AIRBRAKES

Detail on the inside of the air brakes was not too good; same with the wheel doors. I replaced these with that of the old Revell kit. One problem with both kits is that they do not allow for the air brakes to be attached at an angle. On the real thing, the airbrake "hangs" at a downward angle. To rectify - cut 2.5mm from the bottom leg of the airbrake!   The pitot tube is useless and was replaced with a piece of thin wire. Another drawback of the kit is the fact that the air-intake in the nose is blocked off too shallow. I made a bin cover of plastic card to hide this. I did the same with the exhaust. Note the handles on the covers. There should be two handles running vertically. The rest of the model with exception of the cockpit, was kept "out the box".   The cockpit is very basic - typical of the early kits. Cockpit detail consists of decals for the panels and a piece of plastic that is supposed to be a seat. I am fortunate to have drawings of the original seat as it appears in the Sabre Operators manual. This was a great help as I used this and a bit of "Gizmo art" to transform the plastic to a seat. To add the final bit of detail, I used a 1/48 helmet from the ESCI Ground Crew set, painted it red and added a yellow decal of an eagle from an Impala decal sheet which later proved to be the same as that being used on the crest of 1 Squadron.

PAINTING

Painting the model was the biggest problem, three main issues came to light: a) To get pictures of the these planes, proved to be a problem. Strangely - all the pictures available are of the same few planes and all from the same side; b) This brings me to the second problem. Seeing that the camo pattern is rather complex, what did the lefthand side of the plane look like? Thumbsuck proved to be the only option. c) The last big problem was the actual colours to be used. The SAAF did not, and still do not, make use of a standard colour code system like the FS system. They mixed paints until it looked okay and then used it. Strange!! I had to speak to a friend working at 2 Squadron to assist. These colours are the closest to the real thing that you will get in model paints. The grey is similar to Light Aircraft Grey (FS 36495), but with a minute dash of blue added; The green is NOT Olive Drab as this particular green has a brownish tint to it. I used French Artillery Green (Humbrol 179). The brown is NOT sand - it is more a Light Buff (Humbrol 63). This particular paint scheme is also the one to use should you wish to do a early Mirage III.   I sprayed the bottom of the plane the modified gray and masked it. I then sprayed the top Buff. I used the picture in "Aircraft of the South African Air Force" by Herman Potgieter (page 60) as a reference for masking the wings. This particular picture is in perfect 1/48 scale. Apparently this was done on request by a few modelers. It also gave me an idea as to what the full right hand view looked like. As I've said - the lefthand side was a bit of thumb suck. A friend help me with a new technique for masking a sharp edge like this. We made a photocopy of the picture. Using low contact plastic (the sticky type one uses to cover books) and traced the outlines of the camo pattern onto it. An easy way is to hold the copy and the Contact against a window and then redraw! We used a new model blade and carefully cut out the shapes. It was then sprayed green. Lining-up the sides proved to be a bit difficult because of the curves in the scheme. Patience proved to be the only option and four and a half hours later, the green was all masked and sprayed. In total, the whole spray and mask proses took about 6 hours! The canopy was masked and sprayed and then polished with Model Wax by the Treatment Company for a brilliant shine.   Another tip I've picked up during this project is to use natural turpentine when spraying Matt colours. It prevents the paint from chalking. Only a drop or two is enough. Remember to wear your spray mask as the smell is quite strong. As lady luck will have it, a fellow modeler got hold of a picture of the lefthand side of the same plane I built. Only problem is that he got it about 4 months after I completed my model!

DECALS

For obvious reasons, I had to spray the areas where the decals had to go gloss first. I used the 1 Squadron insignia decals from the original decal sheet. I used an after market set for the SAAF insignia, serial number and orange, white and blue band on the tale. If you are not familiar with the SAAF, please note the decals on the vertical fin. Left and right is the same!! In other words, the orange band should be closest to the canopy on both side of the vertical fin. After decaling I sprayed the model with a light coat of Testors semi-gloss. The original planes were gloss but in scale it is too shiny so I decided to tone it down. These planes were repainted on a regular basis and kept in a pristine condition. I therefore did not weather the model at all. The pictures that I used for reference also did not indicate any signs of weathering.   I added a few remove before flight tags to round the model off and to give it a bit of colour. A nice model to build, but if you are looking for detail, I would recommend the Hasegawa or even the Academy kits.

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