Gamera

 

 

plasticjunkie

 

 

Gamera

PJ: Just for kicks I looked on Ebay and there's a couple of sets of decals for your Ki-43. Japanese, Indonesian, Thai, and Chinese Nationalist, Communist, and Manchukuo (Japanese collaborator government). To be anal captured Japanese aircraft aren't within the GB but I'd be more than willing to let things slide just to see you get her built. 

BTW: None of them are cheap though. Twenty-five bucks including shipping for a set of decals is rather on the steep side for me. 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=1%2F32nd+Ki-43+decal&_sacat=0

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking. I saw them too but they are not exactly what I was looking for. The kit decals have two versions I'm liking. I can always paint the markings if the decals are bad. 

 

 

 

 

Sure! Just thought I'd point it out. Looking forward to seeing how the markings come out. 

 

Started las night gluing up some parts like the wheels and tanks. The wings came next and here we go.......why in the heck did Hasegawa do this goofy fit??

The upper wing skins don't match the bottom part along the leading egdges, extending just a hair and the trailing bottom wings have an ugly join line running along the bottom of the flaps and all along the ailerons that are fabric textured. This means lots of filling in with stretched sprue sanding and then re scribing all that fabric texteure on the trailing bottom wing and lots of sanding and re scribing along the wing LE.

I like the display plate Hasegawa included and will look cool done in metalizers.

The kit markings I like and hope the decals  are ok and will not fracture in water. I will test one of the ones I won't  be using but if they fracture then some Microsol Superfilm will save them. I can always paint them on but just trying to keep the extra work away. These markings belonged to Sentai Commander Maj. Torashiro Aizawa of the 204th Sentai operating from Akyab air base, Burma. The aircraft is a KI-43 Type II made in 1943 and it had a heavy mottled dark green paint over NMF and undersides were NMF.

The kit color guide call for sollid green upper with chipping but I don't trust the info starting with Hasegawa calling this Hayabusa as a Type 1 which is wrong. This is a type II and can be made into a Type III. The Type I had a different cowl undersides and the VERY prominent long tubular gunsight thru the front windscreen. This kit has the Type II Cowl and windscreen with more modern gunsight.

These Lifelike decals are a great reference source but unfortunately only come in 1/48 scale. The first plane is a Type I, the second one is a Type II and my subject . The differences can be clearly seen.

Upper view showing the heavy mottling and solid black top fuselage stripe.

I will be using my hoarded supply of Floquil Old, Bright and Platinum Silver paints for the NMF of this project. These paints IMO are pretty close to an Alclad finish.

plasticjunkie

Started las night gluing up some parts like the wheels and tanks. The wings came next and here we go.......why in the heck did Hasegawa do this goofy fit??

 

The upper wing skins don't match the bottom part along the leading egdges, extending just a hair and the trailing bottom wings have an ugly join line running along the bottom of the flaps and all along the ailerons that are fabric textured. This means lots of filling in with stretched sprue sanding and then re scribing all that fabric texteure on the trailing bottom wing and lots of sanding and re scribing along the wing LE.

I like the display plate Hasegawa included and will look cool done in metalizers.

 

The kit markings I like and hope the decals  are ok and will not fracture in water. I will test one of the ones I won't  be using but if they fracture then some Microsol Superfilm will save them. I can always paint them on but just trying to keep the extra work away. These markings belonged to Sentai Commander Maj. Torashiro Aizawa of the 204th Sentai operating from Akyab air base, Burma. The aircraft is a KI-43 Type II made in 1943 and it had a heavy mottled dark green paint over NMF and undersides were NMF.

The kit color guide call for sollid green upper with chipping but I don't trust the info starting with Hasegawa calling this Hayabusa as a Type 1 which is wrong. This is a type II and can be made into a Type III. The Type I had a different cowl undersides and the VERY prominent long tubular gunsight thru the front windscreen. This kit has the Type II Cowl and windscreen with more modern gunsight.

These Lifelike decals are a great reference source but unfortunately only come in 1/48 scale. The first plane is a Type I, the second one is a Type II and my subject . The differences can be clearly seen.

 

Upper view showing the heavy mottling and solid black top fuselage stripe.

I will be using my hoarded supply of Floquil Old, Bright and Platinum Silver paints for the NMF of this project. These paints IMO are pretty close to an Alclad finish.

 

Wow, the name Hasegawa means quality today but back then they had some hit or miss kits. Good luck, thankfully it's not that big a plane so even in 1/32nd it makes it a little easier. Looking forward to how you knock her into shape. 

Right TJ, forgot to list the 2 blade prop of the Type I and 3 bladed Type II and III.

Gamera

Wow, the name Hasegawa means quality today but back then they had some hit or miss kits. Good luck, thankfully it's not that big a plane so even in 1/32nd it makes it a little easier. Looking forward to how you knock her into shape. 

 

Yep, very surpised to find this type of misalignment and bad join lines in a Hasegawa kit that for the most part are very well made. Heck not long ago I built a 1/72 Monogram F-105D from the early 70's and it had outstanding fit and details.

Okay, final reveal time, the Chi-Ha is finally done.  Gamera, you can use the first pic in this series as the front page gallery pic:

Just experimenting with my pounce wheel.

AA: Nice work!  Camo looks great!!! And the figure ain't half-bad either! Will try to get you posted at lunchtime today. 

Ziggy: Cool, please let us know how it goes. I've got one of the cheap plastic ones, your metal ones look like they'd work much better. 

Looks good Ziggy. I have a set from RB and it's a time saver at adding rivets.

Been working on the Oscar's pit and at 1/32 scale the scratch building is a lot easier than the smaller scales. I stretched some sprue and created the aileron rods for the foot pedals, longer handles for the floor mounted instruments and the seat back turbular piece. The Eduard PE set adds tons of details. After I figure out any more added thingies from my junk pile, the pit will get some Nakajima interior green and then all the wires and plumbing in several colors will be attached to busy things up.

Same for the sides.

The IP will be next. Need to make a HL run to get some Testors flat black.

The crappy join lines on the bottom rear of the wings were filled in with stretched sprue and Tenax, then sanded. I spent several hours yesterday sanding, filling, checking and sanding. A dark silver grey line can be seen along the seam but there is no trace of a gap. The fabric texture was re scribed along the aileron bottoms.

The front LE section that had the top skin extending out sanded out nice too. It's flush and even now.

Cant wait to detail the 14 cylinder radial engine!

AA: You got you posted sir! Grab your badge, you've earned it. 

PJ: Wow that looks good! I love the look of the brass PE, almost a shame to paint over it... 

The Zero is mostly painted. I had some Mitsubishi green I tried to use for the upper surfaces and it was partly dried and made a big mess. So I went back and sprayed her with the deeper green, which is closer to a Kawanishi green but what the heck, it's on and just going to go with it.

I normally spray the leading edge yellow ID stripes first, mask, and then spray the upper and lower wings. Since I went with the hairspray it would have been more work to do it this way so I sprayed the lower surfaces, masked, sprayed the upper, masked and then sprayed the ID stripes. I was really lucky, it came out with very little paint bleed that was easy to clean up. 

Still need to repaint the aft cockpit decking. 

Looks great Gamera. The hair spray trick is the best method by far for creating realistic chipping. Can't wait to see what you do with it.

Well this Hasegawa kit keeps throwing surprises at me. The engine, exhaust and cowling took several hours of careful fitting, carving and sanding to get a decent fit.

The exhaust pipes were way too thick to begin with extending past the firewall center part so that was sanded off along with removal of some of the center firewall thickness. Both parts created a large ugly gap between the cowl and the fuselage.

Here are the parts after heavy sanding and removal of the side plastic on the fuselage for the exhaust pipe clearance.

I used my thin razor saw to remove the plastic in between the open cowl flaps. The Eduard pe set includes brass flaps as a wrap around part but they cover up the separation detail so I won't be using them. I have a rule about using pe, just because the pe parts are there doesn't mean I will use ALL of them. I only use them if they give better details than the original plastic parts otherwise they go to the junk pile for future scratch building. 

Here are the parts after sanding and fitting giving 120% better fit.

I also drilled out the nose gun depressions and added some brass pipes for the 12.7 guns.

The radial engine went together without an issue.

The engine will get painted and dressed up with brass wires from my junk box so that will be coming up soon.

PJ: Thanks! 

Nice work all around but I love the cowl flaps- huge improvement!!! 

Thanks Gamera. I kept looking at the cowl flaps and noticed something missing and finally the bulb lit up , so the cut outs for both cowl flaps over the exhaust stacks were carefully cut so they can close, another goof by Hasegawa.

Speaking of goofs, no spinner back plate provided by Hasegawa either! I punched one out from those plastic cards that come in the junk mail.

 Plate fitted

main gears OOB

scissors were thinned a bit and holes drilled. Eduard provides pe parts for this but they look too thin and flimsy. I will add some copper wires as brake lines once mounted.

Now I have to wait for the Nakajima Interior Green paint for the pit to arrive from Scale Hobbyist. I thought I had some but none to be found in my paint stash. 

Ah hah! Guess I should have seen the need for the cut-out looking at your previous photo! 

Anyway she's coming along splendidly! 

Finished the IP last night.

the kit's IP

The completed Eduard IP is a beauty, what a difference!!

Oh gosh, that's a MASSIVE improvement! 

Spent most of the day wiring up the Ha115 fourteen cylinder radial engine. It was quite a time consuming task but adds tons of detail.

Now that is MILLIONFOLD improvement! 

Gamera

Now that is MILLIONFOLD improvement! 

 

The pit is done.  I was gonna add more wiring but once the fuselage is closed up most of the details including the beautiful IP get hidden so I stopped here.

That looks good, really good! Probably more work than I'd have done considering how little you'll be able to see down in there!

Gamera

That looks good, really good! Probably more work than I'd have done considering how little you'll be able to see down in there!

 

Yep I know what you mean. The side panels are very hard to see.

Does look good down in there though! 

I have been plugging away at this model and I must say that I have never had so many issues with a Hasegawa kit as with this one. After many hours of fiddling, sanding and carving the cowl and engine fit properly. I'm pretty happy how things are fitting up front so now I can move to other issues.

The wing to fuselage gap was filled with stretched sprue and melted with Tenax. The bottom fuselage to rear wing join was terrible too requiring stretched sprue as filler and TONS of sanding to get things to line up. An RB Riveter was used to replace all the details lost to the sanding.

I made my own brew of Aotake paint using Tamiya metallic blue and clear green

That radial engine looks perfect in there

I also put together the tanks and both bombs. I will have the wing tanks on the Oscar and thinking of a simple dio setting with both bombs close by as if they were ready to be attached to a plane. The join lines were discolored by the Tenax but the fit is perfectly smooth and solid. Something about old silver plastic that does that.

AA> That is one fine looking Chi Ha!  Well done, sir!  Well done!

PJ> The Ki-43 is really going great.  I've found the Hasegawa 1/48th kits to be relatively easy to assemble.  Sorry to hear 1/32 kit is giving you problems.  That aotake color looks very good!

I have nothing to report on the A6M5.  The weather for the past month or more has been atrocious (we're around 16+ inches of rain for the year), which limits my ability to give the model a base coat.  I have the engine assembled and ready, but want to paint the fuselage first before attaching the engine and cowling so I don't have to mask them.  Hoping for warmer and drier days!

Gary

Thanks Gary. I was reading that Aotake was bluish and would turn greenish after a while. It looks a bit more greenish than in the picture.

I guess being a kit from 1973 the technology has improved but yet I have built old Monograms from that period and the fit was 100% better.

PJ> Aotake seems to have been a variety of colors, if these samples are any indication.  I'm not so sure about this changing color over time, especially on internal parts.  Here's a page with samples.

https://colesaircraft.blogspot.com/2014/08/japanese-wwii-aircraft-aotake-primer.html

As for the Ki-43, it's possible it hasn't been stored well and warped a bit over time.  You would have to have another kit of the same vintage to tell.  Keep plugging along!

And it's raining again today, and there's a 50% chance all week.  I really need an airbrush so I can do something inside.  *sigh*

Gary

Thanks Gary for the very imformative link. No warpage on the parts just a lousy fit on some of them. And that kit IP was atrocious.