeri F-86 Sabre


Recommended Posts

Hi fellas,

 

I should subtitle this as "Next in the series of hotel room builds".

 

Sitting (living) in a hotel room for months on end sucks! So to alleviate the boredom I build models (the good news is hotel living ends next week - I finally get to move into an apartment. Yay!) The other good news about living in Japan is easy access to some damn good hobby shops. They may be a dying breed elsewhere but here the stores are fantastic! So, on to the Sabre -

 

This is the Italeri re-boxing (I think) of the Kinetic F-86. I remember being somewhat disappointed when I bought the kit a few years ago so I went on an AM buying spree to try to spruce it up some. Didn't work - it wound up on the Japanese hotel shelf-of-doom. Frankly not impressed with the kit at all. It reminds me of mid-70s Revell fit but with pretty good surface detail and really poor internal detail. So the cockpit was replaced with the Aires pit. Don't waste your time - bad fit and lots and lots of trimming to make all the parts fit. And the Aires seat looks like a carbon copy of the kit seat. My recommendation is spiff up the kit parts with some Eduard PE instead. I went with the CMK seat - better. Next up for AM was the Aires wheel wells and speedbrakes. Better, at least the wheel wells, detail-wise. The fit, well - that's what put the kit on the SOD! But I perservered. One note about the speedbrakes - the Aires installation will position the open speedbrakes at the wrong angle - I didn't notice until it was too late to fix, or at least by that time I lost interest in fixing them :BANGHEAD2: .

 

Where was I? Oh, yeah, AM to fix the kit issues. I used the AMS intake and gun ports, and gear doors from somewhere, can't remember now. Using the AMS intake fixes the nose but prevents the kit intake from lining up. Good thing the kit provides intake and exhaust covers. The alignment issue might also be the interaction with all the resin stuffed into the nose  :huh:  Spoiler alert - NOTHING on this kit fits worth a damn!

 

After all the AM got installed, time for some glue. Then back to the SOD. And a trip to the hobby shop for more putty. I think every single seam needed putty!  Then she got black primer  - Mr. Surfacer 1500, really impressed there, and finally I was absolutely going to figure out how to do a varied aluminum panel jet! I used Mr. Color Aluminum, , Super Metallic Titanium and Stainless Steel to get the panel shades. Looks good to me, so a couple of coats of clear and time for decals. The bright shining spot for the whole enterprise, the decals are superb! All the picks I could find of this bird showed it to be pretty clean so I just did a wash of the wheel wells and gear and called it good. I was shooting for a semi-gloss finish but it came out more satin. Too late, I'm tired of messing with it!

 

So here she is:

 

OC3Ds6t.jpg

 

JqAQieE.jpg

 

YjrgNzi.jpg

 

ksTHudo.jpg

 

aqlImhE.jpg

 

yHgf3jY.jpg

 

More pics to follow,

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Peterpools

Mark

Terrific build of a really poor kit in almost every category. Thumbs up on working through all the short comings. Completely agree a Tamiya Sabre woukd be great but the chances are really slim. Your NMF finish is spot on.

Peter

Edited by Peterpools
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It looks great, maybe some fit issues, using a ton of AM makes it even harder, but...you turned out a damn nice plane! I am very impressed with the finished product! Beautiful! 

 

I have a soft spot for F-86's because the Monogram 1/48 F-86 was the very first airplane kit I ever built, when I was 7. So I think when I build mine, I am going to skip all the AM other than the Eduard cockpit set and a pilot...then build it flying with gear up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...