Global Scale Modeller

Hey Guys!

I have decided to join the GB with the Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden Kai "George" - Japan's Last Fighter. I saw a documentary about this aircraft a while ago and I got really inspired to build a model of it.



Background
The N1K2-Ja Shiden Kai (Japanese for "Violet Lightning--Improved") was the best fighter used in significant numbers by the Japanese Navy during World War II. Known by the Allies as the "George," this maneuverable, heavily-armed fighter was a formidable opponent in the closing months of the war.

The Shiden Kai was considerably better than the Japanese Navy's most common fighter, the A6M Zero. With a top speed of 369 mph, the N1K2 was about 20 mph faster than the A6M Zero. The heavier Shiden Kai also possessed surprisingly good maneuverability due to a mercury switch that automatically extended the flaps during turns. These "combat" flaps created more lift, thereby allowing tighter turns. Moreover, its four 20 mm automatic cannon provided greatly increased firepower than earlier Japanese designs. Unlike the A6M Zero, the Shiden Kai could compete against the best late-war U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Air Forces fighters.

The N1K2-Ja was developed to counter high-flying B-29s. It first entered combat early in 1945, and over 400 were produced before the war ended.

Shiden Kai pilots scored several successes against low-flying, carrier-based U.S. Navy fighters. Even so, they did little to stop high-altitude B-29 attacks because of the N1K2's insufficient climbing ability and the considerable loss of horsepower and engine reliability above 21,000 feet. These B-29 raids seriously hindered Shiden Kai production by heavily bombing the plants building the fighter.


Service
The Shiden Kai primarily equipped the 343rd Kokutai, a unit composed of the Japanese Navy's best fighter pilots. Commanded by Capt. Minoru Genda, the mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack, the 343rd Kokutai entered combat in March 1945 in the defense of the Japanese home islands.


Survivors
At least three Shiden Kai aircraft survive in American museums. One is at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida.



The second N1K2-Ja (s/n 5312), a fighter-bomber variant equipped with wing mounts to carry bombs, is on display in the Air Power gallery at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. This aircraft was displayed outside for many years in a children's playground in San Diego, suffering considerable corrosion, and had become seriously deteriorated. In 1959 it was donated to the Museum through the cooperation of the San Diego Squadron of the Air Force Association. In October 2008 the aircraft was returned to display following an extensive eight year restoration. Many parts had to be reverse engineered by the Museum's restoration staff. Four different aircraft serial numbers were found on parts throughout the airframe, indicating reassembly from three different wrecks brought back to the U.S. for examination, or wartime assembly or repair from parts obtained from three different aircraft. Serial number 5312 was found in the most locations, and is the number now cited. The N1K2-Ja is painted as an aircraft in the Yokosuka Kokutai, an evaluation and test unit.

The third example is owned by the National Air and Space Museum but was restored by the Champlin Fighter Museum at Falcon Field, Mesa, Arizona, in return for the right to display the aircraft at Falcon Field for 10 years after restoration. It currently is on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

An authentic Shiden-Kai from the 343 squadron is displayed at a local museum in Shikoku, Japan. After the aircraft was damaged in battle, its pilot landed on July 24, 1945 in the waters of the Bungo Channel, but he was never found; by the time of the aircraft's recovery from the seabed in the 1970s, he could be identified only as one of six pilots from the 343 squadron who disappeared that day. Photographs of the six—including Takashi Oshibuchi, commander of the 701 Hikotai, and Kaneyoshi Muto—are displayed under the aircraft engine.




Specifications
Manufacturer: Kawanishi Kokuki
Type: Land-based fighter-interceptor
Crew: Pilot
Powerplant: One 1,990 hp Nakajima NK9H engine
Dimensions: Length: 30 ft., 7.9 in.
Height: 12 ft., 11.9 in.
Wingspan: 39 ft., 4.8 in.
Weight: Empty: 5,858 lb.
Gross: 10,714 lb.
Performance: Max Speed: 369 mph at 5,600 ft.
Cruise Speed: 230 mph
Climb Rate: 19,685 ft. in 7.3 min.
Ceiling: 35,300 ft.
Range: 1,066 miles.
Armament: Four Type 99 wing-mounted 20mm cannon


The Kit
To be able to complete the build within the timeframe and keep it a reasonable cost I have decided to build the 1/72 scale kit from Hasegawa #00136. Initially I was looking for 1/48 scale kits from Hasegawa, but I found them difficult (and/or expensive) to get hold of.

Boxart:
20160728_201615 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Two sprues:
20160728_202239 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160728_202253 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Instruction Manual, Decals, Clear part
20160728_201914 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

The build will be OOB, but I have added a mask set from Montex for the canopy. It's for a Aoshima kit, but it's OK to use on this kit too I think.

Cheers!

Tommy

The design of the Shiden Kai has it origins from the Kawanishi N1K1 "Rex" float-plane, built to to support forward offensive operations where no airstrips were available, but by 1943 when the aircraft entered service, Japan was firmly on the defensive, and there was no more need for a fighter to fulfil this role.



The requirement to carry a bulky, heavy float essentially crippled the N1K against contemporary American fighters. Kawanishi engineers, however, had proposed in late 1941 that the N1K would be the basis of a formidable land-based fighter too, and a land-based version was produced as a private venture by the company.

This version flew on 27 December 1942, powered by a Nakajima NK9A Homare 11 radial engine, replacing the less powerful Mitsubishi MK4C Kasei 13 of the N1K. The aircraft retained the mid-mounted wing of the floatplane, and combined with the large propeller necessitated a long, stalky main landing gear. It was ordered into production by the IJN as the N1K1-J Shiden, the -J indicating a land-based fighter modification of the original floatplane fighter.

Only four days after the Shiden's first test flight, a complete redesign was begun, the N1K2-J. The new design addressed the N1K1-J's major defects, primarily the mid-mounted wing and long telescopic landing gear - the latter a very cumbersome design. The wings were moved to a low position, which permitted the use of shorter, conventional undercarriage, the fuselage was lengthened, the tail redesigned, and the whole aircraft was made much simpler to produce, with over a third of the parts of the Shiden. Construction materials involved the use of non-critical materials. The redesign was approximately 250 kg (550 lb) lighter, faster and more reliable than the previous N1K1 version. Since there was no alternative, the Homare engine was retained, even though its reliability problems had not been fully corrected. A prototype flew on 1 January 1944 and after completing Navy trials in April, the N1K2-J was rushed into production. The variant was named the "Shiden-Kai"




So let's get started with the build then: This is a very simple kit; only 35 parts in total. We're not spoiled with details and good fit, but Hasegawa have been very generous with flash and other exciting mould defects. But to be honest; I only paid 7 € for the kit.

20160729_182602 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

First of all I will clean up all the small parts and put them on cocktail sticks to prepare them for painting. I have added some details to the cockpit to make it more "busy"...

20160729_225427 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Almost done; I need to make a final buffing and polish of the droptank, after the glue has cured fully and the styrene have hardened. I have noticed that I get much better result if I leave the seams overnight before I make the final touchup.

I will build this aircraft gear down and I will scratchbuild some seatbelts from masking tape, so the pilot will stay in the barracks. Sorry dude, maybe next time

20160729_224354 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr


Tommy

The Automatic Combat Flaps was an novel feature of the Shiden Kai that greatly improved the turn radius, thus making it possible to out-turn the opponent in a dogfight.

The theory behind ACFs was that if you turn too hard at high speed the aircraft will stall, due to the shape of the wing. But if you change the shape of the wing by lowering the flaps the occurence of stall is less likely, but on the other hand you will loose speed.
But if you lower the flaps just enough to avoid stall you can keep most the speed at the same time - this is of course in theory possible to do manually by adjusting the flaps at the same time as the aircraft changes speed and angle, but would have been to work-load intensive (especially in a dogfight where you really would benefit from it!).

So Kawanishi engineers made an advanced mercury-switch that took the needed flight parameters into consideration to automatically adjust the position of the flaps when the Automatic Combat Flaps mode was engaged by the pilot.

The ACFs where not so effective for horisonal turns according to the IJN pilots, but they really made a difference in loopings.

With the ACF, 2000 hp engine and four 20 mm cannons the Shiden Kai was a formidable fighter - Japan had finally produced a fighter that could replace the Zero, which where more or less obsolete at that point in the war.





So.... Today I have focused on the cockpit and other small parts.

First a final touchup of the panel-lines (rescribed) and polishing of the drop-tank.
20160730_124410 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160730_125041 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Primer time!
All small parts have been primed in black Ultimate Primer, except for the metal finish parts where I have used my usual trick and sprayed ModelMaster Metallizer onto the bare plastic. The paint is a buffable paint so I have buffed it with a Q-tip.
20160730_141130 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr]

20160730_142110 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Engine have been painted with a 5:1 mix of Vallejo Metal Duraluminum and Steel (I wanted to have a dark metal tone on this part). I have tried to postshade a bit, so the black primer still shines through, giving it some depth.
20160730_144735 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Cockpit painted i XF71 Cockpit Green
20160730_144815 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I'm making seatbelts from Tamiya tape. I always cut the tape on a sheet of glass to get nice and sharp edges. I have placed the thin line of masking tape on a plastic foil so I can paint it.
20160730_152810 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I'm using XF59 as base colour and I stipple XF57 onto that using a sponge. This way I will get some variation to the seatbelt colour.
20160730_155751 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I was planning to make some more scratchbuilding of the left side of the cockpit - just to add some more detail.


I make a block of plasticard and shape it to the controlbox of the red/yellow levers on the left side.
20160730_164950 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I add some knobs and levers using a piece of styrene rod.
20160730_170103 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

This is what it looked like when painted. Looks convincing I think.
20160730_192547 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

IP decal.
20160730_174529 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Rest of the cockpit ready for assemble.
20160730_195945 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Voila!
20160730_203319 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Engine assembled and weathered. I will put that aside for now.
20160730_200039 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Prop blades and spinner painted up.
20160730_195306 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

...and THIS is what I will try to make look decent tomorrow
20160730_203938 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr


Tommy

That's great work so far, all the attention paid to the details is already making this one very nice

OliveDrab wrote:That's great work so far, all the attention paid to the details is already making this one very nice

Thank you, OliveDrab

I think this amazing aircraft deserves some attention
The Shiden Kai is one of the best all-round fighter aircrafts from the WWII, but it's not as famous as the Zero.


Tommy

From Wikipedia: "The 343rd Naval Air Group was an aircraft and airbase garrison unit of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the Pacific campaign of World War II. Created in 1944 due to the desperate situation of Japan in the closing stages of the war, the 343rd was composed of the best surviving ace fighter pilots the Imperial Navy had at the time, with Captain Minoru Genda in command."

The 343rd ("Tsurugi", means "Blade") was established 25th of Dec. 1944 and was located at Matsuyama, where ace-pilots from all of the pacific theatre where moved, forming 3 squadrons with 40 ace-pilots in total. They where all flying the new Shiden Kai fighter aircraft.

Captain Genda and these men got one order from the IJN High Command - Protect Japan Mainland from the US forces. The Shiden Kai was key for this ultimate mission and 343rd first combat was a great success; on March 19th the 343rd claimed 57 US aircraft downed with only 17 Shiden Kais lost (or damaged).

The 343rd, however, had to move around after 4 month and ended up in Omura. At that time only half of the Shiden Kais where operational. The war was going worse for Japan and when Cmdr Genda returned from a meeting with IJN High Command he discussed his latest order with his flight leader Shiga Yoshio.

- "The Navy wants us to do Kamikaze missions"

Shiga Yoshio responded:

- "Fine. I will be the first to go. Also, make all the cadets go. All our veterans will go, no question about that"
- "But in return, Commander, you must be the last one"
- "One more condition, I want to show the navy uppers what a Kamikaze is like. I will give them a ride to let them see"

- "If the Navy HQ can accept these conditions, 343rd will gladly do it!"

Cmdr Genda agreed.

IJN High Command never asked 343rd to do Kamikaze again after that...





The build is progressing quite good, despite all the work with cleaning the parts from flash. I hade to bring out the whole arsenal of tools, though
20160731_113724 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Most difficult job was clean up around the Type 99 20 mm guns and the pitot tube. I discovered that there are turned gunbarrels in 1/72 scale available, but the shipment was already en-route. But it's good to know that they are available if I need them.
20160731_185137 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I have drilled out the muzzle using a 0.3 mm drill and a pin vice.
20160731_185201 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Assembly time.
When I dryfitted the wingroot the fit was actually so good that decided to glue it in place directly - go figure... A really pleasant surprise!
20160731_185745 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160731_190231 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

So it's only the engine cowling and canopy left on the sprues...
20160731_191956 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr
...but there are a whole lot of sanding and polishing to do. I think that I might not need any filler at all; maybe some CA-glue to touchup some seams.

But you have to break some eggs to make an omelett
It was impossible to sand the front of the fuselage without removing a small detail in front of the canopy and the IP needed to be removed temporary as well.
20160731_201926 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

But it starts to look like a nice little aircraft now..
20160731_205330 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr


Tommy

Looks good mate. Might not be the best kit but it can be fun to do a kit where you have to work a bit. It makes it a bit more special when it's done.

JonMW wrote:Looks good mate. Might not be the best kit but it can be fun to do a kit where you have to work a bit. It makes it a bit more special when it's done.

Thanks Jon

Yeah, it's a cheap kit that needs a lot of work to look decent. But the surface details are actually looking very good, let's hope that I can preserve them.

My first intention was to get the 1/48 scale kit from Hasegawa (JT73) and get some aftermarket as well, but the only place I could find it in Europe at a reasonable price was at a webstore that seems out-of-business (no response)


Tommy

Hey Guys!

A quick update after yesterdays work done on this kit. All remaning flash and glued seams have been checked and polished.

I have assembled the cockpit, painted the anti-glare with XF1 black and the rest of the cockpit with XF71. The headrest where made from wood so I have painted that brown using XF64.
20160801_174704 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

The cockpit have been glued in with Microscale. The fit was terrible - it would probably been easier to carefully glue it Tamiya Extra Thin or CA-glue.
20160801_204435 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

The Montex mask set was for another kit and they didn't fit perfectly, but I used them anyway...
20160801_174551 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160801_223109 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr
As long as the masks are smaller that the windows it might be possible to carefully clean the edges with a toothpick afterwards.

I have wiped the kit with isopropylalcohol to remove fingerprints and dust from the panellines. I painted the cockpit with XF71 and then I put Black Ultimate Primer on.
20160802_110727 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Did a couple of mistakes here.. The seam between the canopy and the fuselage looks awful.

I knocked off the small (1 x 1 mm) piece of PET plastic that I used for the gunsight glass when I was fiddling with the canopy. I had to make a new one and glue it in - but I put it in the wrong way

I'm considering to try to pry the canopy loose, fix the gunsight and try to clean up the PVA glue, but I'm not 100% convinced that the area around the canopy will look better after I'm done. It's a high risk beauty operation.


Tommy

Okey.... After thinking about the canopy fail for an hour I decided to try to fix it...

If I don't do anything about it I will probably loose the Mojo for this build and I will not toss the kit into the bin

So... using a scalpel and an old airbrush needle to pry the canopy loose I made an surprising discovery:

20160802_140706 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr



The gunsight was correct - I probably saw the error just before I closed up the fuselage, fixed it and forgot about it, so when I saw the WIP picture I thought that it was wrong. But it was correct all the time

Well... I wasn't superhappy about the seam so I cleaned up the canopy glass and the rim of the pit. New paint on and another try to get the canopy in place.

20160802_144131 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

After fitting the canopy using CA-glue (with a lot of pressure applied!) there was a really ugly seam because of the bad fit, but after removing the soft PVA-glue I could actually work the seam using many layers of CA-glue as filler.

20160802_163705 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

The end result is not perfect - but I'll take that!
20160802_171749 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Oh, almost forgot. Remember that small detail in front of the widscreen that I had to sacrifice earlier ? I put that back aswell



Tommy

Final update for today - It's been a busy day

Finally it's time for some painting !

I have started with the characteristic IJN style leading-edge markings in yellow-orange. The instructions suggest Mr Color H58, but I only have Tamiya paints so I have had to improvise a bit.

First I started with a Pink primer to make the Yellow really pop out. Since only a drop of red is needed to get pink I always start with the white color and then add one or two drops of red.
20160802_184345 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr
Whitebalance and autoexposure messed this picture up, sorry about that - it is pink, trust me

Time to hit the leading edge with XF3 Yellow. The result is a really stark Yellow tone.
20160802_185256 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

To blend the Yellow towards Orange I use highly diluted X-26 Clear Orange (10:1 ratio) and gradually build up the correct orange tone with thin layers.
20160802_190139 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr
I'm happy with that and will leave it to dry overnight so I can continue with the masking tomorrow.

Main landing-gear legs have been painted black aswell...
20160802_190604 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Cheers

Tommy

Off to a great start!

Lysus wrote:Off to a great start!

Thanks, buddy!


Tommy

This is looking great. That's a cool tip about painting the yellow.

Cheers Buddy.

Willem wrote:This is looking great. That's a cool tip about painting the yellow.

Cheers Buddy.

Thanks mate

I saw this trick in an issue of Fine Scale Modeller (April 2016) and since this kit didn't have any decals for the leading edge markings, I decided to try it. I'm very pleased with the result - but my cellphone camera hates it. So you guys have to wait for DSLR pictures to see what it looks like



OK.. So today there have been some more painting done

The bottom side should be IJN Grey, which I believe according to the photos I've seen, should be a light grey. I used XF-80 and did some postshading using XF-2 to lighten up some parts a bit.
20160803_164229 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Top have been painted with XF-70 as base color and some mottling with XF-4 and XF-26 to get some variation to the surfaces.
20160803_214801 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I used Panzer Putty for irregular masking around the tailsection and engine cowling.
20160803_214807 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160803_214820 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Tomorrow I will continue with some chipping, detailpainting and gloss coating.


Tommy

What a beautiful little kit, old but beautiful. I can not wait to see the end results. Brill.

pourquoi61 wrote:What a beautiful little kit, old but beautiful. I can not wait to see the end results. Brill.

Thanks buddy !

Yes, the kit got some nice details on the outer surfaces.

I checked the kit on scalemates and the tooling was made 1978, so I guess that it's a bit worn out. That would explain the flash and burr.

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/191125- ... kai-george


Tommy

George was always a handsome chap! Great job.
Jase

Skullfish wrote:George was always a handsome chap! Great job.
Jase

Thanks Skullfish
Yeah, it's a powerful looking aircraft. It probably has more in common with the Hellcat and the Corsair than the Zero - Japan moved away from the small, agile (and fragile) philosophy of the Zero into a more rugged design.



After some thinking I decided to make this bird heavily weathered. The aircrafts flew a lot of sorties and the Homare engine had initial production problems, since it was put into production too quickly. So I guess that access pane where heavily chipped and a lot of parts needed maintenance. I've seen a couple of build with heavy chipping and lots of grime buildup and I think that they look awesome, so that's what I'm going for !

So the first step will be heavy chipping (I might have gone too far here already) We'll se how it turns out in the end.

20160804_122853 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I used a 008 gauge guitarstring as a tool to make the chips, first dipping it in XF-16 and then gently tracing the panel-lines in a random way applying the paint. Some areas that (probably) received more abuse, like panel corners or panels where the pilot or service personel walked, I did some extra.
I always tried to keep the scale in mind; 1 mm equals 72 mm, so no chip can be too small....

This is the result:
20160804_141027 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr
20160804_141048 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I have detailpainted the guns with X-10 and the exhaustpipes with XF-84 and glosscoated the fuselage. Here the beautiful green XF-70 colour starts to show off.

Next up is decals, I believe.

Cheers

Tommy

Used and abused! That's always a great look with these. I like your random tracery with the banjo string. Nice tip.
Jase

Skullfish wrote:Used and abused! That's always a great look with these. I like your random tracery with the banjo string. Nice tip.
Jase

Thanks Skullfish

Yeah, that's how we like it





Decals in progress!
20160806_124106 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

The decals went down with no drama at all - I ripped one decal, but it was possible to patch togehter nicely.
20160806_145605 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I will leave them until tonight to let the Micro Sol do it's magic, then touch up some of the chipping on the decals before I proceed with glosscoat and washes.

Cheers

Tommy

Weathering looks great. Hard to get that effect at 1/72.

Great job.

Willem wrote:Weathering looks great. Hard to get that effect at 1/72.

Great job.

Thank you, mate!


Tommy

You're making quick progress on thins and it looks great. Really makes me want to build one of these heavily chipped Japanese planes.

JonMW wrote:You're making quick progress on thins and it looks great. Really makes me want to build one of these heavily chipped Japanese planes.

Thanks Jon

I love japanese aircraft, they look really cool, I think. Also I was hoping to complete the build this weekend (before my vacation ends), but I had to do other stuff I couldn't make it.

I'm renovating the basement where I have my spraybooth, so after this is done will have proceed with that I will not be able to airbrush for a couple of weeks...
But it will be great when it's finished, I will have a much better workplace.




I did some chipping of the decals and applied another coat of Alclad2 Aqua Gloss and continued with panel-line washes.

I got the improved Ultimate Dark Dirt a while ago and haven't tried it until now. It works great and I think the pigments are smaller so they stay in panelline much better than the old Dark Dirt. So here's the result of the weathering sofar:

20160807_183050 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160807_183408 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160807_183445 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160807_183544 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160807_183640 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Also did some chipping of the spinner
20160807_183313 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Next I will continue with some grime and dirt streaks using oilpaints.


Tommy

Hey guys!

Short update:

I want to have a quite heavy buildup of grime and soot on the bottom side of the aircraft, but I couldn't get the effect I was looking for with oilpaints - within reasonable time, I want to add. It can probably be done, but the long drying-time and the effort to build it up in many layers, made me try another way. Also, I had problems to make it look realistic in the scale.

I decided to try my trustworthy Tamiya pigments instead and I'm much more satisfied with the result I got:

20160809_202921 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Label says "For Russian Tanks", but it works just fine for Japanese Aircraft as well


Tommy

Hey Guys!

It's time for the final stretch of this build

I decided to seal the first layer of pigments and put another layer on afterwards
20160811_204438 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

And we are ready for the final assemble of the different submodules
20160811_213733 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160811_215849 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

The nav lights have been painted with Tamiya X-27 Clear Red and X-23 Blue on the wings, rear light with Tamiya Smoke X-19.

20160813_123021 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

Landing gear assembled and thats the last parts!

20160813_123231 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160813_123303 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

The aircraft is sealed with Microscale Micro Flat thinned with IPA (1:1).

...and it's time to remove the canopy masks

I'm always nervous doing this

20160813_133617 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I'm happy with that.

20160813_135543 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I always use WD40 to clean up the glue residue from the masking tape and to get a nice sheen of the glass and to improve transparency.

20160813_135552 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

To enhance the exhaust marks a little, I scraped off some graphite from a pencil and rubbed it in using a cotton bud.

20160813_135808 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

It's difficult to catch this on camera, though...

20160813_135945 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160813_135953 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr


The final step of this build; connect the antenna wire.

The instructions doesn't cover this, so I had to check reference pictures.


The rigging wire is a very thin elastic thread that can be glued with CA-glue.

20160813_142250 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

20160813_143856 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr


A final picture with a comparison of the A6M2b Zero and the Shiden Kai; the Zero sure looks like a light-weight

20160813_150636 by Tommy Killander, on Flickr

I will take some better photos and post them in the Reveal-sections soon!

This has been a fun build; in retrospect the kit was actually better than I thought it would be and got the opportunity to try some
new techniques. The object itself is fantastic and I will definately get the Hasegawa 1/48 scale kit if I find it at a good price and make
a proper build with PE and all that jazz.... (AMS alert!)

This was intended to be a short build, so I will not make any base for it.

Below you will find a links to the documentary I was mentioning in the beginning of this thread; also there is an interview with
Kasai Tomokazu an Ace pilot that flew the Shiden Kai.

[youtube]Wc3Xj0Eqa4Q[/youtube]
[youtube]KbX2vmIJ0gA[/youtube]
[youtube]hxaj_MQ2Svw[/youtube]

Enjoy!
:cheers:
Tommy

Hey Guys,

Build Reveal photos are here:
http://www.intscalemodeller.com/viewtop ... 92&t=19242

Cheers

Tommy

Really nice build mate and i like all the links to documentarys, will enjoy watching them at my leisure. Nice tip with the canopy, ill be doing that next build. Im off to check out your reveal photos.

Jase

Skullfish wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2017 8:17 pm Really nice build mate and i like all the links to documentarys, will enjoy watching them at my leisure. Nice tip with the canopy, ill be doing that next build. Im off to check out your reveal photos.

Jase

Cheers mate!

The documentaries are great, love the interview with the old pilot too.... fighter pilots are the same all over the world


Tommy