Hi airframes,
my informations say the contrary. First was the black than came the grey.
In Osprey Frontline Colour "F-86 Sabres of the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing" most color pics of cockpits show them in black.
page 111:
Osprey Frontline Colour "F-86 Sabre Fighter -Bomber Units over Korea" page 24:
(I highly recommend this two books for everyone who is interested in Korean Wartime Sabres)
The instrument panel and sideconsols were left in "out of box" state. I only added a clear gunsight-screen. Concentrating on the area aft of the ejectionseat.
The next two pics show the fuselage glued together and coated with a customary waterbased filler to smooth out any flaws.
As you can see the canopy was finished in advance with self adhesive alloyfoil. I often do this in advance because when the canopy of such an old model is ruined you are in for it.
I lost a lot of pics in a computer crash sorry. Now i got wise and bought an extern harddrive.
The next pic I could rescue shows the wings and fuselage glued together and most of the paint sprayed on. Of cource the black and yellow were sprayed before the metallic coats. For the first coats I used the last amounts of a color which has long desapeared.
It is liquid "Rub and Buff". The shading was done with Gunze polishing brands aplied in very thin coats. By the way. i left most of the engine out of the plane and inserted a new tailpipe from thin rolled alloy coming with a cake. This lightened the tail considerably.