Good looking pit, Theuns!

Progress on the Raiden, I masked the outline of the canopy this evening:

It'll be filled in with tape in the next round. Here's the completed airframe and accessory assemblies:

Fitting the canopy will be a tiny bit tricky but the bare parts fit is quite good, only removing all the flash took it away from a great fit in a couple of places.

The Raiden appeared to have a strange fitting, a sheet of armour glass in front of the pilot mounted on two rods coming out of the instrument panel. The assembly looks very iffy indeed, and in even the best pictures of the aircraft it is virtually invisible, so I've decided to leave it out. It may not be perfectly accurate without it, but I guess I'll sleep nights all the same!

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Hey wow guys, sharp work all around!

I like those old Arii/Otaki kits Mike. I've never built one that I haven't enjoyed. Yours looks like it coming together pretty well too, although I've never tried the Raiden.

Thanks, taxtp! Work resumed today so I only got a small job done, but here's the canopy with the areas filled in:

Next, paint the gunsight, then attach the canopy. Mask the cowling, and I'm ready to start painting... I might invest in a set of AM hinomarus, the ones in the kit look a bit thick and I want decals that'll snug down tight into all that surface detail. What was your experience with Arii/Otaki decals, if I may ask? Sometimes Hasegawas look thickish on the sheet but behave superbly on the model...

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Nice job on masking the canopy, Mike.  That must have taken some patience and knife skill.  I use the same "outline with tape" system, but I use liquid mask to fill in the center.  You did a remarkable job of filling in all those angles.

More progress on BB-64.  Finishing up the hull and main batteries encompassed construction steps 10 and 11 on the instruction sheet, so now I'll go back to step 01 and procede chronologically from there.

Construction step 01 involves building up the 40mm Bofors guns.  They come in two pieces.  I sprayed them haze graze, then painted the Deck Blue surfaces with a brush, rather than masking them.  The parts with the gun barrels will cover most of that surface anyway.

Next is a close up of them assembled.  They are quite crude, with almost no detailing at all; but the cooling louvres (I think that's what they are) are visible.  I dry brushed the parts with lightened haze gray, then ran a dark acrylic wash over them.

The last shot is a distance shot.  There were twenty of these assemblies to make--very repetitious.  From this distance, they look like a lot of bugs lying there--sort of like woodticks.  Ugh.

Thanks for looking.

Now that's what you call patience. Thats a 1cent piece right.

Yessir, Bish, it's a one cent piece.  The 20mm's are even worse.  There are forty-something of those.

But before those, construction step 02 involves the fire directors, Mk 37.  There are four of these and I decided to replace the kit parts with photo etch.

As I've mentioned before, Fujimi boxed the kit as USS Iowa, but it more accurately reflects USS Missouri, so the kit-supplied main radar is the SK II model, a round dish.  Wisky carried the SK variety, which is rectangular.  I got a LionRoar set for this, and it included the Mk 37's, so I replaced them too.

First photo is of the directors themselves with the tiny bases for the radar attached.  I used white glue to attach them.

Second photo is of the radar itself.

Third photo shows the whole assemblies put together.  It was kind of complicated getting all those bends in the photo etch, but I mananged it using a drill bit to form the semi-circular parts.

It didn't help that "Stumpy" stepped on one of them while they were lying on the table.  A cat with only three legs, and he still managed to plant one of them on the radar!!

Thanks again for looking.

Thanks, CMK2. It's tedious rather than particularly difficult, certainly at this scale, and I tend to put it off as long as I can. It's not as precise as a dye-cut set, but gets me close enough for a few touchups to even things up in the complex areas.

Today I painted the gunsight and attached the canopy with Testors Clear Parts Cement, not a very strong glue but it seems to be doing its job. I'm also using it as a gap-filler, capillary action draws it into areas where the fit is less than perfect. Another application or two and it should be ready for the next stage.

I hope to be preshading tomorrow...

MIke/TB379

Hi Mike,

I built the Tony (of course) and P-47 using the kit decals. It was probably a little more than 20 years ago, they were usable then. To be honest, I cannot remember the details but they are still on the models, and look ok to this day.

Check, that's impressive work, it's been  a long time since I built a battleship with photo etch, think it was was Fujimi Graf Spee, which isn't quite a battleship anyway. I'm getting double vision just looking at your work. It looks very tidy, something not easy to achieve, in my opinion.

Cheers

Tony

Would pre-shading show up that well under the dark green of a Raiden?

Mike: Nice job of masking there. My most hated part of aircraft is masking the canopy. I hate to pay five bucks for a tiny sheet of tape but usually do since the pre-cut ones are so much less work.

CMK02: Great work there! One of the reasons I don't do ships is you pretty much have to add the PE to get them up to modern standards. I think I'd ruin over half those delicate radar assemblies myself and lose the rest of them.

Tony -- thanks for the decal info. I decided to go the AM route with a brand I'm sure of, I ordered the generic sheet from Aztec today. I''ve heard horror stories of Tamiya's decals in many lf their kits, too, I'm lucky enough to have built the editons printed by Cartograf so far but I'd better be well armed for the future. I'm sure I'll build plenty of Japanese sujects, justifying the AM insignia sheets.

Blitzwing -- The preshading will look good on the underside but that topside green is so dense I certainly have my doubts anything will show through. I've seen others preshade the job, though, so I'll give it a go -- if it all disappears, hey ho!

Gamera -- Yep, the masking is thoroughly tedious and I usually prefer to buy a set of Eduards, but from time to time they either aren't available or wi'll take time to get here from overseas stockists and the job needs to move ahead now... In this case a mask set would probably cost nearly as much as the kit! This canopy is also a very poor part, with distortions, moulding effects and so on, so hand-masking was the only way it was going to go!

I'm hoping to get everything along to the clearcoats stage, then set the job aside until the decals arrive.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Got the Chinook finished last night, so here are the pics.

Looks like a great GB you have going here OWL. Thanks for running it. I will deffinatly be watching and hopefully will be able to add another build next year.

Thanks wayne. Sounds like you have a few builds on your hands.

Bish -- beautiful 'hook, BN lives on! You must have huge enthusiasm for your subject to produce the same project twice in a row and to equal standard both times!

I got a little painting done yesterday, here's the underside of the Raiden preshaded in dark grey:

I'm going to have to take my airbrush for a service, it's not performing well, so it'll take a bit longer to finish this beast than it might have -- still, I can't call her done til those hinomarus arrive, so it probably makes no difference, though it'll probably be a few days before there's any more progress to report.

Cheers, Mike/TB379

Bish, that Chinook is the goods. I REALLY like the look of it. The display is exceptional too.

Cheers

Tony

Exceptional results on the helicopter, Bish.  The camoflage is easy on the eyes.  Looks outstanding.

Bish

Looks like a great GB you have going here OWL. Thanks for running it. I will deffinatly be watching and hopefully will be able to add another build next year.

very nice, Bish! Ill get the front page updated pronto! 

Bish: Beautiful work on the Chinook! And really nice work there on the base and display too.

Mike: The Raiden is coming along nicely!

Thnaks guys. I actually saw BN on station the other day for the first time in quite a while.

The only reason i rebuilt it was because the guy at work wanted this spefic aircraft and he wanted the same display as mine. The guy i built it for is in the REME, hence the REME flash. His uncle was also in the REME and was in the Falklands during the war. He died a couple of years ago and my mate his going to give this to his granfather, his uncles dad.

It is rather a nice camo, and makes a change from those compliucted German motteled schemes.

The Raiden is looking nice Mike.

Thanks, Tony and Gemara; I appreciate your comments on the photoetch radar.  Along with the main SK radar, that's all the photoetch I'm adding.  I haven't tried railings yet.  They seem intimidating.

Below is some more progress, construction step 03.  This includes a bunch of the 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns and the tubs to go with them.

First photo is of the 20mm's themselves.  They aren't modeled very well; just a blob behind the gunshield.  They might as well be fire-fighting cannons.

Below are the guntubs.  I painted them deck blue first, even though it's a darker color (masking it this way seemed easier), and now they are masked and ready to receive haze gray.

Next photo is of the finished gun tubs and the 20mms.  I used a dark gray acrylic paint for the barrels, also drybrushed a lighter gray for highlights, followed by a dark wash.

Last photo shows the guns installed in the tubs, per kit instructions at this point.  The tubs get installed during the final assembly steps--which is probably wise, rather than trying to plunk all these little pieces in place with the tubs already glued on.

Construction step 04 involves the floatplanes.  Fujimi included Seaking types in this kit, but Wisky carried Kingfishers.  I bought a box of Trumpeter Kingfishers to take care of this, and joined the "Floatplane/Seaplane Group Build" to finish them.  I'll return to posting progress for this GB when I get the planes finished.

Everyone's progress here is sure impressive.

Thanks for looking. 

Bloody hell check, i didn't spot those pics of the radar. Next time someone comments at how amazed they are are whats done in 72nd, i will post a pic of those. This is stunning work mate.

Began construction on my entry, but couldn't get too far...but what I did get completed looks pretty darn good!

box top

The kit was bought second hand, so some of the pieces were already painted. Unfortunately the cockpit was all put together with no details painted! I snapped it apart and fixed that in little time

I added some wire details to the sidewalls, scratch-built harnesses, and added IP wires

this is how tiny the IP is: it fits on a dime!!

I had to stop here, because as I was preparing to wire-up the engine I noticed there was no propeller in the box!!! ACK! What use is a prop fighter if it doenst have a prop!? Construction on the Thunderbolt has ceased until I get a replacement propeller.....

Damn girl, you got mad skills.

Wow, OWL you have come so far! Marvelous work!

M/TB379

Very nice work Owl! Really nice seatbelts.

Thanks, Bish.  The radar turned out better than I could have hoped.  The LionsRoar offering has even tinier examples that I haven't attempted yet.

Outstanding work on the cockpit, Ms OWL.  Top-notch.

Lovely work on that pit OWL. Are you going to get am AM prop or contact Academy.