SAAB 91 Safir (was 3x) 1/48 - now only SE-CAD

[Bengalensis]

As I'm working on the two Caudron racers I feel I will still be in a bit of aircraft mode when they are finished. In the stash my eyes fell upon the small pile of 1/48 SAAB 91 Safir's from Tarangus that I bought soon after they were released. I thought that might be three years ago perhaps, but not so, it's almost six years ago...

 

I have fond memories from my childhood in the early 70's when quite often we had a Safir or two flying by quite low over the house, always making a lovely noise, when they were still in active use by the Swedish air force. The good thing is that so many of those are still flying today, with civil registrations. Just look at the photo of this show group of four, taken by my good old friend Bengt Andersson when we visited the fly day at Nyköping 1st September last year.

 

 

So I got myself three kits at once. Well, when the kit was released it was also announced that Maestro would release an extensive decal sheet covering several subjects, including the later Swedish camouflaged version, that where flying over our house in the 70's. So that's an early Swedish yellow trainer and a later camouflage liason version to build. Two. The third kit I got as I had already found a photo of a very beautiful machine; the civil registered SE-CAD, from a promotional photo session at SAAB in 1955. It would just have to be built, somehow, even if it meant drawing and printing decals and not least doing the dreaded masking work, and also the metal finish.

 

 

So I needed three kits. Lovely box art. I dislike end opening boxes, so I will have to use some other containers during the build. I have larger problems though.

 

 

Here we have the content. Looking nice to my eyes, especially for an injection molded kit made in smaller numbers. Some cleanup needed. You get three decal options, they look nicely printed.

 

 

When the kit was released Maestro released a masking set and a photo etch set. As I dislike the masking process the first was a given investment. I will have enough of masking work anyway. And being the addict I am, the photo etch had to come as well.

 

 

Here we have the extensive decal set from Maestro. There are several interesting versions covered on the sheets and the other pages of instructions, including some nice civil ones. The page here shows the Swedish camouflage liason version I'm going to use.

 

 

Now I told you the build I find most interesting today is that civil version above. There is one good thing with putting kits in the stash sometimes. In this case, a few years later, there was a decal sheet printed, in smaller numbers I believe, covering the three civil versions in that promotion photo from 1955 I found earlier! I still have to mask and spray the three colours and stripes, but it saves me hours at the computer (I have enough of that as it is) drawing artwork and printing. Thanks to IPMS Östergötland.

 

 

I hope the coming days will see some parts cut and cleaned and work starting.

[exdraken]

Hell yeah!

You have heard about the just started Nordic group build?

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/forum/679-nordic-gb/

 

Would fit perfectly!!

 

(pitty on the Austrian decals, they missed to print the orange flash....) 

Edited January 23, 2020 by exdraken

[flarpen]

I'll be looking forward to this build very much.

As a member of IPMS Östergötland and one of the persons responsible for creating those decals I'm very interested to see how your build turns out for that perticular A/C.

 

/Johan

Edited January 31, 2020 by flarpen

[Bengalensis]

20 hours ago, flarpen said:

I'll be looking forward to this build very much.

As a member of IPMS Östergötland and one of the persons responsible for creating those decals I'm very interested to see how your build turns out for that perticular A/C.

 

/Johan

Good work on those decals and a great initiative. I was both very surprised and happy when I saw them, ordered at once.

 

I have done some good progress on all three, taking photos, but it's been a messy week with work etc interfering (and it's getting worse again...) so I haven't sorted an update yet. Hopefully during the weekend.

[Bengalensis]

I have made quite some progress cleaning up parts, test fitting and building some sub-assemblies and taking pictures. Work commitments have however once again entered a rather busy period, so it's a little modelling time here and there and nothing gets updated in a timely fashion. Only a few parts remain to be cleaned up and some sanding on the wings to be done, then I'm close to painting the first pieces, but I'll try to wrap up what's been done so far in a few posts.

 

This kit is a short run molding and as such all parts requires cleaning up and careful test fitting and some adjustments here and there. It is best to dry build as far ahead as possible before committing to glue and paint to catch up any issues that can be improved on. I don't have any problem with this so it's no complaint, just something to be aware of.

 

The other day I got some MRP-paint for the yellow and the camo versions. I have never used this paint before, but I have read that they are good color matches and nice to use. We'll see how it works out.

 

 

I also had to decide early on which individuals I would choose for the yellow and camo versions, this to make sure if they were 91B (three seat) or 91C (four seat) versions.

 

The yellow will be no. 50025 (c/n 91227) based at F5 Ljungbyhed as a trainer, which is simply the version Tarangus supply in the box, a 91B. I was thinking of doing a late version of it, from around 1970, when it had dayglo orange patches added, but that means I would need new larger numbers, as far as I can tell, and I'll probably have enough of dayglo anyway.

 

For the camo version I wanted to build one of the individuals that had been flying over our home long ago, which meant a machine based at F11 Nyköping or possibly F13 Norrköping. As luck would have it the extensive decal sheet from Maestro contains no. 50027 (c/n 91229), again a 91B, based at F11 with number 74. It was transferred there from F5 in august 1972 and repainted to camouflage. Being one of the five machines based at F11 back then makes it certain to have been flying over our neighborhood.

 

The civil SE-CAD was c/n 91313, a 91C four seater with wing tanks.

 

With those decisions out of the way I could start working on the parts. Instrument panels and engines quickly went together. I shaved off some details according to the instructions to prepare for the photo etched parts.

 

 

In some places there are ejector pin marks slightly more awkward that others. This is down in the nose gear well. Other that are not seen needs trimming anyway as they interfere with assembly. Dry building and planning ahead is the solution.

 

 

This is the underside of the cockpit floor with the parts making up the nose and main gear wells assembled. Despite trying to foresee problems I had to modify the bowed part making up the forward section of the main gear well, as we shall see. When fitting the nose gear well it is necessary to carefully test fit this in the fuselage halves to get the height correct, as no definite location is given.

 

Edit: Note that the bow shaped part in front of the main gear wells should be fitted the other way around.

 

 

The four seated C-version has a small luggage space behind the rear seats. The kit comes with an alternative rear wall for this, but nothing to go behind it, leaving an empty fuselage behind. I used sections of the left over three seated B-version wall to create a small room.

 

 

 

The fuel tanks for the B-versions are installed, and a support pillar for the C-version. I also cleaned up the front seats.

 

[Hamden]

 

Nice start to an interesting project. 

 

      Roger

[Bengalensis]

Thanks a lot.

 

Attention then turned to the rear seats. The kit parts are a double seat for the C-version. For the B-version the instructions tell you to cut this apart to use the right seat (to the left in the picture). But I think there are problems here. First, the two seats in the C-version are the same width. Second, the width of the rear seats in both the B- and C-versions looks to be more or less the same width as the front seats, at least in this scale. The right section of the kit parts is much wider. The total width of the C-version seat also looked to be on the limit of what would fit inside fuselage.

 

 

There is also another detail with the seats, that actually helped me. The kit comes with these button cushioned seats in all places. This is a feature I see in photos of C-versions, including SE-CAD, but not in photos of Swedish B-versions, where I only see plain seats with no button cushioning.

 

With parts from three kits to deal with I had enough parts to rearrange things a bit. This is probably not perfectly accurate, but it looks a lot better to my eye. For the C-version I cut down the wide section of the bottom part and made new back rests from two left side sections. I also lowered the seat backs to make them more in line with the front seat height, which is how I interpret photos; they are significantly higher in the kit. This may also have to do with the height of the floor, which is probably a necessary compromise. Here is how my C-version ended up.

 

 

For the B-versions I then used the parts I had left over to create rear seats of a more suitable width. As I filled and sanded off the button cushioning this detail was not a problem with the rear seat back parts I had left over to make this. Again, not perfectly accurate, but much better looking to me.

 

[exdraken]

Nice assembly line!

[Bengalensis]

Thanks. It's a little like playing 1950's factory...😎

 

At this point it was time for some serious trial fitting of the fuselage halves to check the engine, cockpit, canopy and wings, so the fuselage halves were taped together. First I wanted to determine the correct placement of the engine parts as there is no precise location given in depth, only in height. This will be about right. The engine is a very tight fit and appears slightly wide, which is easy to file down slightly. Also the nose cowling seemed slightly wide. I'm glad I did not start filing them down at this point.

 

 

Next was to test fit the interior, the instrument panel and the canopy. I have read a few build reports that show problems with canopy being problematic to fit as it's too wide in places. First I noticed that instrument panel was a very tight fit, wanting to pry out the fuselage. And indeed the canopy was wide both front and back. It could be squeezed in to a good fit, but it would be difficult to glue that way, and it would not solve the tight instrument panel, engine and wide nose cowling.

 

I did some testing adding 0,4 mm thick evergreen strips in the upper fuselage joint of the nose and behind the cockpit. This made the canopy and nose cowling fit well and gave room for the instrument panel and engine. I played back and forth with this quite a lot, but however I tried this was the solution that made sense to me. It does widen the raised center joint of the engine cowlings slightly, but if necessary this will be easier to rectify later.

 

 

Note that my only concern is the width in this photo, to get the canopy down to the correct height should not be a problem when the fuselage is joined and the filling strips are cut to shape.

 

 

Here the two filler strips are glued. The rear one will be chamfered out at the back. Time will tell if this was the right decision.

 

 

The tabs for the tail planes do not enter deep enough into the fuselage recesses. As they are quite short as they are I didn't want to cut them down further, instead I opened up the slot in the fuselage to solve the problem.

 

 

With the cockpit placed in the taped up fuselage I test fitted the wing. Somewhere I have read that someone thought the upper wing halves needed to be cut down to fit the width of the fuselage, but I could not - at this point at least - notice any such problems.

 

But the part that makes up the front wall of the main gear wells, under the cockpit floor, ended up to far back, with the edge very visible in the wheel openings, interfering with the wheels if they were to be retracted. I had to cut the parts off again and sand them down to place them more at an angle forward. This will look better when all is assembled I think.

 

Edit: A better option may be to actually fit that bow shaped front wall the correct way according to the instructions, not backwards... If the resulting step would be correct I don't know.

 

[politicni komisar]

 

I have it on stash for a while with all the extras.

Finland markings will do.

Your work is an encouragement to me, so I have included it in this year's projects.

 

Samo/P.k

[Bengalensis]

Thanks Samo, that's good to hear. This is a pretty nice little kit if you are prepared to work a little with it I think.

 

With attention focused to the wings I remembered a note written about some details by someone who worked a lot on the Safir's. The kit comes with molded in detail on both sides' upper and lower surfaces that depict the fuel caps and fairings for the wing tank drains on the C-version. The suggestion was made that this should be removed when building a B-version. Looking at photos this seemed indeed to be the case, so the wings for my B-versions were accordingly cleaned up.

 

 

Gluing wing halves, clamps needed. If you did no test fitting you would now discover ejector pin marks on the inside needing to be trimmed.

 

 

The fit is quite OK, a little filler needed here and there on the leading edge needed, with some sanding and super glue all round the joints later.

 

 

The landing lights are supplied as clear parts containing sections of their fairings. I think they are ending up slightly too long and will also need some sanding and filling to make them smooth. Also the lenses look a bit too deeply recessed to my eye. I glued them on now to cut them down and blend in, and then I will replace the lenses with something else.

 

 

Here we are after sanding. I had a look at Ø1, 1,5 and 2 mm lenses and I think 1,5 will be OK. There are photo etched pieces for this on the Maestro sheet, that would need drops of clear resin added, but I think I will go for these.

 

 

All joints filled and sanded smooth and ailerons cleaned up. They are slightly bent as they come, but are easily straightened.

 

 

At each wing tip there should be a thin probe. I cut pieces of 0,6 mm syringe needles for these and drilled into the tips, although one should probably be slightly thinner than the other.

 

 

And here are the finished wings with the ailerons added. A bit of work is needed shaving off some material from inside the upper wing parts to obtain a good fit of the ailerons.

 

[Courageous]

Good stuff Jorgen, some well detailed instructional posts.

 

Stuart

[flarpen]

Great work.
Love your attention to detail, right up my alley, especially the differences between the versions.

I'll take notes as i have this on my to build list as well.

[Bengalensis]

I haven't had much time at the workbench lately, but a little progress has been made.

 

The kit's wheel hub caps look like what I see on many yellow B-versions, but not like the ones on the C-version I'm looking at. That one seems to have thicker more protruding hubs. I punched two discs from 0,25 mm sheet that I shaped slightly and glued on top of the kit part.

 

 

I also cleaned up the last parts to be used from the kits. I drilled out the exhausts and I have cut off all details from the nose and main gear parts that will be replaced with photo etch.

 

 

Today I sprayed the first coats of paint on the cockpit and engine parts. The next stage of the build has been reached.

 

[exdraken]

very nice progress!

 

interesting how everybody interprets instructions!

I mounted part 32 (in the landing gear compartment ) the other way round.. now I am in doubt...

 

[Bengalensis]

2 hours ago, exdraken said:

very nice progress!

 

interesting how everybody interprets instructions!

I mounted part 32 (in the landing gear compartment ) the other way round.. now I am in doubt...

 

You are indeed correct, I just had another look at the instructions. I suppose what happened when I was fitting the part is that the step that creates just looked totally wrong. Having said that I don't know exactly how the wheel wells look up there.

[Courageous]

I like the control you're having with multiple builds and multiple versions.

 

Stuart

[Bengalensis]

Thanks a lot Stuart. I thought this was the only way to get them done. If I would be sensible and build just one first, it might be ages before I revisit the same project again. Better bite into it and work them all at once.

 

Today has been more painting details. It doesn't show much...

 

 

I decided to repaint some of the prepainted photo etch, to get the same colors on the instrument panel parts as I have used on the kit parts. It wouldn't look right otherwise.

 

 

And yet more detail painting. But now I should be able to get some building done again. Apart from the fact that I'm overwhelmed by work at the moment...

 

[exdraken]

1 hour ago, Bengalensis said:

 

I decided to repaint some of the prepainted photo etch, to get the same colors on the instrument panel parts as I have used on the kit parts. It wouldn't look right otherwise.

 

 

..

 

 

makes perfectly sense!

nice work!

I also noted that I should have repainted part PE 13... to something similar than on your right side..... a bit late now....

 

[Bengalensis]

Slow progress here, but at least the instrument panels are finished.

 

[Bengalensis]

And we have seat belts installed, after a good deal of fiddly work. I have built very many 1/43 scale race and rally cars over the years with much more complex belts than this, but still I found it fiddly today. Now this should mean that I can start looking closely at joining the fuselage halves once and for all.

 

[politicni komisar]

On 2/9/2020 at 8:17 PM, Bengalensis said:

Thanks a lot Stuart. I thought this was the only way to get them done. If I would be sensible and build just one first, it might be ages before I revisit the same project again. Better bite into it and work them all at once.

 

Today has been more painting details. It doesn't show much...

 

 

I decided to repaint some of the prepainted photo etch, to get the same colors on the instrument panel parts as I have used on the kit parts. It wouldn't look right otherwise.

 

 

And yet more detail painting. But now I should be able to get some building done again. Apart from the fact that I'm overwhelmed by work at the moment...

 

The one with the gray interior is civilian? i haven't got a clear picture yet for Finnish aviation cockpit color.

 

Otherwise, your work is an inspiration.

 

P.k

[exdraken]

16 hours ago, Bengalensis said:

And we have seat belts installed, after a good deal of fiddly work. I have built very many 1/43 scale race and rally cars over the years with much more complex belts than this, but still I found it fiddly today. Now this should mean that I can start looking closely at joining the fuselage halves once and for all.

 

 

wow!

 

looks very very nice I must say!

 

think about adding some nose weight... I opened mine again to add some... hopefully it was sufficient after all 

 

 

[Bengalensis]

8 hours ago, politicni komisar said:

The one with the gray interior is civilian? i haven't got a clear picture yet for Finnish aviation cockpit color.

 

Otherwise, your work is an inspiration.

Thanks a lot, glad to give some inspiration.

 

Well, yes, the grey one is civilan, but more it is also a C-version, and the other two are B-version, and from the Swedish air force. I'm not 100% sure, but I think there is often a difference in colors between B and C, on the other hand all B I have researched are either Swedish AF or ex Swedish AF... The Finnish Safirs are as far as i know D-versions, I think it's best research those specifically.

6 hours ago, exdraken said:

wow!

 

looks very very nice I must say!

 

think about adding some nose weight... I opened mine again to add some... hopefully it was sufficient after all 

Thanks a lot. They are taking shape, albeit slowly.

 

Yes, nose weights will need to go in, thanks for the rminder. I have no idea how much, I read somewhere that 14 g was more than enough. Will need to check this a little.

[Bengalensis]

Fuselage halves glued together and the nose sections also fitted.  But no engines, nose weights and instrument panels? It may seem odd, and time will tell, but all my test fittings indicate that I will be able to fit them afterwards - in that order - from the cockpit opening. The benefit would be that fewer components have to line up perfectly in one operation. It was actually enough to deal with as it was now.