Clear Prop F-86A

Started by Tom Cleaver · 13 · 3 months ago
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    Tom Cleaver said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    My kit arrived last week, and the full review will be in Modeling Madness this coming Friday.

    This is not an easy kit. That is primarily due to the design of the fuselage, which is the result of the Ukrainians not having plastic molding machines that allow them to do complex shapes. The result is this multi-part fuselage. The major problem is that the locating tabs for the intake and the exhaust are just enough "off" in dimension to make the fuselage a tiny bit too wide when assembled; it's not something you see, but it makes fitting the bottom side parts and the wing sub assembly difficult. Comparing my assembled model with a Hasegawa F-86, there is a loss of dihedral in the wing because of this. I'm working on figuring a way to not use the locating tabs, for the next one. The result of this design problem can be seen in the photo of my model with rubber bands covering the fuselage from nose to tail - and after that I had to apply Mr Surfacer to all those lower fuselage seams, and do a lot of sanding down to get the shape.

    The kit can only be done as an early (pre-Korea) F-86A, with the gun doors closed. By the time the Sabre got to Korea, the gun doors were being wired open, or replaced with the open gun ports; I have not found any photos of F-86s in Korea with the closed doors. It's obvious that Clear Prop will do a Korean F-86A, since there are parts on the sprue for the interior of the opened gun ports; there is also a nose cone with the ranging radar scribed in, which means they intend to do an F-86E (which will require a different fuselage, which explains why the major fuselage halves are on one separate sprue).

    As you can see from the photos of the model assembled and painted, the extra effort pays off with an accurate model. Clear Prop has done their homework on the early Sabre (ignore "airplane gnu" Larry Davis's comments about the kit in the Hyperscale review; he's wrong about all he said other than the gun doors, as commenters there have demonstrated with photos of the real thing). I particularly like that there's no "ledge" in the wing for the slats - they got it right.

    Fortunately, the decal sheet - which has three options for Sabres from the 1st FIW, 4th FIW, and 56th FIW - the three initial Sabre units who used this version - is very good.

    As a side note for those using the new Mr Hobby Super Metal;lics - I saw a post elsewhere in which a modeler said he was airbrushing these paints with a 10:1 thinner:paint ratio. I tried it on this model and got an even better final finish with the Super Metallics than I have been raving about previously. Thin 10:1 and mist it on and you will be amazed.

    5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    John vd Biggelaar said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Great entry and ditto work done, Tom @tcinla
    Definitely not an easy build requiring quite some rubber bands to get the fuselage together firmly.
    The painting looks really good, looking forward to the full review this Friday.

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    Carl Smoot said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    The Super Metallics look like Alclad. Nice result Tom (@tcinla). Looking forward to seeing the full build review.

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    Tom Cleaver said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Alclad without the problems. No Super Matallic will ever eat your model.

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    George R Blair Jr said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    You can't have enough Sabres, Tom (@tcinla). I really want an early Sabre, but was waiting until someone had built the kit to be sure it would build as good as it looked. Thanks for clearing that up for me. 10:1 sounds scary, so I guess you really need to be careful not to flood the model with too much paint/thinner. Did you use Mr Hobby Thinner, or something else?

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    Tom Cleaver said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    @gblair - Mr Color Leveling Thinner. "Mist it on."

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    Eric Berg said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Does Metallic2 stick to the plastic after being thinned so much Tom @tcinla? How many mist passes did you give? Does it pull off with drafting tape? Looks really good.

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    Tom Cleaver said 3 months, 1 week ago:

    Finished. Given the problems I had with the fuselage, I'm surprised it came out so nice. But now I know how to avoid the hassles for the next one.

    For those interested, Bullseye Decals has done two sheets of Korean War F-86As which are at Cartograf for printing at this time. They should be available next month sometime.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    Spiros Pendedekas said 3 months, 1 week ago:

    Excellent entry and really great result, Tom! Built at lighting speed!
    Well done!

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    John vd Biggelaar said 3 months, 1 week ago:

    It came out beautifully, Tom @tcinla
    No signs that you had problems with the fuselage.

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    Tom Cleaver said 3 months, 1 week ago:

    @eb801: I made passes till it "looked right." Super Metallics stick to the plastic (even without primer) and do not come up when handled.

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    George R Blair Jr said 3 months, 1 week ago:

    Final result looks great, Tom (@tcinla). I have used SuperMetallics before, but have never tried misting them on. I was over at Squadron Mail Order and they have the F-86A on preorder for almost $90. I may need to wait for a sale before I get one.

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    Tom Cleaver said 3 months, 1 week ago:

    @gblair - Go over to Clear Prop's website and you can order it for around $60. Even shipping from Ukraine, it's cheaper than Squadron.

    Here it is for 55 Euros:

    https://clearpropmodels.com/cp_4824