I will warn you straight up. If you are timid about cutting, dry fitting, sanding, and filling DO NOT use the CE set! In fact, most of this article is going to deal with the pitfalls of this set since the Hasegawa kit can almost be built with your eyes shut if you follow the directions!

 Removal and initial clean-up of the resin pour stubs was quickly accomplished using my trusty diamond-coated cut-off wheel. After some clean-up with sanding sticks it was time to attack the most feared modeling task of all time, cutting away the kit parts! I will state that the CE instructions are fairly good and you should definitely follow them to the letter. I used the Hasegawa Trytool Modeling Saw Scriber Set (TP-4) to cut off the leading edges of the wing and to cut the fuselage halves as indicated in the instructions. The Hasegawa set is a re-release of the old Trimaster set, and I strongly advise serious modelers to take the effort to acquire these as they are absolutely fantastic.

 The first problem arose in that when you remove the leading edges of the kit wings, there is not a lot of plastic left to join the wing halves together. I recommend that you assemble the wings halves and resin leading edges with tape prior to committing to your favorite glue since this is a very tricky process. In addition, some warpage in the resin parts will add to the challenge. The worst part is that the resin leading edges merely butt-join to the open plastic wing. It would have been much easier if CE had designed this piece as an insert to fit into the wing to ease this task. I was able to get one wing together without any significant problems, but the other wing was a different story, requiring large amounts of superglue and lots of sanding, and rescribing of lost detail. Be very careful with this step as it is very easy to mess things up that will cause huge problems to fix later.

 The resin fuselage halves went together much easier with the only warning is that the kit engine will not fit correctly (the speed brakes interfere) and you will have to build some mounting brackets to fit it in place. A quick dry fit showed the plastic front fuselage would mate up very nicely with the resin rear fuselage with the exception of the area where the wing would mount on the bottom. I had to use a lot of superglue to fill the gaps along the aft wing / rear fuselage join, but this was relatively easy.

 I will mention a word about the cockpit since there is a lot of controversy about the “correct” cockpit color. I will not go into the interior green vs. black vs. grey arguments, but I will quote the Squadron book listed in the references. “The basic cockpit color was changed from Interior Green (FS34151) with a black instrument panel to Interior Gray (FS36231) on all Sabres in 1953”.  If you disagree with that please send an e-mail to Squadron and not to me, since they are the ones who published the book!

 I was less than thrilled with CE’s clear resin windscreen and armor. At first I thought the pieces needed a polishing and a dip in Future to restore their clarity, but this did not improve the clarity one bit. I put the pieces under my son’s microscope and discovered to my horror, millions of minute air bubbles suspended in the resin, so no amount of polishing or Future would do any good. In addition the windscreen did not fit correctly, sitting much too high on the canopy. A lot of careful filing and dry fitting was necessary to rectify this.

The model was almost completely assembled prior to painting, with only the horizontal stabilizers, wing tanks, leading edge flaps, and landing gear components and doors left off. Masking off the canopy, I gave the model a quick wipe down with Polly’s Plastic Prep and sent it off to the paint shop. First up was airbrushing the wheel wells Testor Model Master (TMM) Interior Green. After letting this dry overnight, I stuffed the wheel wells full of wet tissue paper and airbrushed the entire model SNJ Aluminum. In order to provide some variety in panel shading, I masked off selected panels and airbrushed SNJ Aluminum tinted with only a single drop of white, blue, or black to provide four different metal shades.

 I used Cutting Edge F-86A Part 3 (CED48175) decals for the build. Unfortunately, the striping on the wings and fuselage is printed only in black, so the underlying areas need to be painted white. Since there are many compound curves around the fuselage that would be difficult to mask, I copied the decals from my scanner so I could make a template to get the white in the correct locations. A complex step that would have been much easier if the decals had the white printed. Otherwise the decals were quite good, well printed, in register, and printed on a thin carrier. However, they are quite fragile so care must be taken in use.

 In preparation for decals, I airbrushed a heavy coat of Floquil Crystal Cote to protect the finish. Mission accomplished with a beautiful end result, as all the decals snuggled down beautifully using Microscale “Micro Sol” with no discoloration. After a light sealing coat of Future, I used a Payne’s Gray watercolor wash to highlight the detailing on the kit.

In order to prevent breakage, I left off the landing gear, gear doors, extended slats, and drop tanks until after painting/decaling. These all went on with no problems using super thin superglue. After a final “leveling coat” of Future (great for hiding those superglue splooges!), I airbrushed a 50:50 mix of Testor Dullcote and Glosscote for the final finish. Remove the masks and you are done with a great model build.

While the basic Hasegawa kit is very easy to build, coupling the kit with the CE conversion to get an F-86A turns the build into quite a complex affair best left to more advanced modelers. I really wish someone would release an F-86A so one does not have to go to all the trouble and expense (the conversion is more expensive than the kit!). Hopefully, my wish will be granted!

December 2003

Squadron Signal Publications, Walk Around F-86 Sabre, SS5521

Squadron Signal Publications, F-86 Sabre In Action, SS1126