Written by 11:37 am On the Bench

WIP : Hobbyboss 1/72 F-100F Super Sabre Pt.2 – Painting & Finishing

I decided to order a spare canopy direct from Trumpeter and received it after about 1.5 months. It still has the same fitting issues as the old one but at least it’s not cracked. In any case, I can finally start painting the kit. I began with a base of black.

Then I added a marble coat using white.

The gear bays were then painted Model Master Acryl Interior Green.

The interior of the leading edge slats were painted Vallejo Metal Color Pale Burnt Metal and then masked off along with the gear bays.

The bottom is FS36622 light gray. I used AK Interactive Camouflage Grey for this.

Now comes the main SEA color scheme. The first color is AK Interactive Medium Green for FS34102 mediu green.

The color is then masked using blutack before the second color goes on. This was then repeated for the third color.

The FS34079 dark green was AK Interactive Dark Green and FS30219 tan was AK Interactive Dark Tan.

I then went back in and did some clean up of the demarcation marks.

Something unique to the Super Sabre is now the paint burns off and fades around the engine exhaust area. Here’s my attempt.

First I masked off the camouflage then I sprayed gloss back over the whole section.

I then painted the section Vallejo Metal Color Pale Burnt Metal. To add some variation I mixed in a few drops of clear black and painted the section closer to the exhaust with it.

Then using Mig AMMO Shader Blue, Light Clay and Starship Filth, I lightly tinted in between the panel lines

Then I lightly painted Metal Color Pale Burnt Metal and the camouflage colors over everything, trying my best to still have the work done underneath show up. It wasn’t easy, and I don’t think I did it well. Anyway, moving on.

Past builds have shown that adding a gloss coat before decals will darken the color scheme so I decided to try an alternative. I buffed the whole kit with a very fine sanding sponge instead which smoothened the surface and also made it glossier.

The main markings for 58-1221 comes from Wolfpak Decals’ ‘Trail Interdictors’ sheet. The stencils are from Trumpeter but not knowing how accurate they are, I only used enough to make the kit look busier. They all went down with no issue.

At this point, I decided to try to ‘fix’ the burned exhaust area. I still don’t think I’ve pulled it off, but it looks better now.

Once cured, I gave the whole kit a panel wash using thinned AK Abteiiung Starship Filth.

Then I did heavier staining around the rear of the bottom fuselage which usually gets dirtier. The rest of the kit was given random spot streaks but I kept the overall weathering mild as usual.

With weathering done, it’s time for final assembly. First up is removing the canopy masking which turned out well with very little clean up required. But I did manage to crack the canopy slightly again with my attempt to have it sit properly. The crack is thankfully only visible when you look at it closely.

I then carefully painted the navigation lights with transparent paint over a silver base.

The landing gear and air brake are now attached and these proved to be quite fiddly with the actuators being very small. I ended up skipping the main landing gear door actuators.

With those done I attached the stores and can finally call this kit done.

As usual I know where all the problem areas are but the end result looks decent.

Build Log
Pt. 1 – Construction | Pt. 2 – Painting & Finishing

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