Tamiya 1/72 Kawasaki Ki-61-Id Hein (Tony)

[CANicoll]

After battling again and again with the various Roden and Hobbycraft WWI kits I wanted to do something less taxing and more interesting so picked up this kit.  Also bought the added camo decals from Tamiya (more on that later) as well as the Barracudacast exhausts - which I ended up not using as they are too short and added no additional detail.  Oh well.  I did add the (horrible) decal seatbelts but since the canopy is only modeled close, can't really see those or what is actually a really nice cockpit with a lot of detail.  That is too bad.

 

Nice decal for the IP, but I did cut off the top from the bottom for better alignment with the raised details on the IP.  A bit of light dry brushing with aluminum as well, esp on the right side of the IP and on the front of the seat.

 

As you would expect from a Tamiya kit, the parts fit beautifully.  We'll talk about the decals in a bit...

 

This is NOT a big airplane in 1/72 scale!  Here the cockpit is slipped in from the bottom and the 'spine' piece behind the cockpit is installed..

 

After attaching the wings and horizontal stabilizers attached the cockpit and the Eduard masks.  If I were to do this again, I would paint the tail red before adding the horizontal stabilizers.  Doing it afterwards was possible, but involved some tricky masking. 

 

Gloss black Vallejo primer served as the base for the White Aluminum top coat (and Flat Aluminum ailerons).

Bottom right in the photograph are the exhausts which have a gloss black outline.

 

And the landing gear is uniquely a gloss black too with yellow at the bottom.

 

The Vallejo Metal Color White Aluminum went on very well.  The topside will be mostly covered with the Camo decals and the tail gets a coat of red.

I used some Tamiya tape on the radiator underneath to use as a holder. :-)  Here are some of the paints I used.  Humbrol was for the prop and spinner.

 

 

Masking for the ailerons and the wheel wells:

 

And the flat aluminum ailerons:

 

And the red tail and the wing decals that go under the camo decals:

 

More coming!

Chris

[CANicoll]

Underside with the Hinomarus and yellow wheel wells:

 

Topside after the wing camo decals have been applied.  The printing of the camo decals is not fantastic.  Up close you can see the dots from the printing.  Not exactly Cartograph.  

Top view of the fuselage camo:

 

It is easier to attache the very long fuselage decals if you cut them, especially the left side where the nose has two different cut-outs for the carb intake and the exhausts.  Might also want to cut them along where the stripe goes) this is the right side.  I cut the nose part off so I could more easily align over the exhaust (after doing the left side as all in one piece.  Not again!):

 

The camo decals are very thin and I only used MicroSet on them and the pretty much instantly went down into the panel lines.  Much harder to get the second decals going over the camo decals to get into the panel lines (like the Hinomarus and the stripes).

 

Test fit of the landing gear and prop after applying the blue stripe:

 

And the final product!

 

A little blurry, sorry!

 

Love the scheme, but the relatively poor quality of the camo decals is something Tamiya needs to fix, especially since they cost extra.  Looks really good in pictures and at a distance, but up close you can see the silkscreen printing  But I do like the scheme.  Also would really like an open canopy option to show off that really nice cockpit.

 

But a fun, nice kit overall.  And NO RIGGING!  YAY!!!

 

Chris

[LSP_Kevin]

Looks great, Chris! And I think the camo decals look really effective, in the photos at least. Too small for my tastes, however!

 

Kev

[Gazzas]

Chris,

    That looks great!  Since we're not close enough to see the decal faults, I can only say it's a great result. 

 

Great little build!

 

Gaz

[LSP_K2]

Very cool indeed. I like it.

[CANicoll]

Thanks guys!  Love the camo scheme and a fun little build.  Nice thing is 1/72 is a quick build.  

 

Chris