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
Click on
images below to see larger images
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