Academy 1/48 F86 Sabre, HAF 341 squadron

Started by John vd Biggelaar · 235 · 5 months ago · . 1/48, Academy, F86, HAF, Sabre
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    John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Thanks a lot George @gblair for creating this wonderful Groupbuild.

    I will be entering this GB with the Academy 1/48 F86 which I received from my good friend Sipros @fiveten while he visited me last summer. It was a wonderful day where we had some great talks. With this build I want to create a remembrance of that wonderful day in 2023. To make it even more noticeable that it came from my best Greek friend, I decided to finish it in a Greek scheme, it will be aircraft 19438 of 341 squadron. The decals for that specific aircraft were sent to me by Spiros as well.

    The Academy kit has the option to take off the tail section so that the engine is nicely visible. When opening the box, I noticed that it has a lot of details molded, also the engine, therefore I decided that I will build it with the tail section separated.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    A fantastic entry, my friend @johnb!
    Will look spectacular with the engine displayed.
    Looking forward to it!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    @fiveten, thank you, Spiros.

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    George R Blair Jr said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Looking forward to your build, John (@johnb), especially with the cool paint scheme. I will be doing one of the other similar HAF schemes, but to avoid repetition I plan to use the Airfix 1/72 F-86E(M) for mine. I will be using the same Academy kit to do another paint scheme. Not sure which one yet, but I will decide soon. So many cool paint schemes for the F-86.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    @gblair, thank you, George. Indeed, the amount of F-86 schemes is countless

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    John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Today I opened the box, to be honest I have been opening it many times before, but today I also unpacked it. Removed all the sprues from their plastic, except the transparent sprue which I keep protected till the time I need it.

    Two sprues containing mainly armament and fuel tanks


    One sprue containing the main parts for the engine.Some beautiful molded details.

    One sprue with the tail section trolley, two figures and the air intake which consists of a lower part combined with the wheel bay and an upper part which has the cockpit molded on it.

    Next a sprue with various parts

    Two seperate sprues with the upper and lower wings

    And a sprue with the fuselage halves

    Last one is the transparent sprue

    I bought some NewWare masks and Eduard interior PE as well

    The manual is very clear and should not be causing any troubles to get it done right.

    This is the set of decals for 341 HAF squadron that were sent to me by Spiros @fiveten
    I think the most difficult ones will be the fuselage band. They need to go over the edge of the horizontal stabilizer.

    Here a nice profile drawing of a 341 squadron aircraft/

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    Alfred van Paaschen said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Looks good, John! @johnb
    Yet another project without a propeller for you! šŸ˜‰

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Excellent kit presentation, my friend @johnb! Nice Eduard PEs, masks are great, too!
    Looking forward to your next steps!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    @alfred, thank you, Alfred. Indeed another jet, seems like I'm switching to the other side.
    @fiveten, thanks, Spiros. Surgery on the fuselage halves to seperate the tail section is likely the next step.

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    George R Blair Jr said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I need for you to figure out how to get that stripe on, John (@johnb). Mine has the same stripe and I need guidance. :o)

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    Cricket said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    @johnb. My all time fav A/Cā€¦.great start John

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    John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

    @gblair, those fuselage bands might be a real challenge indeed, George. Still figuring out what is the approach, using the decals or painting them.
    @bikequeen, thank you, Cricket.

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    Colin Gomez said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Cool subject, John, with some good resources to work with. If the a/c is bare metal, I would mask the stripes with frisket film to avoid lifting the finish. It worked well for my P-51D when doing camo over metal coat. The pics show a very dull metal finish on the real thing. Not sure if this is grey or silver paint, dulled over time or just the bare metal. When I look at the decal sheet image, it does say natural metal. Probably pretty shiny years ago.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

    @coling, thanks, Colin. I'm gonna have a look at that frisket film for sure.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Finally a bit of progress on my Sabre. Painted the interior parts neutral grey.


    Maybe you already noticed the cushion I added to the seat in the previous picture. The original seat is very spartanic and suffers from ejector marks. Since the original seat did have a cushion I thought it would look much to add one, made it with a bit of patafix.

    And a start was made with the IP by using the Eduard PE set.