1/32 Hasegawa N1K2-J Shiden Kai 343-45

[VintageEagle]

Absolutely gorgeous engine! 

[Kagemusha]

Very special work John, thanks for sharing.

[Brett M]

Very, very nice work on your radial! Any tips on how you bend your ignition wires so smoothly?

[Thunnus]

Thanks fellas!  I appreciate the input! 

 

1 hour ago, Brett M said:

Very, very nice work on your radial! Any tips on how you bend your ignition wires so smoothly?

 

Hey Brett... it's just patient and careful bending with a good set of tweezers.   Lead wire is pretty soft and easy to nick so it is important not to grip them too firmly with the tweezers.  Also... I try to pre-size the wiring according to the bends that I want to build into the wiring configuration.  So that's mapped out when I'm gluing the wires into the ignition ring.

 

I've jumped over to the cockpit and worked on the instrument panel.  The Brengun detail set comes with a photoetched faces for the panel that is placed over a clear acetate sheet that has printed details for the gauges.  That means I have to shave off the raised details from the kit instrument panel, which are actually pretty nice.

 

Here is what the instrument panel looks like with the PE faces in place.  More detail but the trade-off is a loss in 3D relief.

The clear acetate is sprayed white on the back to bring out the dial detail.  I've added a couple of additional colors.

 

The acetate panels are carefully cut out and attached to the painted PE faces using Future.  It's hard to make out but I painted the instrument panel in a very dark grey and tried to highlight each individual instrument bezel in black.

 

The panels are then glued to the instrument panel using white glue.

 

The shiny acetate makes a good representation of the glass dials.

[LSP_Kevin]

Instrument panel looks awesome, John! I think the 3D relief effect on the kit panel is exaggerated anyway.

 

Kev

[Thunnus]

Thanks Kev!

 

Just checking out the instrument panel posed with the gun sight since both are painted.  Close-up photos are a good way to check my work.  I'm noticing a couple of things.  First, the red half of the one instrument looks odd to me.  It's supposed to be white on red, not red on black but that's not possible with the black/clear acetate.  Another are those yellow dots on the other instrument... it was a pain to pull-off but it looks a bit messy from this perspective.  The instrument panel on the Shiden Kai was made out of wood and painted black.  I've put some brown chipping around the edges of the instrument panel to show wear.

 

I've also put a primer coat on most of the metal components.  This blends in the composite elements visually to get a better sense of how things will look once they are painted.  Note the additional wiring that I added on the sidewalls.

 

I've given the major cockpit components a base coat of black.  I like to do this on cockpit components to establish a subtle shadow and accentuate any raised features.  The cockpit floor and seat will be chipped so I'll lay down a metallic coat and some MIG Scratches Effect fluid before the cockpit color is applied.

[Wackyracer]

Lovely work John, it seems such a pity that so much gets covered with the closing of the fuselage.

 

Inspirational as always

 

Aaron

[steel_tiger]

On 7/7/2020 at 11:51 PM, Thunnus said:

 

Thanks Kirby!  I've already set up a test with the Mr Hobby cockpit color and exterior green over Tamiya AS-12 Silver with a layer of MIG Scratches Effects and Heavy Chipping Effects in between.

 

When it rains, it pours... the day after I got my Mr Hobby N1K2 paints, I FINALLY received my new rivet tools...

 

Up until now, I've been using the RB Productions Rivet-R and Rivet-R Mini.  They've lost a bit of their sharpness but when I looked to find replacement wheels, I couldn't find any stock.  At the same time, I had seen a positive review of these new tools at The Modelling News website and thought I'd give them a try.

There three types of tools... (1) the standard wheel which is about the same size as the Rivet-R, (2) a smaller radius wheel equivalent to the Rivet-R mini, and (3) a corner tool to allow you to place rivets in tight spaces or next to a raised wall.  They offer these tools in two sets of rivet spacing.  I chose the smaller group, which offers rivet spacing at 0.55, 0.65 and 0.75mm.  One nice thing about these tools is that each wheel comes with its own mount.  The RB Riveter sells its mount separately and having just one, I would have to take the thing apart each time I wanted to use a different rivet spacing.  Now, I don't have to do that.

 

Another thing that I didn't like about the RB tool is that the Rivet-R and Rivet-R Mini rivet spacing don't match.  There is often a need to run the rivet wheel over existing rivets to clear up plugging by paint or sanding dust.  But since the 1.00mm Rivet-R doesn't match the 1.00mm Rivet-R Mini exactly, you can mess up a set of rivets pretty easily if you don't remember which tool made which line of rivets.  Hopefully, the Galaxy Tools does better in this regard. We'll see how the new riveting tool performs a little later!

 

 

Where did you purchase these from? Exactly what I am looking for.

 

Thanks

Tom

[Madmax]

The engine looks brilliant John, as does the IP and gunsight. It's hard to beat the instrument faces on acetate, but I agree with you - some more depth to the PE of the actual panel would be welcome.

[turbo]

Great work John, the IP looks pretty good to me!

[Alex]

Awesome work.  That gunsight is flat fabulous. I definitely need to look into this Breguin detail kit.  And the extra detail work in the cockpit is great too.  An inspiring build to follow!

[Alex]

On 7/10/2020 at 5:59 PM, Brett M said:

Very, very nice work on your radial! Any tips on how you bend your ignition wires so smoothly?

 

One thing I've found is that fine solder wire (I have been able to locate 0.3 and 0.5 mm) is a nice compromise between copper and lead.  It's easier to bend than copper and much less elastic (stays bent) but in my hands at least it is a bit easier to avoid putting too many kinks into than is super-soft lead wire.

[Alex]

On 7/9/2020 at 3:41 PM, Miloslav1956 said:

The problem with chipping is the long drying time of the paint. It is important to use water and a brush as quickly as possible. Then color removal goes better.
This is a big advantage of MRP colors. They are absolutely dry in 10 minutes.

 

Gunze lacquers are dry in 10 minutes, or less.  Can't speak to their aqueous paints as I've never used them.

[Alex]

On 7/8/2020 at 9:26 PM, Thunnus said:

Conducted a few tests today.  First was figuring out if the Mr Hobby lacquer colors that I purchased for the Shiden Kai would allow hairspray chipping.  On my paint mule, I sprayed a base coat of Tamiya AS-12 Silver.  Over the tail, put on a layer of MIG Scratches Effects liquid and forward of that I sprayed MIG Heavy Chipping Effects.  Once those dried, I sprayed the tail with the Mr Hobby Kawanishi Cockpit color and then the Mr Hobby Kawanishi Dark Green forward of that.  Just to compare the different greens that I had on hand, I also sprayed Mr Hobby Aqueous H-59 IJN Gloss Green and Tamiya XF-11 IJN Green.

 

Using a stiff paint brush dipped in water, I was able to created chips on the Mr Hobby lacquer colors fairly easily.  But I didn't quite like the way the Mr Hobby Dark Green sprayed.  For one, it was dead flat, which I'd prefer not to deal with over the whole aircraft.  Someone also question the accuracy of this particular color.  I'm no expert and doing some internet research and finding some articles on Shiden Kai colors by Nick Millman didn't clarify matters conclusively.  So... I'm decided on which green I'll be using to paint the exterior of the aircraft.  But at least I can move forward on the painting of the cockpit.

 

 

 

That's some nice looking chipping.  I need to look into these MIG chipping fluids.  I've fooled around a little with the "hairspray" technique, but only using real hairspray.  

 

If you want to make that flat green a little less flat you can try thinning liberally with Mr. Hobby Mr Leveling Thinner.  It won't make it glossy by any means but may give a little bit smoother finish.  FWIW that's the only thinner I ever use with Mr Color lacquers and it never disappoints.

[Alex]

On 7/7/2020 at 11:55 AM, Thunnus said:

 

 

 

I love the way you have built the sockets on the ignition ring with brass tube.  Looks much less frustrating than trying to drill out all the styrene stubs on the typical kit part.  I just ordered a bunch of micro sized brass and aluminum tubing from Albion Alloys to work on how to make convincing 1/32 sparkplugs, but I'm totally going to do this with it too.