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Junior Modellers' Showcase: F-86F

History

The F-86 Sabre was the dominant fighter of the Korean War. It fought tooth and nail against the premier Russian design, the Mig 15, achieving a kill ratio of around 11 to 1. It’s offensive armament consists of six .50 cal machine guns, and it is powered by the General Electric J47 jet engine, one of the most widely produced jet engines of all time. It propelled the Sabre to 688 miles per hour.

This particular Sabre belonged to the 67th Fighter Squadron, the“Fighting Cocks.” It is piloted by Lt. Harvey Brown, who hails from Delray Beach, Florida.

Construction

This was a very easy kit to build. There aren’t very many tin pieces to worry about, most pieces were rather large. I do all of my assembly with the standard modelling glue, which was sufficient to hold all of the pieces together.

The instructions were very straight-forward, I always knew exactly where every piece needed to go. No confusion, even with my beginner-level skills.

My only complaint was with the rear landing gear, which was somewhat flimsy at the joint. Other than that, it was a very nice model.

Painting and decals

So, painting can sometimes be difficult for me, as I don’t own an airbrush and rely on rattle cans and paintbrushes. At first, I tried a chrome coloured rattle can, which proved to be a horrible idea. For some reason, no clue why, this paint was very globby & runny. Even when sprayed very lightly, it would run off and glob at the bottom. I actually ended up wiping off this paint before it could dry, and resprayed it with some silver paint I found in my dads garage. I then painted the nose red, and sealed it all off with some flat topcoat. The decals were all pretty easy to put on, except for the yellow stripe along the fuselage, which was curved, and hard to get all of the bubbles and wrinkles out of. Also, for the yellow stripe on the wing, it just has black border decals that you have to paint yellow inside. I don’t know why they wouldn’t just make solid yellow decals, like they did for the fuselage, but oh well. I then attempted some weathering, using black oil. I also took silver paint, and flecked the red paint on the nose to simulate paint chipping.

Conclusion

This was such a fun build. It is my fifth build, and my first build with a bare metal finish. I am proud of the way that it turned out. If you have any tips as to how I can make my next build better, please let me know!

Also, a question for the Aeroscale community: Do you think that I should build a diorama/base to display this aircraft on? Thanks!