THAT...is a lovely build of a beautiful plane.
Thanks so much for the "in progress" pics.
They're SO much better than merely a load of pics of an outstanding model.
The JOURNEY.....to me, at least....is SO much more important than the "destination".
Thanks again, mate.  That's a beautiful model.

Beautiful job on the MNF as always!

Toshi

BrandonD

Bob, crown, Brandon and Martin - thanks! I appreciate the compliments.

Martin - my next build might be three, actually. I am thinking of doing a comparison of Three 1/48 Supermarine planes:

Eduard Spitfire Mk. IX in USAAC markings

Special Hobby Seafire Mk. III in French Aeronavale markings

Tamiya Spitfire Mk. I in RAF markings.

We will see. I really don't need three (more) Spits on the shelf, but it makes sense for efficiency with painting, or something.

-BD-

 

Awesome! I just checked out your Spitfire trio posting...have fun with those mate!

Cheers :)

Oh gee, I thought I'd complimented you on your work there. Beautiful job the NM turned out perfect! 

Hunter - thank you!

TempestJohnny - Thanks! I just started the thread. It should be a fun triple build.

-BD-

Murph - thank you for the kind words and encouragement. You know a lot about these, and I am glad you shared thepart about the vent so I could get rid of it. I will definitely build another jet soon (most likely an He-163, and I just ordered an A-4 Skyhawk).

It seems I'm hooked.

-BD-

Brandon,

For your first jet, IMHO you couldn't have picked a better starting point.  I know there are others who will disagree but having built 20 of these gems, with a bit of patience these kits go together nicely and easily.  As you correctly did, the kit seat needs dressing up or a resin replacement.  A few vents need to be sanded off (and wingtips modified) in order to build a Canadair Sabre 5 or 6 but Hasegawa and Academy are the go-to kits for a Sabre in this scale.

Great work on your Sword.  The end results are truly reflective of the effort you put into it.

Best of luck with your next builds.

Mike

Brandon - 

Job well done sir, that is a beautiful build and just amazing. 

Bob, crown, Brandon and Martin - thanks! I appreciate the compliments.

Martin - my next build might be three, actually. I am thinking of doing a comparison of Three 1/48 Supermarine planes:

Eduard Spitfire Mk. IX in USAAC markings

Special Hobby Seafire Mk. III in French Aeronavale markings

Tamiya Spitfire Mk. I in RAF markings.

We will see. I really don't need three (more) Spits on the shelf, but it makes sense for efficiency with painting, or something.

-BD-

Fabulous finish Brandon and super looking jet. Those Alclads produce superior NMF's, I just can't use them as I work at the dining table....odor free for me, I'm afraid.

What's next on your bench?

Cheers,

Martin

DUDE, super nice work. That is really really nice. I love it !!

BK

Sweet looks to good to dirty up 

Well, I finished this one up last night and got thephotos shot this morning, so here she is:

1/48 Hasegawa (with Verlinden cockpit) F-86F-30 Sabre flown by Maj. James Hagerstrom, a two-war ace. This is "Mig Poison," in which he became a Korean War ace. This plane is from late 1953, so it still sports the black cockpit (the switch to gray seems to have been made on new machines in November 1953) and has the earlier style drop tanks.

The painting was done by priming in Gunze Mr. Surfacer 1500 black, then laying down Tamiya X-1 Gloss Black as a base for the Alclad. At that point, I used thin vinyl tape to mask the black lines on the stripes, then shot the interiors with Model Master Insignia Yellow. After masking, the whole thing got a shot of Airframe Aluminum, and thanks to reading Theuns' post, I tried out using different numbers of coats for the color modulation, so there's nothing but Airframe Aluminum on this one (except for the interiors of the gear doors and speed brakes, which are White Aluminum).

The decals are from Super Scale, and I would rate them ok. The stencils on the port fuselage seem different than every other set I've seen, and there was some trouble with them settling down, but I am happy with them overall.

Ok, the pics:

Thanks all for the compliments along the way. This was my first jet, and it was a lot of fun.

-BD-

Wow Brandon it looks great! Well done on the paint job.

That does look really good.

BK

That is looking very good!

Theuns

Quick update: I got the decals on. Some of them gave me fits (mostly the fuselage ones around what I suppose are speed brakes - sorry, this is my first jet and I am not 100% sure what they are ). I held the panels in place using Blu-Tac, and then put the decals over them, used setting solution, and then gently cut them with my knife. It worked well for the most part, but required some touching up (I've found that Model Master Dark Sea Blue is pretty much a perfect match for the blue in the star-and-bar decals on most kits).

Now for the gear, tanks and other bits. Hopefully I can finish it up this week.

-BD-

Bob, Matt, Allan - Thanks!

Gamera - I found my lid to my paint cup after this. It seems I don't need any more T-shirts :)

Mike - Thanks! I used an aftermarket SuperScale sheet for the decals, and while it had fuselage bands, it didn't have the wing bands, and I didn't want to try to match the paint (nor was I even sure it would fit this kit), so I was forced into it. But I'm glad I was, because it really wasn't that hard. Using the thin tape over the gloss black actually worked really well and made the whole process easy. I had been really nervous about them, but now I think I'm ready for invasion stripes on my next WWII build.

-BD-

She's looking really good there Brandon.

As to the Alclad drips, well been there, done that, got the T-shirt... 

Very nice work Brandon.  I really like the painted on yellow ID  bands.  I've heard nothing but horror stories from those who have attempted to use kit decals for the bands.  One of my next Sabre builds will be a Korean War era aircraft and I plan the same thing you've done withpainting the yellow ID bands.

Looking forward to the finished project.

Mike

Lovin the way youve painted this bird so far, Brandon!

Great looking finish.  The cockpit is outstanding and your markings are looking spot on.  Thanks for sharing

Well, it looks like I need to pay more attention when I'm painting. I loaded my airbrush too full of Alclad Airframe Aluminum, and I dumped some drops on the port wing. Tried to wipe them off with a paper towel, then tried drowing it in thinner to smooth it out. Nothing worked, so it was back to sandpaper and a new black gloss coat.

Fortunately, it was a small space and nothing too bad was done. Today I was able to use my lunch break to lay down the airframe aluminum and pull off the masking on the stripes. Looks like a little bit of touching up in the black/yellow areas (and a small amount on the red nose), but other than that, I'm happy with it.

Next step is to mask for the different metals on the wings, gun ports and fuselage, and then clears and decals.

-BD-

I have a quick update for today. After a lot of working on the seams (some of it due to fitting the resin cockpit, I believe). Keeing everything straight took some doing.

I got the model primered and painted gloss black. I then masked for the black borders on the yellow stripes, and shot the yellow stripes. I also used yellow as an undercoat for the red nose, as it covers much better than red over black.

Here are the stripes painted using Model Master Insignia Yellow (they aren't this bright in real life). I have a decal for the fuselage but decided to just paint them all to make them match, and I don't have great luck with stripe decals anyway.

After this pic, I shot the red on the nose. Later this evening I got the stripes all masked and then gave it another coat of gloss black to get rid of the overspray. I hope to get some Alclad on it on Thursday.

-BD-

Thanks for the compliments, everyone - I appreciate them.

Allan - The belts are molded in, but just to clarify, this is a Verlinden resin pit. The kit plastic cockpit is fine, but the ejection seat is really lacking in my opinion. The Verlinden set is miles above it.

Jay Jay - My research indicates that the pits were black until November, 1953, when they started making the change to gray.

Lawdog - I hear the Academy one and this one are so close that you could almost interchange parts. I am liking this kit a lot so far.

As for an update, I decided I hated the way the kit decal didn't lay down over the resin instrument panel, and it just looked flat and lifeless (along with not matching the detail in many places). So I pulled it off and dry-brushed the gauges, then filled them with Micro Krystal Klear to simulate glass.

This is where it sits at the moment:

That's all for now. Next up is fitting the pit to the fuselage, then closing it up.

-BD-