1/48 F-100C Super Saber conversion

[ghodges]

This conversion was built using the old Cutting Edge resin set with a Monogram F-100D kit. It's not difficult with the conversion providing a new set of wings, vertical tail, one piece main gear doors, and speed brake bay (not used, more below). I also added a Black Box resin cockpit that I had on hand, as well as saving some work by blocking off the intake with a FOD cover.

This shows the resin cockpit components with the IP shroud and rear seat ledge already added. The Cutting Edge F-100C resin vertical tail has a choice of a ribbed  rudder or a flat rudder as I used. It also has the proper smaller antenna fairing above the rudder. The ammo bay door has been cemented shut and the tail planes (molded in place) removed from the top fuselage rear. Some of the rescribing work has also been done at this point. Removing those tail planes makes it easier to work the fuselage seams on the sides once the upper and lower halves are together.

The resin wings and slats were well cast with no warpage, though I did have to rework some of the slat arm openings to allow the slats to better "drop fit". The F-100C wings had no inner flaps, a straight trailing edge, and no wing fences. You can also see the separated tail planes which have been rescribed. They will be reattached after adding a piece of wire to use as a locating pin, and can be added at the end of the build after painting and decaling.

The F-100C speed brake had a smaller opening so I added strip plastic to fill in the center slot. As molded, the Monogram center "finger" in the speed brake well is too wide for a "C", so I used a motor tool to grind off the edges of it to make it smaller and match the shape of the speed brake. The Cutting Edge resin set provides an entire new speed brake well, BUT not only is it closed up, but it also requires major surgery to insert it in the bottom fuselage. I figured modifying the speed brake and center finger in the brake well as less (and easier) work to do! You can also see that I've closed up the bottom gun bay door beside the nose gear well.

As molded, the exhaust tube isn't deep enough. I opened it up, added a piece of brass tubing to deepen it, and then fabricated a new "flame holder" to detail it and close it off.

I used the kit supplied nose part and my old Mattel vacuform machine to make a FOD cover that fits perfectly and can be added at the end of the build!

The model was sanded, rescribed, fine sanded and then primed with Alclad Gloss Black. Alclad Aluminum was then used as the base coat and a few panels masked off and done with Alclad Airframe Aluminum for some variation. The burner section was then masked off and sprayed with Alclad Steel. Alclad Clear Sepia, Clear Hot Violet, and Tamiya Clear Blue was then sprayed to make the vertical burn pattern on the rear. Although not bad, I thought it was too stark looking.

So..... I remasked the rear and lightly sprayed Alclad Steel over the burn patterns until they were much more obscured, then came back and sprayed very light vertical streaks of Tamiya Clear Blue to finish it off. This looks much more subdued and realistic I think.

I used a Cutting Edge sheet of decals to do Col. George Laven's very colorful candy-striped F-100C. Generally the decals went down well, BUT I had to cut out the decals for the wing slats "on the fly" (while applying them) as they weren't supplied as separate sections. It was the same for the top fuselage candy stripes. They're supposed to wrap around the to the fuselage bottom, but they come as one piece and have to be cut "on the fly" and then try to apply the remainder to the bottom fuselage. The problem here is that also involves the main gear doors and there's no separate pieces for those, so MORE cutting is needed. I couldn't do all of that cutting on the wet decals without tearing them, and so I just concentrated on applying the top fuselage decals. Also, the candy stripes for the drop tank tips did not fit the Monogram tanks. I removed them after I couldn't get them to fit and tried to paint the stripes, but after having some primer peel up in the process I just repainted the tips in NMF and let them go at that. Still, it makes for a very colorful bird regardless! On to the rest of the pics!

All in all this was a quick and easy conversion compared to many others I've built. The decals gave me fits, but otherwise it was a fun build. Of course now if you want an F-100C, you can just build the Trumpeter kit (if you can live with ITS warts). But, if you still have this conversion in the stash after 20yr (like me), it's worth tackling!

Critiques, questions, and comments welcome as always.

 

Gil 

Edited October 7, 2025 by ghodges

[VMF211]

Great work as usual!!

[Ron Bell]

So really the only thing left of the original kit was the fuselage, and that was modified a bit, and a few other small part here and there. You managed to get all that stuff together seamlessly and with a natural metal finish and some not so easy to apply well decals to boot. Excellent as usual. 

[Mark Deliduka]

Wow what a stunning masterpiece! Brilliant job on the burn pattern! 

[Boots]

Great build overall and I really like the NMF!

I had the Cutting Edge set then traded it for a few 1/48th Hasegawa P-39s years ago lol

Happy Modeling, 

Mike