PM 1/72 Canadair (North American) F-86E Sabre

PM 1:72 CANADAIR (N.A.) F-86E SABRE

Reviewer: Carlos Giani (carlos_giani2002@yahoo.de)
Kit Review submitted: 14 March 2008

Kit Details:

PM 1/72^nd scale Canadair F-86E (Kit N° PM-008 ). Produced in Turkey

Aircraft History:

As a sign of respect to the original, and to keep distance from this fancy dress, no history here about the F-86 (by the way, if you don’t know this plane, then please go and build cars or Polar Light’s monsters).

Preamble:

Never think of buying this kit! And if someone gives it to you, say “thanks” and, when he/she is not looking, throw it away! PM should be **** for commercialising an insult like this. Even as a toy it is almost an offence, and if a youngster has his/her first encounter with model building by means of this thing, then they will probably hate the hobby forever!

The Kit:

I got mine from a sale, together with many other extremely cheap kits, and it stayed in an obscure corner in my hobby room, till a couple of months ago, when I decided to build it. I opened the box and immediately disposed of the kit but, on my way back from the trash can, I thought that this could be an opportunity to try some scratch build techniques I’ve never tried before, and recovered the dam thing.

Inside a flimsy end-opening box you get a couple of parts that….Well, just please take a look at the picture! No cockpit, no wheel wells, one-piece wings, some raised “panel lines” and even raised “control surfaces”, catastrophic dry-fit test. Need I say more?

Although Pioneer 2/PM have reboxed some Frog kits, I can’t imagine that this offering comes from that elder producer, the kit being soooooo bad. Even Frog´s Gannet, which had no cockpit nor wheel wells was worlds better than this thing. So I have to presume it’s an original product from PM. If somebody has more information regarding this point, please write an addendum or, at least, write an E-mail to Ed (I am pretty sure this is an original PM mold - and there are some later PM kits which are not toooo bad - Ed).

Instructions:

One small sheet of yellowish paper folded into a mini-booklet. Page one brings some history/data in Turkish, pages two and three shows construction in 3 steps (there are less than 20 parts to be put together), and page four advertises about other products from PM. No painting/decaling guide apart from a 3-view color print on the bottom of the box for one example (Turkish Air Force).

Construction:

First of all, I sanded down the “panel/control surfaces lines”. Since there is absolutely no cockpit nor wheel wells, I made some cut-outs on both fuselage halves, and then scratch-built the boxed-in wells and the cockpit floor/rear bulkhead/instruments panel. I used styrene strips to give the wells some structural detail, and transformed an Aeroclub WWII generic seat into an ejection seat with some styrene card and some bits from the spares box. Of course I also added ruder pedals, a control stick and seat belts made from Tamiya tape. Next I added lots of weight in the area below the cockpit (which also helped to blank off the air intake duct), and then finally glued the two fuselage halves together, but only after I had cut away most of the alignment pins. The last step in this area was to add the intake ring.

The one-piece wings were an incredibly bad fit to the fuselage sides, needing heavy cutting and sanding just to get the wing tab into the corresponding slot, at the right level. Using the fuselage main wheel wells as a guide, I cut out a rectangular area on each wings underside, up to the (aprox.) the leg attachment point. Detailed trimming/sanding was done after the wings were glued onto the fuselage. Finally the stabilizers went on. As you can imagine, half a tube of Green Putty was used to somehow smooth out all the joins.

With the help of a drawing I found in a book, and using my beloved Squadron Scriber, I scribed panel lines and the control surfaces, including the lateral airbrakes. I am aware about the inexactness of my job but, hey, this should be mainly training! The result was very acceptable, of course not state of art but better than raised lines or the work of the phantom riveter.

The canopy was surprisingly clear and fitted very well, just needing a bit of white glue to fill small gaps. Having masked the late canopy, the intake, the exhaust and the wells, I painted the whole plane with Humbrol H11, still my favorite choice for silver. After two days, the vertical fin received two coats of Humbrol H188 gloss chromate yellow, which was needed for the version I planned to do (see under “Decals”). The last step was to add the landing gear, the original unusable one being substituted by Aeroclub´s set V182 (looks great!). Inside the tail opening I added a piece of plastic tube to represent the engine’s exhaust. The wells doors were made from styrene sheet.

Colour Schemes:

The original kit caters for an example of the Turkish AF, overall silver, stationed at the Turkish Air Force Museum in Istanbul.

Decals:

A very small yellowed sheet containing six emblems, two flags for the vertical fin and unit numbers. They do not look very good so I opted for something else.

Scrutinizing the offerings from Hannants, I found a sheet for Hellenic Air Force F-86Es from a Greek firm called “Icarus Decals”. The decals themselves are produced in Italy by Cartograf, and show them at their highest level. The comprehensive positioning guide, the written information, the wonderful colored views, the dense color of the decals and the plethora of (readable) stencils make this offering an absolute top product (very warmly recommended!).

Accuracy:

As you can imagine, the whole thing just resembles an F-86, showing great faults in every aspect. Enough of that.

Overall:

As a first try on major scratch building and scribing, the process was a success for me. And now the point where you will assume that I’m going crazy: would you believe it? The damn thing looks good (apart from “just” resembling an F-86)! Or are my eyes just trying to somehow justify the work I’ve put in it? Take a look at the pictures and judge for yourself.

Conclusion:

Build this kit, and you will never moan again about Airfix or Matchbox J

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