Hasegawa F-86D, a refugee from the NATO '50s GB

[Giorgio N]

I know, I have a very bad track record when it comes to group builds and the recently concluded NATO-WarPac 1950's GB is no exception...

In in this GB I failed to complete not one but two models ! As this one was however very close to the end I have decided to keep pushing to complete it as soon as possible, showing here the progress.

Here's the original thread showing how far I was into the build before the end of the GB:

 

 

Assembly was mainly completed and all metal shades had been applied to the model.

Progress after the end of the GB has seen the antiglare panel painted in place. This was followed by a coat of Klear to prepare the area for decaling. While I was spraying Klear i also coated the tail as this area too will have to receive decals.

 

 

With this areas done it was time to paint the radome. This was painted in a mix of black and dark brown. Really the final result doesn't show any trace of brown, simply I got a "less black" finish.. oh well, at least shows some contrast with the black used on the tail.

 

 

With the radome painted I have also finally removed the masks from the windscreen and canopy. The canopy still need painting while the windscreen needs some cleaning as some paint managed to get under the masks. Should be nothing to worry about though, all paints used were acrylics and these can be removed with denatured alcohol.

 

Next step will be applying the decals... and this will require more work than expected !

The Microscale sheet is very old and the decal I used to check broke in the water. Micro Decal Film to the rescue ! Hopefully this will sort the matter. Of the tail markings I'll only use the unit badge and the white serial as the original decal did not fit the kit tail (it was designed for the Airfix kit).

The various USAF titles and buzz numbers will likely be replaced... the U.S. AIR FORCE titles on the fuselage are in a different font in the picture I have of this aircraft and the same applies to the small "946" number close to the intake. I may use the rest but really at this point I'll rather print all titles on my laser printer.

Stencils are another problem... the kit includes almost nothing in terms of stencils while the ones in the Microscale sheet are for the F-86F ! Luckily Dennis, AKA @sloegin57 has sent me a copy of the 1/48 Revell kit decals and instructions. I will use these, together with a series of pictures, to draw my own stencils and I'll then print them on clear decal paper.

In the end this will have been a simple kit to build, with a bit more involved paintjob and a complicated decaling experience...

 

[giemme]

Kerp it up G, looking forward to seeing her completed  

 

Ciao 

[Terry1954]

Just caught up on this in the group build. Looking really good so far.

 

Terry

[72modeler]

Nice Sabre Dog, Giorgio! Can't wait to see the RFI photos. Duncan will be proud of you!

Mike

[delticfan]

Hi, I’m starting to use klear for the first time well the American Pledge version, can I ask if you spray it neat and at what preasure do you add flow improvers or thin it. Also I’ve trialled microscale set and sol on it but sol seems to melt the klear, any help gladly accepted, thank you.

[Sabrejet]

Looks good: 513th bird then? You know those 86th FIW squadrons were some of the last USAF units to operate the 'Dog - into 1960 in fact.

[Courageous]

I very rarely frequent the group builds and I'm glad that the 'Dog' has made its way onto this forum.

Great to see some work of yours Giorgio, and it's a Sabre too, what's not to like.

Looking beautiful but me being me, would have opted for putting the slats out.

 

Stuart

[RidgeRunner]

This looks superb, Giorgio! I love the finish you have got, particularly the natural metal. Keep up the great work.

 

Martin

[Giorgio N]

14 hours ago, giemme said:

Kerp it up G, looking forward to seeing her completed  

 

Ciao 

 

18 minutes ago, Courageous said:

I very rarely frequent the group builds and I'm glad that the 'Dog' has made its way onto this forum.

Great to see some work of yours Giorgio, and it's a Sabre too, what's not to like.

Looking beautiful but me being me, would have opted for putting the slats out.

 

Stuart

 

6 hours ago, 72modeler said:

Nice Sabre Dog, Giorgio! Can't wait to see the RFI photos. Duncan will be proud of you!

Mike

 

8 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Just caught up on this in the group build. Looking really good so far.

 

Terry

Thanks folks, glad you like it !

[Giorgio N]

2 hours ago, delticfan said:

Hi, I’m starting to use klear for the first time well the American Pledge version, can I ask if you spray it neat and at what preasure do you add flow improvers or thin it. Also I’ve trialled microscale set and sol on it but sol seems to melt the klear, any help gladly accepted, thank you.

 

Glad to share my experience : I used to spray it straight from the bottle when I was using an airbrush with a 0.3 nozzle. Then I started adding a couple of drops of flow improver and realised that the finish was even smoother. Now that I'm using a 0.2 nozzle I always add some flow improver/retarder as if sprayed pure it will clog the tip pretty quickly. I use Liquitex retarder and I'm pretty happy with it.

Pressure I use is usually between 15 and 20 PSI, as I generally do for most acrylic paints.

I've had some case of Micro Sol "melting" the klear coat but anytime this happened I found that adding another coat of klear over the decal restored the finish perfectly. This onlly happened a couple times with Micro Sol when I used this in excessive quantity though. Different story with Gunze's decal fluid, that is more aggressive. This can attack the Klear coat easily, reason why I always use it sparingly. Again, just spraying another thin coat on top sorted everything

 

[Giorgio N]

9 minutes ago, RidgeRunner said:

This looks superb, Giorgio! I love the finish you have got, particularly the natural metal. Keep up the great work.

 

Martin

 

Thanks Martin ! credit for the natural metal finish goes to Vallejo Metal Colors, They really are very easy to use and give excellent results.

 

2 hours ago, Sabrejet said:

Looks good: 513th bird then? You know those 86th FIW squadrons were some of the last USAF units to operate the 'Dog - into 1960 in fact.

 

Thanks ! That's very interesting ! I know that 52-3946, the subject of this build, went to Yugoslavia, guess that the same fate occurred to other birds from the same wing.

I first saw these markings (that I believe were the latest worn by the Ds of this unit) in the old Squadron Signal "USAFE in Color" and felll in love with them. A D from 513th FIS had been on my to-do list for many years.

 

28 minutes ago, Courageous said:

I very rarely frequent the group builds and I'm glad that the 'Dog' has made its way onto this forum.

Great to see some work of yours Giorgio, and it's a Sabre too, what's not to like.

Looking beautiful but me being me, would have opted for putting the slats out.

 

Stuart

 

Thanks Stuart !

I agree on the slats and the original plan was to chop these from the wings and build the model with extended slats... and extended rocket tray !

Then I decided to build this one quick to try and have something finished for the Group Build. And of course failed ! A quick build meant having to leave the slats closed and as the area below the rocket tray was not properly represented in the kit I also kept this shut.

I will use the Hasegawa rocket tray on the Special Hobby F-86L I have in the stash and this will also receive extended slats. I'm also thinking of buying another Hasegawa kit but it's not that easily available... however I found a Hong Kong shop that sells the JASDF combo for around €40 delivered to Europe... not a bad price for two kits, even if that will mean having to source decals if I want to build a USAFE aircraft. Even if Customs will apply VAT, it would still be a competitive price, as we dont' have additional handling fees here in Italy.

[Terry1954]

23 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

I've had some case of Micro Sol "melting" the klear coat

I've had some issues like this Giorgio, not consistently, but more than a couple of times. For me it was the Sol turning the klear slightly paler, but I think like you have found it seems linked to excessive amounts  of Sol.

 

Terry

[Giorgio N]

Let's see some decals...

Now that I had to paint the stripes on the tail and print my own stencils I realised that I'll be using very little of the Microscale sheet. That is quite annoying considering that this was not cheap. Now as I'm relatively experienced at printing decals I can sort most problems but the white serial number is something I can't print in any way, this should better work well...

After a couple of light coat of Micro Decal Film the serial numbers were ready to be placed on the model, so I cut one from the sheet, dipped in water with trepidation and tried to put it in place... sigh of relief, everything went fine !

 

 

Well, kind of... the decal worked perfectly,  but the size of the decal is not 100% correct. I'll live with it, this will not be an 100% accurate model.

 

Now I should cut the 513 FIS insignia from the original decal but I noticed a problem:

 

 

For a starter one of the markings has some black ink bleed. This will be sorted with some white paint. The problem is that the Microscale printed the eagle on the left side of the tail as looking forward, while the picture I have shows this looking toward the rear of the aircraft. This can of course be sorted by using the eagle from the other side... unfortunately I don't know if the eagle on the right side looked forward or not ! The official insignia of the unit has the eagle looking right, so my aircraft may have had them reversed.. or maybe both were looking rearward.

What I'll do is likely to have the eagle looking to the rear on the left side according to the picture and use the other eagle for the other side.

Or better, this was the plan until I noticed one thing: pictures of other aircraft from the same unit show an eagle that is lighter in colour than the black surround of the shield ! The picture I have of this same aircraft seem to show the same. The official insignia of the unit had a red eagle on a white shield and this fits with the pictures I have, all B/W,

Now there are 3 options here:

1) Repaint the eagle in red on the sheet before cutting the shield

2) paint the shield in white on the tail and apply a homemade decal, printed in the correct red colour

3) Pretend nothing happened and use the shield and black eagle how they are...

[Giorgio N]

2 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

I've had some issues like this Giorgio, not consistently, but more than a couple of times. For me it was the Sol turning the klear slightly paler, but I think like you have found it seems linked to excessive amounts  of Sol.

 

Terry

 

Yes, same problem, the coat turns slightly paler, something that initially frightened me as the decal film was at that point very visible. A further coat of Klear sorted everything fortunately.

[RidgeRunner]

Again, this looks great, Giorgio! I'm sorry about your problems but, as you know, that is the normal path in modelling. I know you'll get her wrestled in to shape.

 

M

[giemme]

21 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

3) Pretend nothing happened and use the shield and black eagle how they are...

Go with this and don't tell anyone ... we'll keep the secret ...    

 

Ciao

[Sabrejet]

The 513th 'Ligle' faces left both sides and should be red:

 

 

[delticfan]

Giorgio,

 

Thank you for the advice on the application of Klear, my airbrush pressure is usually 15 to 20 psi for most acrylics as you did mention. I had actually tried brushing it with a good quality brush but I do prefer the airbrush. I had been flooding the decals with set and sol which I will now cease, its interesting others experience the paint going pale, I panicked also when I saw this!

 

Great advice everyone thanks for sharing and a wonderful build Giorgio.

[Giorgio N]

16 hours ago, Sabrejet said:

The 513th 'Ligle' faces left both sides and should be red:

 

 

thanks for the picture, very nice !

I see how the eagle looks left, however in the picture linked below showing "my" aircraft I seem to see it looking to the right

 

https://www.airhistory.net/photo/90011/52-3946/23946

 

The insignia looks lighter than black so red it is !

 

[Sabrejet]

All of which goes to show you should never say 'never'! All the photos I have show the head faced left: here are a few examples.

 

Every day's a school day!

[Courageous]

Irrefutable evidence I'd say.

 

Stuart 

[Terry1954]

But there may always be an exception, and Giorgio has found it!

 

Terry

[Giorgio N]

Yes, looks like I found the only exception... that of course throws a spanner in the works ! No problem in printing an emblem looking the correct way, the problem is that I now don't know if the other side had the eagle looking one side or the other... will have to guess something !

As I'm speaking of printing, it should be clear that I've decided to discard the Microscale decal and make my own with the correct red markings. Before attempting this however I've printed a few stencils

 

 

Not too bad but unfortunately some of the markings are not good, looks like the toner did not adhere well. I think I know the reason and I should sort this in the next print run.

The various service stencils however are useable and I've started applying a few, as shown below:

 

 

Now the rescue arrow and the red abd yellow markings come from the Special Hobby F-86K. This has decals for Italian, Norwegian and Dutch aircraft, and as my plan is to build an Italian one the English emergency markings for the other two options can be used on my D (Italian Ks had dual language stencils, correctly reproduced in the SH sheet).

The white stencils on the antiglare panels are from the spare decals box, they can't be read anyway so will do.

The black writings are my own printed stencils, and I like them quite a lot ! They are thin enough to be visible from close distance but not from 6 feet, IMHO pretty realistic. And tey can be read with a magnifying glass ! Not that I'll ever bother doing it but I like the idea of having stencils made this way. If only modelling companies offere the same...

[Giorgio N]

Speaking of printing, I may also have to print my own USAF titles and here I have a doubt.... these were generally in Insignia Blue in this timeframe but I'm not sure that the F-86s carried markings in this colour. Does anyone know for sure ? My machine would have the later square titles, that IIRC were applied by the USAF during maintenance while North American initially applied rounded USAF titles.

I checked a few pictures but can't come to any clear conclusion, in no small part thanks to the relatively poor quality of most period photographs-

 

Another doubt that came while looking at the pictures was the position of the national markings on the wings: some show these almost parallel to the wings, while others show a totally different kind of position, with the insignia almost perpendicular to the fuselage. Which one applies to my aircraft ? I may have to dig much deeper in my books...

[Shalako]

The problem with the Hasegawa kit (besides the obvious ones; lack of detailed cockpit, etc.) is that it is TOO expensive! Wish I had bought it back in the 90's when hobby shops had it for only 12 Euros!

 

At least, I'm enjoying your build Giorgio!!