Bill Bunting Posted January 7, 2022 Share Posted January 7, 2022 Been a while since posting here. The holidays, even though scaled down still dominate December. Anyway here is my recently done 1/48 F-86 Sabre. Built out of the box from the Italeri F86E kit. The kit is not that great. It is the Esci moulds from years gone by. The fit is so-so, the panel engraving and details are soft. There is even some short shots on the moulds, particularly the front wing root and the fuselage opening where the gun panel fits. The intake ends abruptly in a dead end and the tailpipe has no detail either. The kit does provide intake and jetpipe covers and they are definitely needed. The decals worked very well and cover 5 options. The decal placement guide in the instructions shows totally different panel lines, hatches etc. making locating the decals correctly difficult with a lot of estimated guesswork. As far as accuracy, I will defer to others. There are a lot of references out there and I am sure this kit does not accurately reflect an RCAF Sabre but if I knew what had to be fixed to be "right", I would never have started it never mind finished it. And so it is finished now. Paints were a combination of Tamiya Bare Metal Silver and Gloss Aluminium lacquers and some old Alclad shades. I haven't done many bare metal finishes but I'm happy with this. Clear-coated with Future/Pledge. Cheers! 41 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAT69 Posted January 7, 2022 Share Posted January 7, 2022 In spite of the kit's shortcomings, your model came out quite nice! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzby061 Posted January 7, 2022 Share Posted January 7, 2022 Well done wrestling that into submission. Pete 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMCS Posted January 7, 2022 Share Posted January 7, 2022 Outstanding finish 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Edmundson Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 nice work on a dog of a kit. WELL DONE !! I like your NMF work !! yes, the old ESCI kit has its accuracy issues, looks like the new Italeri decal instructions have issues too, the depicted Sabre Mk 2 can't be properly made from the kit at all, the second fuel filler should be on the port side (stbd for the Mk5/6), and the wing roundels should not be aligned fore/aft, they should be angled in line with the spar. I'm gonna guess that the kit comes with no pitot tube. Cheers, Tony 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomcat101 Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 Beautiful finish. Looks great. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billn53 Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 Looks grand to me! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcello Rosa Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 Great job on a not so great kit. Congratulations! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Bunting Posted January 8, 2022 Author Share Posted January 8, 2022 1 hour ago, Tony Edmundson said: nice work on a dog of a kit. WELL DONE !! I like your NMF work !! yes, the old ESCI kit has its accuracy issues, looks like the new Italeri decal instructions have issues too, the depicted Sabre Mk 2 can't be properly made from the kit at all, the second fuel filler should be on the port side (stbd for the Mk5/6), and the wing roundels should not be aligned fore/aft, they should be angled in line with the spar. I'm gonna guess that the kit comes with no pitot tube. Cheers, Tony Haha! I said accuracy was not my goal in this build. The roundels are placed as the instructions show- another error. As far as the pitot, well there was one.... Somewhere along the way it became detached and I forgot all about it. It's now replaced with micro-tube. Cheers! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinpin Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 You have overcome the problems well and have a really good result 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForestFan Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 That’s very nice 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyot Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 Looks lovely Bill,..... great scheme and superb paintwork,....... I`m no F-86 expert either but it looks superb to me. Cheers Tony 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivand Posted January 8, 2022 Share Posted January 8, 2022 Looks superb! 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wulfman Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 Great looking Sabre, very nice work ! Wulfman 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loloskymaster Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 Nice looking Sabre with this old kit. Lolo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maginot Posted January 9, 2022 Share Posted January 9, 2022 Great result despite shortcomings of the kit. Good old Esci. I never tried their aircraft, but I miss their armour in 1:72. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-32 Posted January 10, 2022 Share Posted January 10, 2022 Very cool, that really looks the part 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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