1/48 Academy F-86

by Scott Minium

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This aircraft represents the F-86 flown by America's top jet ace, Capt Joseph McConnell, who finished the Korean War with 16 kills, all against MiG-15s.

This was my first Academy kit.  Fit was excellent, all the panel lines were clean and engraved and the decals were fantastic.  All in all a great build. 

As always, even a great model presents its challenges, and this one was no different.  The air intake has a huge seam, and at the time I built this model I didn't have much of an idea about how to fix it. I finally decided to install the FOD covers for the intake and exhaust and simply hide it.  The windshield needed only a slight bit of work to fit clean to the fuselage and the two fuselage halves required only the slightest bit of sanding to fit. 

The canopy was dipped in future, dried, taped off and painted.  Any glitches can be carefully trimmed away with a knife and then the whole thing can be dipped again.

The real challenge on this kit was my own fault. Wanting a good silver finish and not ever having trained with an airbrush, I went for Model Master Metallizers.  I painted the gunmetal sections first, buffed them, sealed them, and taped them before finishing off with the silver.  The sealer interacted strangely with the silver in obvious places and clean up was a huge pain.  After three or four tries and nearly losing my religion, I got the paint to an acceptable level.  Bottom line, those cans of metallizer went straight to the trash, full or not.

The decals went on next, very nicely.  The really large yellow decals were a challenge, but readily handled.  After some weathering and a final sealer, we're done.

Scott

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Photos and text © by Scott Minium