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Heller SAAB Safir, Sk 50


Wizball

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A few years ago a large model shop in Sweden imported some runs of the well known Heller range of Swedish aircrafts and repackaged the sprues and instructions:

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The two sprues are a LOVELY yellow colour! Below them you can see the single sheet of instructions - it's not a large kit.

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You can see the decal sheet in the picture above but it is unfortunately not that great - the blue on the Swedish roundels is not nearly right and register is off but otherwise it's usable. A bigger issue for me was that the options are 1) yellow Norwegian plane or 2) camouflaged Swedish. I want a classic yellow plane but with Swedish roundels so I got out my collection of generic roundels and numbers:

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I've read good things about the fit of this kit and details is pretty good for it's vintage so my spirit is still high! My chosen subject will be a little unusual - there's a pylon outside of Linköping where I live that's got a Safir stuck on it. We actually have, around the city, the following collection: Draken, Viggen, Gripen, Safir, Tunnan, Lansen and the least known SAAB aircraft: the 2000. Linköping is a city where its aircraft manufacturer has made an impression.

Edited by Wizball
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A bit of test fitting and sink marks/ejector pin filling today. Biggest issue seem to bee the canopy, which is a bit too large (or is everything else too small?). Thinking about boxing in the wheel wells aswell, you can see right up into the underside of the cockpit, but there may not be enough room.

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Hej!

The Safir is one of my absolute favourites. I'd love one in 1:48!

There is a replacement vacform canopy from Maestro at Rebell.com.

I haven't used mine yet so I really don't know if the fit is better.

Maestro also have a stunning prepainted etched sheet for this kit that I really can recommend.

Andreas

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The etch looks really good, vac canopies and I don't get along though! I'll probably do another Safir sometime so i'll keep that stuff in mind...

Progress is a bit slow but steady. Fuselage is glued together and nose is filled with lead. Never seen a picture of a Safir with a bucket seat, so those were filled with milliput. Closest green to the cockpits I've seen was Humbrol 78, so everything including the masked canopy got a coat of paint today:

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I haven't had time to hang out on BM that much this last week, but I have actually built some. I hope that's the right priority when time is limited...

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Wings on and instrument panel attached. After that, a fair amount of putty was added on the underside to blend it in. After a few iterations of sanding - primer - sanding I added paint just a few minutes ago:

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Gloss Yellow Humbrol 69. Not quite covering yet, but to avoid too much build up I stopped myself. Will do another coat instead, if this coat will ever dry that is. I seem to remember gloss Humbrol taking forever to do that...

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  • 1 month later...

FINALLY done some modelling again! Since last update, I've sprayed two more coats of yellow and I think todays coat is the final one. Earlier coats has taken about two weeks to fully dry and I expect this one to take about the same. Perhaps slightly less, since I didn't cover the entire plane this time.

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Decals and clearcoat next.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I am NOT pleased.

 

Progress has been slow with at least two weeks between coats but finally the yellow was done. I had, with utmost care, placed the decals which turned out to be VERY fragile and after that I had masked the wing walkways and antiglare cowling.

 

But, to spray it I temporarily placed some parafilm over the body and wings. Convenient, until I removed it...

 

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AAAAARGH.

 

I brought it upon myself, of course - a simple future coat would have been enough but I skipped that as the yellow was glossy and I was going to coat it all with satin after this.

 

So, any advice for removing the parts of the decals that actually stick to the aircraft? It may turn out to be a blessing in disguise as I was far from happy with the previous application - turned out they didn't react too well to Micro Sol.

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  • 2 weeks later...

After scraping the old decals off and coating with Future, as proper, I applied some new roundels. Applying liquid decal film made them behave MUCH better without any cracks or shattering.

After this the build was on pause but now I've finally finished up with a satin coat, removed the masking and put on some landing gear.

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Large amounts of lead keep that nose in check!

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Love it, love it, love it! Heller produced some really good kits in those days, the Viggen and the Dragon Rapide of which I have the latter. Shame about the decal disintegration, if you were happy with the satin finish maybe you should try a method related to me which negates the use of a coat of Future.

Instead of placing it here I'll post it in the paints section for all and 'future' reference.

Thanks for sharing your build.

Colin

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Thank you all!

I took some better pictures today and edited the gallery accordingly.

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All in all, the kit can be summed up in one word: nice. Good detail for a kit of this vintage and with OK fit. Decal sheet wasn't that hot but I've seen worse. Mistakes were mostly mine and not Hellers!

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