Fixing the 21c F-86
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 3:41 pm
While the 21c F-86F was one of their best models, they really did it a disservice by not painting the yellow & black ID bands on the underside of the wings. I finally decided I was tired of the missing bands on my F-86 "The Huff" and figured they could be simply painted on. After all, the bands are just straight lines, which would be easy to mask. So the plane would look right, I had to get the lines to match 21c's level of work - which really was not saying much 
Painting the ID bands was a simple process. I used Tamiya acrylic Flat Yellow (XF3) and Tamiya acrylic Flat Black (XF1) sprayed from my airbrush. The yellow was a close match to the color 21c used, though not an exact one. First I masked off and painted the yellow base and let that dry overnight. The next day, I masked off the black edges and painted them. After everything had dried for a few hours, I removed all the tape to reveal crisp, even lines with very few flaws.
My F-86 now looks a bit more complete
Painting the ID bands was a simple process. I used Tamiya acrylic Flat Yellow (XF3) and Tamiya acrylic Flat Black (XF1) sprayed from my airbrush. The yellow was a close match to the color 21c used, though not an exact one. First I masked off and painted the yellow base and let that dry overnight. The next day, I masked off the black edges and painted them. After everything had dried for a few hours, I removed all the tape to reveal crisp, even lines with very few flaws.
My F-86 now looks a bit more complete