Building a bunch of F-100 Huns...
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HASEGAWA

My kit has green plastic, has raised panellines and a very bare, read "no cockpit" with a piece of plastic for the seat and coaming. But it is accurate in shape. It is representative of the earlier F-100D's with the old style ventral speed brake (with no large cut-out), no arrestor hook and the shorter first style 275 gallon fueltanks. Also the inboard 200 gallon tanks are in this kit. There is a straight and curved tankboom in the kit. The inboard "stores" part #7 pylons are a bit inaccurate. Crude Bullpups and Sidewinder missiles are also in this kit, but the T-shape Sidewinder pylons should have an Y-shape. 

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The kit was already assemblied many many years ago. It did not have the kit box and its illustration anymore. 
Here the Minicraft and FROG box is seen. It was also packaged by UK importer HALES. 
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The old Hasegawa kit was made rather straight out of the box but with a new cockpit floor with some side consoles made from card. The intake tunnel was not there and the intake rather undeep, I will simple add covers later on. 

I had some nice decals for a USAF left over in my ESCI kit (see page 1) so it was decided to do a USAF Vietnam scheme aircraft. These darker colours will make most of the raised panellines less visible. 

Inside the main gear bay, the central beam should not be solid/closed but open. I did not bother to change this after so many years. The nose gear wheel well could benefit from some detail as well. The undercarriage was simply assembled as per instructions. 

The old style speed brake bay is a bit bare, so the brake set closed. An arrestor hook was added as this model will represent a later F-100D; this was made from a piece of flat plastic rod using the ESCI/AMT (see page 2) part as example. 

The model was now ready for a first light grey paint coat. 
 
After having a grey base coat the Vietnam camouflage was hand air brushed on the model, using these Gunze Sangyo acrylic paints:
FS36622  lower surfaces: H311, these were applied first and masked when dry
FS34102 green: H303 
FS30219 brown: H310

I used for FS3079 Tamiya XF51 khaki drab acrylic.

I used a piece of carton board while airbrushing "free hand" to prevent too much overspray but soft colour edges. 

The rear fuselage has a burned metal look , this was sprayed after masking. Some strains for acrylic transparent blue and yellow from Tamiya was sprayed on to suggest "burned hot metal" as often seen on Super Sabres. 

A couple of larger banana shape fueltanks from the AMT kit will be set on this model as well as some bombs with triple ejector racks (TER).

The decals were now applied after the model got  clear gloss coat of Johnson Future/Pledge applied with a wide brush.
I had some nice decals for a USAF left over in my ESCI kit, an aircraft in the Vietnam scheme of the Arkansas Air National Guard of the 184 TFW. *this aircraft is shown in the Detail & Scale book Vol.33 on page 35.

After decalling, the smaller bit and pieces were set like undercarriage, a couple of larger fueltanks from the AMT kit was set on as well as a couple of pylons which are better than those in the Hasegawa kit. 

Some stores would be nice as well as the model is a bit clean now. And better replace the stores in this kit. From a Fujimi A-4 Skyhawk kit, some TERs (Triple Ejector Rack) and bombs were sourced. These were painted and set under the wing (3 under the right wing and 1 one the left). 

The separated horizontal stabilizers were also mounted at an angle at the tail as often seen at parked aircraft with power off. 

The canopy was set closed.

After completion, the model got a protectice coat of gloss Johnson Future/Pledge with some drops of Tamiya matting flat base X21 agent mixed in, this will make the sheen semi-matt thus more realistic for a Vietnam look. This coat will also protect the decals for years to come. 

  Note also the refuelling probe mounted under the right wing

  a Vietnam scheme Hun of the 184 TFW of Arkansas Air National Guard , State of Arkansas in the continental USA 

Nice to have this model after so many years in my model collection.

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