Thunnus

Thank you Denis! Everything is NOT glued together yet. I've kept them as separate components so that I can be able to paint them first and assemble them afterwards. Thank you Gaz! The foil was just some random stuff I got from a bottle of wine. As far as I can tell, it's a very nice kit. Fit is really good and I haven't run into any issues besides the aftermarket stuff, which is par for that course. Thank you! Pretty easy adjustments and not too frustrating! I know Aires gets a bad rap but my experience with them has been mostly positive. Thank you Gilles! I hope I can keep you entertained! I really should be painting the interior components so that I can button up the fuselage but I keep getting drawn away toward other things. First, I wanted to test the use of custom-printed decals for aircraft numerals with a thin border. These are usually very difficult to pull off with masks only so I thought a combination of painted markings using masks and supplying the thin border with a decal might work out better. Looks good and is much easier to boot. The pitot tube and loop antenna have been modified using brass tubing and thin section cut from a Coke can. Brake lines, fashioned from copper wire, have been glued onto the landing gear struts. I've also started to paint and assemble the kit engine. The landing gear doors have a curved edge, which was actually straight so I've added a thin strip of sheet styrene to the edge to straighten it off. The fuselage section that butts up against those curved doors were straightened by subtraction instead of addition. A coat of primer to check my mod work. I've decided to add rivets to the metal portions of the aircraft. This includes the engine nacelles. I understand that the He 162 was puttied and probably quite smooth in reality but I wanted to break up the smooth surface with some subtle detail and decided to add the rivets. The effect you see below is quite exaggerated and I'll use a less contrasting wash color later on. This is just to check the rivet and panel line work.

Thank you for checking in Mal! Thanks Gilles!

Thanks guys! I've gotten around to making the seat harnesses. Out of the different choices I had available, I elected to utilize the buckles from the Aires Cockpit Set and metal foil for the belt material. After the harnesses were completed, they were glued onto the seat. In order to close the fuselage, the cockpit, nose well and main gear well need to be painted. I've already primered the main gear well components so I've given the cockpit and nose well the same treatment. The primer coat unifies all of the different materials (plastic, resin, wire, etc).

Based on the overlap of aftermarket sets in relation to each other and my plan to keep panels closed, much of the aftermarket stash will go unused. The Aires cockpit and wheel bay set will be utilized in its entirety but that means the CMK Interior Set and the Eduard Interior Set will not be used. I'll cherry-pick some small details from the unused sets if the opportunity arises. Gun bay is closed so no CMK Armament Set. I probably will keep the control surfaces neutral so no CMK Control Surface set. I've done a little work on the cockpit sidewalls, most notably on the starboard side where I've replaced the radio box with a scratchbuilt one and added an oxygen hose. Note the nasty gouge in the sidewall that resulted when carving out the radio. I've cannibalized the resin sidewalls from the CMK Interior set to replace the damaged spar. Otherwise, the Aires sidewalls are presented as casted. They been given a coat of primer (Mr Primer Surfacer 1000). The nose gear bulkhead has been attached to the cockpit tub. The nose components have been temporarily placed but I'll paint the parts separately before attaching with glue. The tiny brackets on the nose gear were from the Eduard Exterior Set. I've also cobbled together the Aires main wheel well components, gluing together the sub-components but keeping them detached from the wheel to make painting easier. The wheel well has been given a coat of primer as well.

Thanks guys! Not sure if it is resin-shrinkage or a design error but the wheel well I have was definitely undersized length-wise. 've been spending the week poking around this kit, fiddling with the cockpit fit, looking at the engine nacelle parts and evaluating the aftermarket sets. And I've come to a few decisions. The primary one is... I don't like the look of the aircraft with the engine exposed so I will be building it with the engine cowlings closed. Which means that I'll be using the kit engine parts and cowlings for the most part. This will leave the CMK engine set unused. Of course, I can always put the CMK engine together and have it as a display item next to the model, if I want to go through that effort. But there is ANOTHER option as well. IF I can somehow build the closed engine and open engine as separate modules that can be plopped onto the completed fuselage. I'm sure I can make the kit engine parts to do that with magnets as the connection between the engine and cowling is pretty straight forward. I'm not sure about the CMK engine. I was able to complete some basic modeling tasks while the brain is fiddling with the what-ifs... the ammo chutes are cut out. The port side gun access door is glued into place. Scratch off the CMK Armament Set! I scraped off the molded brake lines from the main landing gear legs. The pin-and-socket arrangement for the nose wheel was replaced with a proper axle fashioned from brass tubing. The brake lines were left on but I undercut them with a scriber to improve their appearance. The little air scoop on the engine cowling was replaced with a curved section of brass sheet. The exhaust nozzle was thinned out and the fins were replaced with sections of brass sheeting.

Thank you Gilles! Like their other Japanese subjects, Hasegawa produces a very nice kit of the Ki-84. I wish they would get back into the 1/32 game! Thank you very much sir! Thank you! It's a very elegant and clean design and I enjoyed checking this highly regarded fighter off my list!

Thanks Matt! Figuring out the fit of resin parts is always part of the fun! Thanks John! I personally don't consider this an issue. There is usually some sort of trade-off when adding aftermarket sidewall detail. In the case of the cockpit and wheel well sidewalls, I believe the thickness of the resin parts will be obscured by the canopy and wheel bay doors, respectively. We'll see! Thank you Iain! I wouldn't call the Aires gear bay as poor. Far from that, actually. But working with resin has its pitfalls and resin shrinkage is one of them. That seems to be the case here. One can try and scratchbuild the details onto the kit parts using the Aires part as a reference but I don't see the point of that in my case since I've made the necessary modifications to make the Aires part fit acceptably. After the fit of the wheel bay was sorted out, I turned my attention to the Aires cockpit tub, which also serves as part of the nose wheel bay. First, the molded detail on the interior side of the fuselage halves was grinded off and sanded. The resin sidewalls were then temporarily placed using a couple dots of CA glue. The cockpit tub can then be placed into the fuselage and held in place using Blue Tack putty. The fuselage halves are then taped together to check to see if the resin components fit within the fuselage. I've placed the clear parts to check their fit too. Based on the gap between the port sidewall and the cockpit bulkhead, the sidewall position needs to be fine-tuned. A check of the bottom to verify that the nosewheel bay is correctly oriented. After a few adjustments to the position of the sidewalls, I think I'm happy with the fitment of the Aires cockpit. I will mark the position of the sidewalls with a pencil and pop them off to make painting easier.

Now a look at the aftermarket products that came with this kit. These include: 1. Aires He162 Cockpit and Wheel Bay Set 2. Eduard He162 Interior Set 3. Eduard He162 Exterior Set 4. CMK He162 Undercarriage set 5. CMK He162 Engine Set 6. CMK He162 Interior Set 7. CMK He162 Armament Set 8. CMK He162 Control Surfaces Set 9. Eduard He162 Masks 10. Black Magic He162 Masks Not everthing will be used. There is some overlap with these sets. For example, I'm sure the Eduard Interior, CMK Interior and the Aires Cockpit sets have the same components. I'll pick whatever works best. Let's take a closer look at the Aires Cockpit and Wheel Bay Set. This one is fabulously cast in dark grey resin. Aires makes some of the finest detailed resin sets I've encountered and this one is no exception. Fitting of AM resin is always a crapshoot. I've had good experiences and not-so-good experiences with Aires and it is important to check fit thoroughly before committing anything to glue. With this in mind, I decided to test the main wheel bay. For reference, I built up the kit wheel well first. First sign of trouble is the comparison between the two. The Aires wheel well is significantly shorter than the kit parts. Test-fitting confirms this. I decided to cut off the aft bulkhead and add a spacer make of sheet styrene. A few hours of work and we've got a workable solution.

I've just returned from an overseas trip and have a free weekend to get over the jet lag. For whatever reason, I am not feeling compelled to work on the Curtiss Flying Tiger or the Aichi D3A1 at the moment. I wanna work on something new so I'm going to start a new build. I bought this kit used off of EBay and it included a raft of aftermarket stuff, which is what compelled me to pull the trigger on this. The kit itself and most of the aftermarket products for it are either out-of-production or hard to find and the thought of getting just about everything made for the kit in one swoop appealed to me. Let's take a closer look at the kit itself. This is the original 2004 Revell release. Revell re-released the kit in 2012 with new Cartograf decals but that production run ended too. Hobby 2000 recently re-popped the Revell kit but it seems to be Europe-only release. The He162 is a simplified design and the kit reflects this with a relatively low parts count of 93. This is main sprue which should hold the two fuselage halves but the previous owner has detached the fuselage parts. Panel lines are recessed and some of them are indistinct, so I'll have to do some re-scribing. The inside of the fuselage halves includes molded details for the cockpit sidewalls. There is some detail to be found but it is simplified and ripe for aftermarket upgrades, of which I have aplenty. The wings were fabricated from wood so the wing parts lack any panel lines. The wheels, which are similar to the Bf109, look pretty good to me and I'll probably give these a go. The main gear wheel well has some nice detail but I think I have that beat within the AM stash. The double rudder tail system is found on this sprue. The landing gear legs are very basic with crude brake lines molded onto them. I'll see if I can spruce these up a bit. A full BMW 003 turbojet is included. I'm typically not an open-panel type of guy but the aftermarket stash includes the CMK engine so I might be tempted. The clear parts were broken off the sprue with some minor damage at the sprue attachment. Hopefully, not too noticeable. I have two sets of decals to work with: from the Revell kit and a set from Cutting Edge. As usual, I will create masks for the major markings using the decals sheets as templates and try to minimize the use of decals.

Finally. I've been eagerly waiting this release since it was announced a few years ago. Here is the ZM spread with the Japanese text translated by Google...

Thank you! That is a great suggestion! I'll keep that in mind if I run into this issue again. Thanks Matt! Thank you Ernest! This one isn't done but not forgotten. Since the salt weathering didn't do much, I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do next. I thought I'd attach the landing gear now. The Master gun barrels were also attached. I don't think I'll do much more spray weathering so I've decided to remove the canopy masks, starting with the windscreen. The side windows were unmasked next. As you recall, to hide the glue joint, I puttied and smoothed the seams, polished the clear part and then applied a custom-cut inset mask to hide that pesky joint. It worked well, I think, but holes in the port side windows still give away the thick clear plastic. Finally, the masks for the sliding canopy were removed. Like I said, I'm not sure what to do next. Whatever it is, it will have to wait as I'm headed out on another overseas trip. I'll return to my D3A1 build and this one and maybe even start something new.

Not sure if it will be my NEXT project but a future project for sure! Gonna be offline for about 2-3 weeks as I'm leaving on an overseas trip in a few hours.

Woo hoo!

As Dave mentioned, I am in the process of trying to wrap up my GWH Hawk build. Can't speak to the decals since I painted most of the markings including the shark mouth. As far as the plastic goes, it is one of best-fitting kits I've experienced. Very Tamiya-like, I must say. What's so impressive about the fit is that it applies across the board. Not just the major wing/fuselage joins but even in the cockpit and engine. There are a ton of fine hydraulic/electrical lines for the engine represented in plastic and if you are careful taking them off the sprues, they all fit spectacularly well. The magnet system to optionally attach the engine or covered nose works as advertised, without any unseamly gaps. One of the few negatives are the aforementioned rear canopy parts that lack exterior framing, making it hard to disguise the glue joint. I elected to fill and sand this joint, polish and create masks that were slightly inset of the of the joint to try and mask it.

Good to see these conversions again, Alexey! Can I assume that the G-10 (non-Erla) conversion is designed for the Revell G-6 kit?