Hasegawa Kawanishi N1K2-J Shidenkai

[Shiba]

Looks great, Dennis！very nice build and coming together really nicely.　

 

Regards,

Matsu

[dennismcc]

6 hours ago, Shiba said:

Looks great, Dennis！very nice build and coming together really nicely.　

 

Regards,

Matsu

Thank you Matsu, I finished the last of the pre masking paint yesterday so will leave it a couple of days to fully dry/cure before applying the last masks and starting on the upper and lower paint work.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[dennismcc]

And here is the final masked off look, not a pretty sight at the moment but hopefully it will all work out in the end, mind you with masks you never know until you remove the masks.

The yellow for the fuselage band is done, some parts of the wing leading edge yellow needed a touch up, that has been done.

 

The fabric covered ailerons and elevators have been airbrushed with Colourcoat's ACJ12 Hairyokushoku, they could have been silver dope, opinions on this do vary so I went for the one that I liked the best.

The forgotten red lines marking the combat flaps on the upper wing were airbrushed ready for masking.

The tail codes on the fin were were then masked off, I cut down the mask itself to aid placement, then I used Tamiya tape and the Montex diagram to get the mask in the right place on the fin and rudder.

I was very pleased with this but on closer inspection the mask is about a millimeter too low and worst of all I used the wrong mask, my subject is A 343-11, so I lifted the 5 and replaced it with a 1. I must have been concentrating too much on the placement and not enough on the detail !

And then here is the other side which went so much better, I will have to angle the finished model in the display cabinet so the nicer side of the fin and rudder faces out.

So that's it for the moment I will leave it on the shelf for a couple of days to let the paint harden. Might start looking at the Tempest  in the mean time.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Lothar]

Fantastic progress, a pleasure to follow this build 

Lothar

[dennismcc]

1 hour ago, Lothar said:

Fantastic progress, a pleasure to follow this build 

Lothar

Thank you Lothar, I can't wait to start on the overall paint work then I can rip off the masks !

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Thunnus]

It's great to see the paint go onto your Shiden Kai, Dennis!  I like the reverse process that you are using for the insignias... it'll  be quite the reveal when it comes to take off all of those masks!

[Shiba]

Hi, Dennis I hope I'm not too late, 

I believe a Diagonal double yellow band behind the cockpit is 301 hikoutai (Squadron) Captain Naoshi Kanno's A 343-15 only (KIA Aug 1 1945  2week before the end of war) 

 

Also I find profile of A 343-11.  Sorry, not so clear

I'll look for some more detail of A 343-11 and let you know if I find.  

 

Regards,

Matsu.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Shiba

[Shiba]

 

Hi,  A 343-11 was 1 of the 3 other Shidenkais Kanno flight with and 2 other pilots where flight with A 343-11 also

 

Regards,

Matsu.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Shiba

[Miloslav1956]

343-11 was a designation for two machines.
One was the N1K2-J, had a victory mark and a diagonal strip behind the cockpit, pilot Shoichi Sugita
The second was N1K5-Ja, on which Shoichi Sugita was killed during takeoff.

 

All info in

J2M Raiden and N1K1/2 Shiden /Shiden-kai Aces

Yasuho Izawa

with Tony Holmes

[dennismcc]

Hi Matsu and Miloslav, thank you for the information, the subject that I am aiming for is N1K2-J Shiden Kai flown by CPO Shoichi Sugita April 1945, the information comes from the Montex Mask set K32276.

The only apparent difference is the position of the yellow stripe which would be fairly easy to change, will have to have a ponder

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

[Miloslav1956]

[Shiba]

Hi, Dennis and Miloslav,  Sugita Shoiti  (杉田 庄一) was sharing the 343-11 with Kanno Naoshi (菅野 直) and

Matsumura Seiji (松村正二)

 

Here is a list of 301Hikoutai  A/C and Pilot name assign to each A/C

                                                     

They never designate the same number to 2 A/C,  If so it will be so confusing to pilot  ground crew and book keep.

 

I don't know where the Montex got the idea of these schemes from.  They are totally fictional !!

Only picture proof we have shidenkai with any type of form or color of stripes on shidenkai is only this Kanno's 343-15

 

If someone has picture proof other than this  I LOVE TO SEE IT PLEASE

 

Regards

Matsu.

 

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Shiba

[Alex]

That’s a fantastic photo.  Looks like it was probably the source for Montex’s scheme for 343-15.  What’s really curious is that they omitted the big .15 in the middle of the fuselage hinomaru. Which is in itself very curious - I’ve never seen an aircraft number intentionally painted over the national insignia on a ww2 Japanese aircraft before.  But there it is.  Was this common for 301 Hikotai planes?

[dennismcc]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

That’s a fantastic photo.  Looks like it was probably the source for Montex’s scheme for 343-15.  What’s really curious is that they omitted the big .15 in the middle of the fuselage hinomaru. Which is in itself very curious - I’ve never seen an aircraft number intentionally painted over the national insignia on a ww2 Japanese aircraft before.  But there it is.  Was this common for 301 Hikotai planes?

Hi Alex according to Aero Details 26 the numbers were there for identification purposes during training but many examples were seen bearing them through to the end of the war.

The Montex masks do have the 15 in the Hinomaru, it's just a bit faint in the diagram but it is there in the masks.

 

I had quite a panic yesterday as I looked for my trusty Thorpe book on IJN colours to see if it could shed some light on the subject , it was not on the section of shelf that I keep all (not many) Japanese books on, I searched all day for it and could not find it, so I looked online to see if I could replace it and was shocked at the prices I saw, luckily in the end I found it sandwiched behind and between two other books.

 

I've checked a load of profiles of A1343-11 and a lot of them agree with the Montex version, in fact the Hasgawa instructions for the 1/48 scale kit do say that the fuselage stripe could have been before or behind the fuselage Hinomau.

 

However I will carry on looking, the only clue that I did find was a diagram in a book I have on Camouflage and Markings of Imperial Japanese Navy fighters in WW2, it shows three versions of the stripe, double before the Hinomaru, single before the Hinomaru and single behind the Hinomaru. It is a Japanese text book (Model Art 272) so I do not know what the description says. See below.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

[Neo]

So i just learned something super usefull!! 

 

Thank you for sharing your amazing trick of cutting the mask, getting the placement and marking it with tamiya tape. Ive struggled on many occasion to get placement correctly of masks.

This is so simple and perfect !!! I shall use this technique from now on. 

 

 

Loving the progress amazing work