F-86 Sabre WHIF - 1/48 Monogram (5417)

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Another one of my "fun" WHIF projects that l have been toiling over for many years now.  Being an F-86 Sabre "Fan Boy" I always liked the idea of an improved upon/upgraded or new production Sabre with new engine, avionics and weapons capabilities.  To represent that externally, additional weapons pylons were a priority.  Thankfully  the Monogram kits at the time were quite cheap at $5.00 to $6.00 each so a number of these kit were inducted into my kit stash.  My favourite of these being the "Canadair Sabre" since that kit included a pair of 1000-pound GP bombs with the conical fin assembly, the very large fuel tanks plus the AIM-9 Sidewinder AAM launch rails and pylons.  None of the other Monogram Sabre kits provided these parts which is unfortunate since the Canadair Sabre is currently OOP and hard to find. 

My first priority was to determine the location of the new Sidewinder pylons on the wings.  That was done by obtaining the distance between the original stores station locations and then making the new stores pylon locations on the wings outboard of the fuel tank pylons.  Symmetry was achieved and it looked magnificent.  That said, I had issues with the rather anemic looking Sidewinder launch rails so I cut away the front and back portion of the launch rail to create an LAU (launch rail adapter) unit and mated the Sidewinder launch rails from an Italeri F-18A/B Hornet.  Problem solved! 

Other than the additional stores pylons the only other modifications were to fill in all of the gun ports on the fuselage, blank off some vents and add new vent scoops and pitot tube in front of the cockpit.  I had attempted to add larger calibre guns of 20mm or 30mm but my attempts failed so I filled in the gun ports with putty and some CA cement.  Leaving the guns for the next Sabre WHIF. 

Attached images of WIP so far:




***Edit for spelling since the OP was submitted via my phone and PHAT PHINGERS are not compatible with tiny touch screen keyboards. -- jjf

[Old Wombat]

Decent start, Jeff! 

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Thanks Guy. 

You have no idea how long this project has been "stalled" and how often I thought about binning the entire thing and starting over with a more expensive Hasegawa or Academy F-86 kit but common sense and frugality prevailed since the kit was so cheap it would not be as great a loss if it does get binned while the same cannot be said for the more expensive Sabre kits. 

I am still disappointed with the fact that I failed miserably to create the desired 20mm/30mm gun ports but thankfully I still have six more of the Monogram Sabres to work with and if I am feeling extra gullible I have two ESCI Sabre kits to bash if I need further abuse. 

I forgot to mention in the OP that the ejection seat is getting swapped out for something more modern.  My first choice was the Douglas ESCAPAC seat as used in some models of the A-7 Corsair, A-10, A-4, A-7, and other aircraft.  I may still go with that choice but it all depends now on getting it to fit the cockpit.  The other option is the ACES or NACES ejection seats used on the A-10, F-14, F-15, F-16 and F-18.