Tamiya Kawanishi N1K1 Kyofu Type 11

[jmar829]

This will be my first in-box review. If I miss anything that you would like to see more of, please let me know.






I love the quality of Tamiya's models, but their decals are some of the thickest I've ever dealt with.






Good panel line details.







The cockpit built and painted. I couldn't find any aftermarket photo etch for this kit, so I just made some simple seat belts with painted masking tape. I took a lot of time with the painting detail to find out that most of the cockpit is not visible when installed in the plane anyways. But I know its there.




Assembled fuselage.



More to come! Let me know your thoughts, good, bad or other!

Thank you!

[Nige201980]

Great start fella looks like a great little kit how much was it if you don't mind me asking.

[jmar829]

Great start fella looks like a great little kit how much was it if you don't mind me asking.

Honestly, I'm not sure as I received this kit as a gift from my father-in-law. The Tamiya website has it listed at $32.00US.

[T3hGuppy]

Coming together well dude.

I know where your coming from on some of Tamiya's older decals.

[Nige201980]

Great start fella looks like a great little kit how much was it if you don't mind me asking.

Honestly, I'm not sure as I received this kit as a gift from my father-in-law. The Tamiya website has it listed at $32.00US.

Good price then (I think when I convert it to £)

[jmar829]

Coming together well dude.

I know where your coming from on some of Tamiya's older decals.

Have they improved them over time? It seems as though every Tamiya kit I purchase has really thick decals.

[T3hGuppy]

Yeah the decals on their latest kits are supposed to be much better.

[Paul]

Yeah the decals on their latest kits are supposed to be much better.

The decals on the Tamiya 1/6 bike i did for emodels fell to bits live on camera, luckily i could use the yellow background instead of the red ones i wanted to use.

Hit and miss with tamiya decals, ive had a few problems in the past with new and old kits.

Be interesting to see what the corsair ones are like

[jmar829]

They have great registration and color. If i keep applying Micro Sol will they settle more? Or do they only settle to a certain point?

[Scruffy]

They have great registration and color. If i keep applying Micro Sol will they settle more? Or do they only settle to a certain point?

They are very hard to get settled, one thing that helps is to soak them in very warm water when you apply them, then give a good dose of Micro Sol and Set. I really like the Rex, and the kit builds up very well, I built one a while ago, and have another to do (which is unusual as I typically will only build a kit once). Enjoy the build!

[pedrofernandes]

These Tamiya Jap planes are great to build !!! Its true that the decals can be a pain... but they are a pleasure to build !!
Also the theater of operations of these planes was unforgiving (the salt water must had been terrible for those mechanics) so you can "extreme" weather them ... u can chip ... u can do a lot of stuff!!

Regarding aftermarkets... they are difficult to find... but...

Eduard had a set of PE for the N1K1 but the land version not the sea plane... most of the Parts are for the interior (wich u already done) and for the landing gear well (wich u dont have) !! PE Instruction sheet take a look here

Wish u a great and fun time at the bench building it... and if u dont mine me asking what paint scheme are u gonna choose??? The green?? the grey ?? or the orange one???

[jmar829]

These Tamiya Jap planes are great to build !!! Its true that the decals can be a pain... but they are a pleasure to build !!
Also the theater of operations of these planes was unforgiving (the salt water must had been terrible for those mechanics) so you can "extreme" weather them ... u can chip ... u can do a lot of stuff!!

Regarding aftermarkets... they are difficult to find... but...

Eduard had a set of PE for the N1K1 but the land version not the sea plane... most of the Parts are for the interior (wich u already done) and for the landing gear well (wich u dont have) !! PE Instruction sheet take a look here

Wish u a great and fun time at the bench building it... and if u dont mine me asking what paint scheme are u gonna choose??? The green?? the grey ?? or the orange one???

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm going to hit it with some type of salt weathering, but I'm not quite sure what to use yet. Any suggestions or examples? I think I'm going to test my hand at paint chipping on one of my cheaper, lesser quality models as I have yet to try any chipping techniques yet on my previous builds.

As for the photo-etch, its awesome that some actually exists. I have trouble finding photo-etch for Japanese planes here in the US and it would have been nice for this kit. For the paint scheme, I'm going to use the standard Tamiya JN Grey and JN Green for the exterior with a nice matte coat to finish. I wish I had two more of these to try the Grey and Orange paint schemes.

I love this kit so far as it has coming together very quickly and easily and the quality is superb. I'll get back at it later this week!

Cheers

[pedrofernandes]

I did one of these tamiya jap planes some time ago... I wanted to do it with a twist , so I decided to build a "captured"plane !
The plane is a j2m3 Raiden "Jack" . I didnt had those chiping products...

So I gave a first coat of metallic... and then applied the green .. has the paint was drying , I put masking tape and then removed it very quickly!

photos

(after applying the paint and the tape)


(after removing the tape)


Liquid chipping products give u more control then this technique... but I like very much this type of effect!!
Sorry for Hijacking your post !!! have a good time on that build

[jmar829]

I did one of these tamiya jap planes some time ago... I wanted to do it with a twist , so I decided to build a "captured"plane !
The plane is a j2m3 Raiden "Jack" . I didnt had those chiping products...

So I gave a first coat of metallic... and then applied the green .. has the paint was drying , I put masking tape and then removed it very quickly!

photos

(after applying the paint and the tape)


(after removing the tape)


Liquid chipping products give u more control then this technique... but I like very much this type of effect!!
Sorry for Hijacking your post !!! have a good time on that build

No worries, brother. I come here for the advice.

Interesting technique and it looks like it works quite well too! It would be awesome if this technique could work with the decals, but I guess I can always sponge those on with the metallic color.

I too have built the Raiden and it's one of my favorites. It's in my portfolio if you're interested.

[jmar829]

Sorry it's been so long to update this build, but I'm really bad about getting the images off of my camera. Too many kits to build I guess. Tried my second attempt at pre-shading and got the paint on. When I sprayed on the clear coat, it seemed to darken the bottom of the plane and exposed the pre-shading a bit more than I'd like. I'll figure this out on the next kit.




Decals and the rest of the paint scheme done.




I went a little heavy on the exhaust rust because I figured those things would get torn up by the salt water. I'm going to add some realism with some AK interactive Salt Streaking effects and some painted on chipping.

Let me know what you think, guys.

[Rob]

What do I think? Very nice sir, is what I think. Great finish on a fine looking plane

[Joesdad]

I'm gonna agree with Rob, she's a certainly a looker. If you can J, post up some pics of the AK stuff, as I'm going to have a go at a seaplane soon.....

[jmar829]

I'm gonna agree with Rob, she's a certainly a looker. If you can J, post up some pics of the AK stuff, as I'm going to have a go at a seaplane soon.....

Sure thing! What I plan to use is the bottle all the way to the left. It says its for ships, but I imagine it will work the same way for the plane.

[Radzy]

That's really the "Jap" beauty. It looks amazing, buddy.

[jmar829]

Thanks Radzy. I'm happy with it.

[RobertA]

Great Inbox... and so far, so very good with the build..