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| John used Hasegawa’s F-86F kit to build Lt. Vilas Bielefeldt’s mount as it appeared at the end of the Korean conflict. |
It seems jobs were scarce in Silicon Valley, and I was fresh out. That’s why the “help wanted” sign at my favorite tropical fish store held slightly higher interest for me—as if it said “free candy” or “wet paint–don’t touch.” Then there was that voice–that voice in my head that makes me do things. “Take the job,” it said. But the other voice in my head said, “it’s retail! You can’t do retail, remember what happened last time?” The first voice in my head said, “hey, ‘Mr. Restraining Order’, you need the money.” That’s when the third voice in my head said, “hey, you guys hungry? Let’s get a sandwich. I’m buying.” We all ignored him and when in to get our tetras and Saltines and ask the manager for a job application.
Thankfully they had never heard of the “kitty–melt” incident and hired me a few days later. Aside from learning way too much about tropical fish and buying my first Hawaiian shirts, I made some friends–because they never asked the right questions. One was Jamie Bielefeldt. We had a lot in common; he too knows why too much about tropical fish, has no Hawaiian shirts, and hasn’t built plastic models since he out grew it.
It seems his dad used to do something interesting. He flew F-86Fs in Korea. Jamie suggested I build a kit of an F-86F for his dad. At first I resisted because I know how much work it is to build a kit even out of the box. In addition, I build so few kits that I would hate to give one away. After a while, building a model for someone who used to fly that very aircraft started to sound like a good thing to do. It was.
Jamie brought in an Osprey book called F-86 Saber Fighter–Bomber Units Over Korea and showed me a picture of his father sitting in the cockpit of his F-86F with his crew chief, Ronald Laudenschlager standing on the wing next to him.
Jamies’ father, Lt. Col. Vilas Bielefeldt (Ret.), sent me several slides of him and his Sabre taken at a gunnery meet. These were original Kodachrome slides that I scanned and then returned. I’m sure to Vilas they were just pictures but to me they were museum pieces. While it was great to be able to fondle “vintage” transparencies from the war (just after it technically), I was terrified I would spill Kool-Aid on them or maybe a meteor would crash through my roof and burn the slides up in a smoking crater. I scanned them and returned them as soon as possible.
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| Alclad paints were used for the natural metal finish. The darker panels were achieved by burnishing graphite into the paint with an artist’s smudge tool. The tail flash, unit emblem and call numbers are from AeroMaster. |
One of the photos Vilas sent was the same image of Vilas and Ronald that was published in the Osprey book. I decided to use this image as the basis of the project. This would require a seated pilot and a standing crew figure plus the opening of the ammunition door/step and the creation of that little wing plug that overlaps this door.
I had been sitting on a 1/48 Hasegawa F-86F kit and a Verlinden update set for a number of years and used it for this project. With the exception of the alterations mentioned above, I attempted to build this kit as “out of the box” as I could stomach. The Hasegawa F-86F is a fine kit and really only needs some work on the cockpit to build a great looking model. Since I was going to cram a pilot figure in the cockpit, I thought I could get away with not adding additional detail. I also had to take into account the audience. I am sure that Vilas knows the F-86 cockpit like the back of his hand—much better than I ever will, but I was sure that for a model, he had a different expectation. I suspect he would not be poking around in every nook and cranny with a penlight. Additionally I was working on a deadline and I did not want to get bogged down in the usual contortions it takes to fit an after–market cockpit.
Before I started building, I made a couple of minor conversions. I cut out the ammo bay door/step from the port fuselage half and snipped the corners of the upper and lower port wing. This section had to be removed on the “6-3” wing to get the ammo door open. I put these wing points aside for later use and then promptly lost them.
I built the cockpit as per the kit instructions. Everything was painted gray except the switch panels and the instrument panel, which I painted RLM 66 dark gray. I painted the dials black and picked out the details of the instruments with white. Then I blobbed future into the dials to make them look all shiny. I had to do this a few times as the Future dries pretty thin. Next time, I’ll use a clear paint.
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| Luckily the AeroMaster decals had the appropriate numbers between the three options supplied on the sheet. The high gloss metal around the exhaust was accomplished by using SnJ polishing powder on the Alclad paint. |
The cockpit sits on top of the engine intake so I built that next. I did my best to eliminate the intake and exhaust seams. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be but I got them reasonably cleaned up and then sprayed the intake Alclad Silver. Of course the metal finish shows all the little bits of seam that I did not manage to fill. Close enough. I moved on to the exhaust, which got a coat of Testor’s Metalizer Burnt Metal.
The cockpit, intake and exhaust were then sandwiched into the fuselage halves. The nose of the plane fit well and did not need any filling or sanding. I left the nose of the plane off until final assembly since it was red and I would rather not have to mask it for the rest of the assembly.
I fit the Verlinden port ammo bay into the bottom–side of the fuselage. This acted as a step for the pilot to climb on to the wing to enter the cockpit. Quite a bit of fiddling was needed to get it to look right in the slot I cut for it, but hey, it wouldn’t be Verlinden if it fit correctly. I left off the ammo cans to add later.
I assembled the three–piece wing and filled the hole I made separating the wing plug at the inside edge of the port wing.
The wings needed some seam filling at the join to the fuselage. I took extra care to get rid of scratches and other marks that would surely be revealed by the metal finish. I left the tail pieces off to make painting easier.
Since all my SnJ had turned to jelly after a single use, I decided to give Alclad a whirl. As Alcad is a lacquer and I didn’t really want to melt my model, I gave everything a nice sloppy coat of Future. Smaller parts were actually dipped in the Future to assure good coverage. Plus, it’s kinda fun.
I gave the entire model several thin coats of Alclad Aluminum. It dries quickly and is rock hard. After it is fully set, masking your model or even driving nails with it is no problem. What I didn’t do was to polish the model prior to painting the Alclad. I had assumed the future would make the surface like glass but that was not the case. In some areas the metal finish had a slight pebbly texture. Next time.
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| To replicate the canopy markings on FU-351 at the time of the gunnery meet, John created decals using Adobe Illustrator and a laser printer. Much of the turtle deck detail was made from strip styrene. |
I painted the shinier bits around the tail cone with Alcad Aluminum and buffed it with my leftover SnJ powder. Even if the SnJ paint does not have much of a shelf life, the polishing powder lasts forever and can be used on any silver paint. It works great.
Many panels of the F-86 are a slightly darker color than the rest of the plane. I spent the better part of an evening masking around all of these panels over the whole model. After spraying the darker panels with Alclad Stainless Steel, I removed the masking tape to discover that I could not tell the difference between the Aluminum and the Stainless Steel paint. Man, that was a lot of work for nothing.
Al at D&J Hobby suggested I try using sticky notes for masking and burnishing powdered graphite into the areas I wanted darker with an artists smudging tool. This worked very well. The only drawback was that the shading was not as consistent as it would have been with paint.
I gave the panel lines a light wash with very thin white acrylic paint. I added a little dish washing soap to break the surface tension allowing the paint to run into the panel lines—sort of. I repeated the process with acrylic black in some of the areas where I thought the lines needed to show more—like around the guns. I like to use acrylic washes on oil based paints and visa–versa because I can then come back with the appropriate solvent and wipe up the excess without damaging the base paint. Here I was able to use Windex to clean up some of the acrylic wash.
I painted the nose cap red and then masked and painted the black ring around the nose. I believe Jamie actually came over to watch me paint this. Not because he was particularly attached to the black stripe but he wanted to see what modeling building looked like. I warned him that is was most definitely not a spectator sport. You know how long it takes to mask something. I must have spent a half an hour cutting and wrapping masking tape around the nose just to spend maybe 30 seconds spraining it black. I’m really glad Jamie did not hurt himself too badly when he fell unconscious to the garage floor. He then went inside to talk to Stephanie and watch TV. It was truly a noble effort on his part.
Now that the major painting was done, it was time to start applying decals. The problem is—what decals? Mr. Bielefeldt’s plane was not on any of the decal sheets available. There are several aircraft from 67th fighter bomber squadron represented, however. With a few modifications I could create markings for Vilas’ aircraft. I found AeroMaster’s Sabres Over Korea, Pt. III decal sheet that had the fin flash and unit markings for the 67th fighter bomber squadron. As it turned out, this decal sheet had all the numbers necessary for FU-351. I just had to cut them apart and rearrange them.
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| The figure was sourced from Hasegawa’s U.S. Pilot and Ground Crew set. John shaved the detail off the ‘70s era figure and built up details with Squadron putty. The life vest straps are made from Tamiya tape. |
There were two areas that were not so easily addressed. The canopy frame on FU-351 was painted red with “LT. VILAS L. BIELEFELDT ALMA WIS.” painted in white letters. Also, the images I had showed the port side of the plane having “U.S. Air Force” stenciled across the fuselage. There was no sign of the boxing chicken emblem that I found on most photos of planes from Vilas’ unit. Additionally all the photos I have of FU-351 are of the port side of the aircraft. What did the other side look like? According to Vilas, the boxing chicken logo was painted on the starboard side of the plane and the chew chiefs’ name as “C/C RONALD LAUDENSCHLAGER” was on the starboard side of the canopy.
The asymmetric U.S. Air Force stenciling on the sides of FU-351 was a bit perplexing. My references did not show anything like this and the folks I asked about it said it was at least unusual, but hey, I wasn’t there so what do I know? The photos of FU-351 I had were taken at a gunnery meet, so who knows what special painting might have been done.
To create the stenciling on the side of the canopy, I measured the dimensions of the red panel on the model’s canopy piece. In Adobe Illustrator, I made a red panel with white letters for each side of the canopy frame. I copied this and made duplicates slightly smaller and slightly larger just to be on the safe side. I then had this printed at Kinko’s on decal paper for laser printers. Because the paper was clear and since printers generally do not print white, the white text in the image I created was clear on the decal sheet.
After I dipped the canopy in Future (because I dip everything in Future), I masked the clear parts and painted the canopy frame black to represent the inside color of the canopy frame. Over the black I sprayed Alclad. I masked the front and rear of the canopy frame and painted the side panels white. Once dry, I applied the homemade red decals to the sides of the canopy frame. With a little trimming, the process worked great. Once the decals had dried, I dipped the canopy in Future to make sure the decals stayed in place and to make sure the canopy had that sparkling clean shine (you know, this stuff might even work on kitchen floors).
The rest of the decaling went as normal. I used the AeroMaster tail flash and call numbers markings as well as the stars and bars. The call numbers I simply cut from several of the decal options and arranged them in the proper order. I got lucky as I did not have to go hunting for any numbers—they were all right there on the sheet.
I used the kit decals for the rest of the stenciling. What an insane amount of stencils. This is not even a large aircraft! It took me the better part off a week to apply all the decals since you can really only work on once section at a time otherwise when you look at your fingers at the end of the evening there will be little black stencils all over them.
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| The 67th Fighter Bomber Squadron carried the boxing rooster crest on the sides of their F-86s. The 250 lb. bombs are from the Tamiya 1/48 scale P-47D Thunderbolt kit. |
Here’s where my plans went soggy. The model was leaving with Jamie the next morning and I did not have time to locate a suitable seated figure for the setting I had chosen. This combined with the fact that I am terrible at figures and I thought I only had time to finish one. I decided to leave off poor Mr. Laudenschlager and just build a figure of Lt. Bielefeldt standing next to his plane—like in one of the other photos he sent to me. For this I used a figure from Hasegawa’s U.S. Pilot and Ground Crew set. The figure had the garrison cap like Vilas is wearing on one of the photos of him standing next to the plane. I sanded off all the uniform detail, cut and rearranged the arms and hands to better simulate Capt. Bielefeldt’s pose and used putty to make the uniform sleeves full length. At about two in the morning I built the life vest out of Squadron Green Putty. I don’t know what I was thinking–this stuff would take hours to dry and I was out of time. Once the putty scabbed over I painted it. I then used thin strips of Tamiya tape to make the life vest straps. Hey–it was even yellow!
Now that the pilot would not be in the cockpit, the very plain kit seat would be completely visible. I chose to use the Verlinden seat, as it is much better detailed than kit seat. A nicely detailed seat can really make the cockpit look great.
I attached the small bits and the canopy to the model and it was close to done. I decided to attach the F-86 to a base. I did this for several reasons. The model was going to have to travel to Buffalo, Wisconsin and it needed protection on and after the trip. Also, it makes a more attractive presentation. For the base I used one of the IMEX (is that Apple™ for a Latin American country?) cases for 1/48 scale aircraft. I filled the sink holes in the black plastic base, sanded it smooth and painted it with Polly Scale’s concrete and different shades of light grey and tan. I then used a straight edge and a pencil to draw the seams between the slabs of the tarmac. I then used the pencil to add cracks and a black wash to simulate oil stains.
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| The Hasegawa stock cockpit was used with the exception of a Verlinden ejection seat. The kit cockpit is sparse but the instrument panel is well detailed. |
To attach the model, I wanted to use something very sturdy but not permanent. I drilled holes in the bottom of the flattened wheels and glues lengths of brass rod into the holes. I then stood the model in its brass stilts and marked the base where the rods met the base. I then drilled holes in the base and pushed the brass rods through the holes. I bent them on the under side of the base and the model was held firmly in place. If I, or anyone else, needed to detach the model from the base, the brass rods need only be bent straight–ish and the model can be removed.
I attached the Mini–Vilas figure to the base. Since I cut off, and promptly lost, the little corner of the port wing, I whittled a new one and attached it to top of the wing by the fuselage. Vilas’ photos also show a red helmet sitting on the wing. For this, I lovingly decapitated the figure that came with the kit. Rather than tunnel out the inside of the helmet, I simple sanded off all the detail, painted it red and faced the opening toward the fuselage. If Mini–Vilas ever attempted to try the helmet on he would find that there was already a head in there.
With the model complete, I put the lid on the base and slid the whole thing back into the IMEX box. I only whimpered once when I did this. It was 3:30 in the morning. I hoped the model would look okay when I could focus again after a couple hours sleep.
I delivered the box to Jamie who slid the case out of the box. The look on his face over came any uncertainty I had about the work I had done.
All in all, this build was very rewarding and I learned a lot about modeling to boot. Having spent so much time on this model, I thought I would miss not having it in my curio case. The funny thing is—I don’t. Even though I do not actually have the F-86 in my possession, I think about FU-351 more than any of the styrene heaps that currently I have in my curio case, and that it might mean more to someone else than it could ever mean to me.
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| The base is the bottom of an IMEX display case painted with PollyScale paints. The model was secured to the base with brass rods glued into the wheels and passed through holes in the tarmac. |
All I know about Vilas Bielefeldt I learned from staring at a handful of photos. In my mind Vilas is today a twentish year old fighter pilot standing next to a shimmering F-86. The project started out as just a fun thing to do for my friend’s dad. It morphed into something else during the late nights in my garage under the buzzing overhead lights. Is it a strange thing to pay tribute to a man in a photo taken 50 years ago; someone whom I will most likely never meet and really know nothing about? It doesn’t feel strange at all.
Jamie reports that his dad loves the model and takes it with him to all the veteran and F-86 related reunions that he attends. If Mr. Bielefeldt is pleased with it—mission accomplished. That is what the whole project was about.
John Heck has been building plastic models on and off since 1975. His interests include 1/48 scale WWII fighters, early jets and modern weird stuff. He has been a member of SVSM since 2003.
