This model is an old Monogram kit that my dad gave to me to occupy my time, and it did exactly that. I used the kit as an opportunity to expand my skills. I rescribed all of the panel lines, added in a resin cockpit and wheel wells, and scratch-built the intake cover and main landing gear doors, not to mention I'm still working out how to do a really nice bare-metal finish. I completed this model late in April, but just now had the time to get photo's and a blog written. (Writer's note: the photos were taken post "Hurricane Parker", where my 19-month old son tried to reverse-engineer the model piece by piece, so some repairs have taken place, along with some additional scratch-built parts, i.e. the control column and some landing gear door actuators.)
The first thing I decided to do to this kit to modernize it was turning the raised panel lines inside out. I used a #11 Exacto blade modified with some serations added in with a Dremel cutting tool as a scribing tool. The serations allow me to scribe around complex curves and the length of the cutting surface allow me to make very straight lines without a ruler. I just stuck a piece of masking tape along the line I wanted to scribe and started engraving. I turned the blade upside-down and used the tip of the blade to deepen the lines a little more, then sanded off the raised lines. I freehanded the round panels (refueling receptacle covers, inspection plates, etc.) going very slowly and using the raised line as a guide. Some of the panels didn't turn out quite perfectly and I probably could have gotten rid of some of them, but I think overall, the new lines look very nice.
I then decided that the sparse and shallow wheel wells wouldn't cut it, as well as the cockpit. I bought a resin cockpit by Legend Productions, and a resin undercarriage set by CMK - both designed for the Hasegawa kit and put them in. I had to do some additional cutting on the fuselage halves to fit the cockpit in, but this was relatively easy and the cockpit went in without a hitch. The resin wheel wells however were a bit smaller, although deeper, than the kit's wheel wells. Once I cut out the original wells, thined the plastic where needed, and glued in the resin wells, I had to fill in the gaps with styrene strips, superglue, and little putty. I sanded the seems smooth and the wheel wells looked just like they were part of the kit.
The air intake on the kit has a very shallow visual block the look of which I didn't like. I, lacking the skills to scratch-build the intake trunking, decided to make an intake cover, which would commonly be used on a resting aircraft anyway. So, referring to some photos I took of the mounted F-86 in front of the Utah ANG offices, I used a piece of styrene and some stretched sprue to make a home-made intake cover. I also decided that the main gear doors were too thick and large for the new wheel wells. I used styrene to make some thinner doors, which was relatively easy since the doors were basically flat.
By the time I had the model ready to paint, I was in a rush to get the model completed in time for the IPMS show. I painted the metal finish, then the stripes (next time I will do the latter first, then the former) and applied the Super Scale decals. I really liked the markings from the kit, but they were very thick and not well registered, so I found some decals of an aircraft from the same squadron by Super Scale, and I really like the tiger mouth. A few things that I would like to do differently if I made another one would be to take a bit more time with the finish, and I would also get an after-market canopy (the kit canopy looks a little funny to me now that it is on). Overall, though, I am extremely pleased with the improvements that I made to the original kit. Monogram models are great kits to work up because they usually need it, but always have a good base and plastic to work with.
