F-86F-10 " Paper Tiger " Korea

[Biggles87]

Hi all,

Here is the basis for my entry into this GB. No box full of sprues neatly stored in bags, just a freezer bag full of bits! These are the leftover parts from several F-86 builds and conversions many years ago with two omissions, the gun bay doors are missing ( don't ask ) so I will have to scratch build a pair. I have ordered CMK 4146  which although described as an ' armament ' set does not include these doors but does have the ammo bay doors and interiors and better interior detail for the air brakes than that provided in the kit. Also in the picture can be seen the Red Roo narrow chord slatted wing which is correct for an F-86F-10, and AeroMaster sheet 48-446 " Sabres over Korea Pt IV "  You can  also see that I have already hacked out the gun bays from the fuselage as the Aires resin cockpit will not fit with these in place.

The book is just one of my many Sabre/Korean War references which contains anecdotes from Korean War pilots and also has a very useful index which lists every F-86 which fought in Korea

So the first job will be to build the gun bay doors while I wait for the CMK bits to arrive,  just two (not quite true ) rectangles with a double curve, how difficult can that be?

 More soon I hope.

 

John  

 

[Basilisk]

Sounds like an interesting build and some resin stuff as well

Cheers, Peter

[rob85]

This looks like fun John, I will pop in to see how it’s going if I may?

 

Rob

[Biggles87]

Thanks for the interest everyone, but it's going to be another week or so before I can get stared.I had an operation to correct my droopy eyelids last Monday and now have very watery eyes ( until the stitches are removed ) which makes focusing very difficult.

 

John 

 

 

[Basilisk]

Wish you a speedy recovery John and looking forward to see your build progress after you are fully recovered.

Cheers, Peter

[Biggles87]

Now that my eyes have stopped watering I can make a start.

I have cut two gun bay doors from Plasticard and engraved the latches and hand holds using my P-cutter. The original kit doors have three latches along the bottom edge but all the photographs I have studied show only two, plus the hand hold above, which I was tempted to show open but decided that my eyesight isn't that good yet. The blue rectangles visible on one of the doors are strips of Dymo-tape which I used to mark out the latches before scribing. All I have to do now is put a curve in them, and I have a plan for that.

When I was building lots of Sabres about 25 years ago KMC produced shed loads of extras for it and I still have a few left in my F-86 spares box including a couple of ejector seats and a seamless intake. The kit intake has the cockpit tub moulded on top of it and the nose wheel well beneath which leaves a rectangular depression on the inside of the lower part of the trunking which needs to be filled, and of course you have two seams, so I will be using the resin one. The nose wheel bay comes from a Monogram kit and will be cut down and mounted under the intake, and I also have a made up resin cockpit tub which will sit on the ledge I have fixed onto the rear of the intake trunking. 

Also in my spares box was a partly dismantled Monogram F-86 which is where the resin cockpit came from and an etched instrument panel, with instrument markings which have turned off white which matches those I have found in period pictures, so that will be used also. The Monogram kit which donated the resin cockpit tub was destined to be a post Korean War aircraft which is why the floor and sidewalls are grey, so they will be painted black before being installed. I'm beginning to think that this build should also be titled " Recycled " given the number of non-Academy being used.

I now have the CMK armament set which I wanted mostly for the ammo bays and their doors, often seen open on parked Sabres because they were used as the first step up into the cockpit, and as previously mentioned airbrakes and interiors. While the details in the airbrake wells are crisper in the CMK versions, those on the kit would need to be removed first and I think I've done enough hacking on this fuselage so I will leave them as is and just use the airbrakes.

Not a very big start, but more to come soon I hope.

 

Cheers

 

John  

[Basilisk]

Good to see you back in the driving seat. Love the detail of your research and using (or as you say "recycle") many useful left overs. Looks like a very interesting build coming up

 

Cheers, Peter

[Harry Callahan]

Because the F-86 Sabre is one of my favorite Jetfighters, i will stick on your build thread, good luck.

[Biggles87]

A small update

My plan was to replicate the kit arrangement of the intake trunking/nose wheel bay/cockpit tub using my ' borrowed ' parts in the hope that everything will line up properly. After lots of cutting, sanding and dry fitting, ( not to mention wasted time ) I found that this just would not work because I think the depth of the resin cockpit is greater than the kit part and there isn't enough room to get everything in! The only solution was to cut down the intake trunking to allow the cockpit tub to sit on top of it, hopefully the reduced trunking is far enough back from the intake not to be noticeable. I have now, finally fitted everything into the starboard fuselage half.

The next job was to cut out the area of the port ammunition bay, I realised that this would  leave the front of the forward fuselage quite flimsy until everything was installed, so I attached the port gun bay door first ( using the Monogram part which was thicker than my home made version ) to add some rigidity before cutting. The Monogram door was slightly shorter than the aperture so was  lengthened by adding a strip of Plasticard to the forward edge. After delineating the area to be removed with Dymo-tape I set about it with my P-cutter and razor saw and acheived this result, breaking off a piece of the saw blade in the process, the CMK set was designed for the Hasegawa kit so there might be some fettling required to get a good fit, we shall see.

In between my struggles with the nose interiors, I have been removing the Red Roo wing from the casting block being specially careful not to remove any of the the slat guide rails on the leading edge. As you can see from the photos, the panel line engraving is finely done and matches that of the fuselage but the leading edges and slat rails need some refinement, particularly on the port side.  My plan is to paint the inner anodised metallic grey area on the wings then mask them before attaching the wings to the fuselage thus avoiding more masking later. 

That's it for now, I hope that progress will be a little quicker from now on as we have finally reached that time when it is too hot for me to be out in the sun after 1400, so I can shut myself away in my " man cave " without feeling guilty.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

 

John  

 

[Basilisk]

The challenge of cross kiting aftermarket parts Bummer about your saw. Looks like a lot of work went into your progress with some nice outcomes to show.

 

Cheers, Peter

[exdraken]

that is a complicated endeavor you are trying here!

 

you will overcome your struggles !

[Biggles87]

Sorry for the lack of updates recently folks, this has been due mainly to continuing problems with my computer/Flickr interface, which I have now hopefully resolved by using a Flickr app on my ipad.

Despite my reservations the ammunition bay fitted well even though I cut the hole too far back, but this can be sorted once the wings are in place. As mentioned earlier this build is made from leftover parts from several kits, some of much are missing including the tail pipe. Fortunately I have quite a large selection of used pens of various diameters, one of which ( a Pilot marker pen ) is exactly the right external diameter and just needed thinning internally, and after fitting some Plasticard braces inside the fuselage was installed before the fuselage halves were joined. Unfortunately I lost a couple of photos of these stages, and didn't realise until it was too late to re-take them.

After cleaning up the wing leading edges, in preparation for painting the centre panels before joining to the fuselage, I gave them a coat of grey primer to show up any imperfections. There were a couple of blemishes which were quickly sorted out, but the main problem was that some of the panel lines are very fine and had almost disappeared under the primer, so some re-scribing was necessary. I used Dymo tape to delineate the panels and although I had recently bought some new rolls I decided ( being welsh ) to finish off an old roll and having done the re-scribing, the following day I attempted to remove the tape and left most of the adhesive on the wing! I've not had this problem before, but the tape was quite old and had, I think, been sitting in the hot sun before I used it. In removing the gunk I also removed most of the primer and some of the panel lines, so another session of re-scibing ( using new tape ) followed by more primer and eventually a coat of Tamiya  Metallic Grey and the wing is ready for attaching to the fuselage.

After joining the fuselage halves I replaced a couple of panels missing from the sprues, the one ahead of the nose wheel with the two lights and the one near the spine with the small inlet. I also had to fair in the resin nose and intake part with some Mr Surfacer 500 as it was not designed for the Academy kit but Hasegawa,  more of the joy of cross kiting aftermarket parts, as Peter says.In my handling of the fuselage I managed to dislodge the instrument panel, but fortunately I can put this in again from above before adding the windscreen. 

And finally the main airframe is assembled, and after a little clean up of some Mr Surfacer on the rear wing/fuselage joint it will be given a coat of Stynylrez black primer in preparation for the metallic finish. wish me luck.

  

                                             

 

 

That's it for now, sorry again for the lack of photos

 

John  

[exdraken]

Good shape already!

[Biggles87]

Started spraying.

This was my first time using Stynylrez primer I'm impressed with the smooth finish, I shall definitely be using it again for any natural metal finish undercoats, it might even replace my favourite Halfords grey primer completely. I found a couple of pots of metallic polishing powder recently and tried some on the air brake bays applied on a cotton bud, thinking that it might be useful for adding variations to the panels but I don't think that either of them will be suitable. 

It was also my first time with AK Extreme Metal and I'm equally impressed, the central wing panels are still masked, pity I forgot to mask corresponding underwing panels before I sprayed them, stupid boy! I'm going to leave it for at least a couple of days to cure before masking off some panels which I plan to brush paint with Mr Metal Colour and/or Citadel metallic paint to give the desired  variation. There was quite a variation in finish on Korean War Sabres, from really shiny to quite dull, and pictures of "The Paper Tiger ' show it to be somewhere in the middle, so I will eventually apply some semi-matt varnish to take some of the shine off.

Masking removed from the centre panels, a couple of small touch-ups needed but overall I'm satisfied with them.  You can see that there is an area on each wing behind the panels where I did not apply enough Extrema Metal and the black primer is showing through so this will be re-sprayed when I paint the panel variations.  

The sharp eyed amongst you will have noticed that I have managed to remove the outer slat guide rail on the starboard wing, this will be replaced immediately before the slats are added. Quite honestly I'm surprised I've only broken one, but there's still time.

  While waiting between spraying I have been working on the seat and drop tanks, and I plan to undercoat the tanks, air brakes, slats and undercarriage doors with grey to see if this give the Exreme Metal a different tone.

 

That's it for now, all comments/suggestions welcome.

 

John  

[CliffB]

There's a lot of work going on here John and it should be stunning when it's done 🍿

 

Cliff

[Biggles87]

I am afraid I’m going to have to withdraw this from the GB,  it looks unlikely that I would have made the deadline now but some visitors from Australia we were expecting in September have asked if they can arrive this weekend, so my ‘ man cave ‘ will be out of bounds for the duration.

Work will resume in a couple of weeks and I will eventually post the result in RFI.

 

John

[exdraken]

familiy,  friends and social life first! - at least from time to time

 

 

looking forward to you resuming work!