Hi Bullet21,
Okay here we go… don’t laugh – it happened almost to me, too! I was so impressed by the kit that I wanted it to glue it together as fast as possible. I had the glue in my hand and prepared myself to stick the two halves together. From the corner of my eye I recognized the two fuel tanks and a voice in my head said to me – buddy you forgot something important! After this almost crash I slowed down a bit ;-)
I painted everything with Alclad colors. The body of the kit was painted with ALC-101 (aluminum) the darker areas were painted with ALC-119 (airframe-aluminum) fuel tanks I painted with magnesium to give the whole bird a tonal change and to make it look more interesting. The jet exhaust I painted with jet exhaust color and the cover of the engine was painted with chrome and hot metal blue to give it that burned metal look.
Here is a little trick I use for small parts. Take some white tack or some sticky tape. Press the sprue with the small parts into the white tack or onto the sticky tape. Then use your regular knife or side cutter and cut the part from the sprue. Due to the stickiness of the white tack the small part doesn’t jumps away and the carpet monster won’t get it ;-)
On the first pic you can see the bottom of the F-86
Second pic is a detail shot of the cockpit – came out a bit blurry. For the radar screen I used a big blob of Tamiya x-25 clear green. After the color dried it has a clear dark green color and looks like a switched off radar screen.
Number 3 and 4 shows the unpainted sprue of the F-86. There are on both sides some tonal changes. This is where you need to drill the holes for the fuel tanks. I checked my two other kits, both of them have the dark areas. On picture three I marked the tonal changes of the mold with a red circle. Just drill into the darkest part of the material to get the right position for the fuel tanks.
I really hope you do understand what I mean. This is the very first time for me to make such a description in English.
Please show me some pictures of your progress – I am really curious!!!
Steve