OK, this is definitely for the over 40 crowd. Does anyone remember a kit in 1/32nd released in the early 70’s featuring a Korean War F-86 with a gold finish? I built this when I was a youngster and I remember it was a beautiful airplane. I can’t for the life of me remember what company released it.
The kit featured some nice box art and I remember thinking that compared to the monogram and revell stuff I was building back then, that this kit was of exeptional quality.
Any of you “old timers” up tp a stroll down memory lane?
Steve
I belive it was the Hasagawa 1/32 F-86F-30 Saber.
Yep, great kit, and the markings were for the Canadian aerobatics team the Golden Hawks.
Wow!, it’s good to know there are people out there that still have enough gray matter left to have a memory! I wonder if Hasegawa is offering a 1/32 Sabre currently. Do you guys think it’s the same kit, just reboxed?
Steve
Not sure if it’s in their current catalog, but they shouldn’t be very hard to find. The LHS here has one in stock. It’s basically the same kit with different decals.
I havent heard anything about a 1/32 F-86 being by anyone currently being produced. But I do know they can still be purchased, so there is still some light at the end of the tunnel I suppose.
I’ve got one sitting in my stas right now, except that Hasegawa offers it with JASDF markings instead of USAF ones. But if you want the latter Eagle strike
offers the livery worn by a couple of Korean mig aces. It’s a great kit of a fabulous, sexy aircraft. Highly reccommended. Kind of pricey, though, at around
$35.00.
Steve,
There is one available here:
http://www.greatmodels.com/
Do a search for 1/32 f-86. Good luck.
Richard
Here’s mine built using the Eagle strike decals. You have to shorten the wingspan to make a correct korean war F-86 
Richard - thanks for the link
Mkhoot, I see you just joined in January, have you posted this Sabre in the forum? If not, I would really like to see some close ups and hear about your build. It looks great!
Steve
I had a Hasegawa/Minicraft issue of this F-86F kit from 70s-early 80s with markings for “Paper Tiger.” Included was a long length of black vinyl tubing for the engine. The kit was great for its day, though the tubing wasn’t very realistic. My kit also had a really delicate little stamped-metal mounting bracket for the dome-shaped compass doohicky on the shelf behind the seat. Maybe that was the birth of PE in kits. One little part. However, I read an article in some old obscure model magazine about how to make a proper Korean war vet out of this kit and it referred to some “Holy Grail” version of the 1/32 Hasegawa F-86 that had good tubing and metal cans for the engine. I hope I never live to be nerdy enough to become a hard-core kit collector, so I’ve never seen this magical version of what, in one version or another, still a pretty common old kit from the very early 70s. And I’ve seen that JSDF version, but not the Canadian one.