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

[Alex]

The chipping is very nice - a realistic amount and well-placed.  What sort of brush or other implements are you using to chip away the green paint with?

 

Too bad about the tape lifting paint around the ailerons.  The best solution I’ve come up with for fabric covered control surfaces is to leave them off and paint them separately, only installing them after all paint is complete.  Unfortunately this is only helpful if they are separate kit parts, or you want to do the heavy lift of making them so.

[AlbertD]

Too bad about the lifting. Otherwise the chipping looks great. I was going to ask about how the masks for the markings would work with the hairspray. Let's hope that the paint will hold better once it has time to fully cure. I wonder if painting the markings first and leaving them masked while the hairspray and camo paint is put on top would work. I tried this on a scrap wing with stars and bars by spraying the white then mask the star and bars then paint the insignia blue then mask it then paint the green. Once the green is painted you pull up the masks and there you go.

[Brett M]

Looks good, John, even with the paint lift. Like you said, it’s almost usable as heavy wear. Might just need a bit of green added back here and there and your good.

[chuck540z3]

Very nice chipping John.  Some of those Japanese fighters had more chips than paint, so almost anything could look realistic!

 

I tried both hairspray and liquid mask on my Tempest and I also had paint lifting issues.  As a result, I'm not a big fan of hairspray right now.  Hopefully your paint will get tougher with drying time and won't lift with subsequent masking, like masking for insignias, etc.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!

 

19 hours ago, Alex said:

The chipping is very nice - a realistic amount and well-placed.  What sort of brush or other implements are you using to chip away the green paint with?

 

Too bad about the tape lifting paint around the ailerons.  The best solution I’ve come up with for fabric covered control surfaces is to leave them off and paint them separately, only installing them after all paint is complete.  Unfortunately this is only helpful if they are separate kit parts, or you want to do the heavy lift of making them so.

 

I use a stiff-bristled paint brush with the bristles cut short to increase stiffness.

 

One of the pitfalls of the hairspray method is the instability in the paint layer.  Good for chipping but bad for almost everything else.  I tried salt chipping on a few areas to save some of the chipping prior to spraying the green but that it didn't turn out that great as salt + water + hairspray created some issues.  I ended up just spraying another coat of green over the paint lifted areas and will try to add chipping later.  I did attempt to seal the green paint with a clear coat but I'll give it some more time before using the masks topside.

 

I did mask and paint the yellow leading edges on the wings. Some more paint lift occurred on the starboard wing, which is not a good sign for things to come. 

 

 

The underwing hinomarus were applied at this stage using custom-cut masks from the Silhouette Portrait cutter.  One of the keys to a good result is to make sure that mask is burnished perfectly flat and that there are no raised edges on mask.

 

 

White was used to form a base coat for the red and I applied it an uneven manner to serve as pre-shading.

 

 

I used Mr Hobby Japanese Navy Red (C385) for the marking itself.  Thankfully no lifting on the Alclad metal surfaces.

 

[Out2gtcha]

Most excellent! 

[Alex]

I like the white pre-shading strategy under the hinomaru.  Gotta remember that one...

[AlbertD]

Wow, those painted on insignia look amazing. It's work like this that really sets a model on a higher level.

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!  After letting the green paint sit a full day after the chipping exercise AND with a clear coat over it as an insurance policy, it is time to do rest of the mask markings. First I tackled the yellow tail codes.  I used a coat of white to serve as a base for the yellow which was Tamiya Yellow plus a dab of Tamiya Red.

 

 

I got a little bit of paint lifting on the starboard side but nothing too alarming.

 

 

No lifting on the port side!

 

 

There was a bit of overspray since the raised details on the rudder prevented the masks from sitting flush in certain areas. The starboard side "4" was the worst offender and since I had to fix the paint lift, I used the positive "4" mask to fix both areas.  The chip fix area stands out right now because it is flat but should disappear once a clear coat is applied.

 

 

The upper wing hinomarus are next.  They are done just like the bottom.

 

 

No paint lifting on either side... what a relief!

 

 

With the cowling and stabilizers attached, it is starting to look like a Shiden Kai.

 

 

Next come the fuselage hinomarus, which have white borders.  First the outline mask is applied and white is sprayed on similar to the other hinomarus but with more white around the circumference of the circle.  That is allowed to dry for a couple of hours.

 

 

I thought a circle would be much easier to manipulate than a flimsy ring so I used bits of Tamiya tape to affix the ring to the inner circle temporarily.

 

 

Once the composite circle mask was placed in position, the tape and center circle are removed, leaving only the outer ring.  To prevent any paint leakage between the two mask components, I sprayed the joint with clear.  Liquid mask would be another alternative.

 

 

The red is then applied.

 

 

The finished two-color hinomaru.  There was only a small paint lift on the white ring of the starboard hinomaru.  I might just leave it alone.

 

 

No paint lifting on the port hinomaru.

 

 

It's a big relief to get these major markings on without too much paint lift trauma.  Still to come are the white fuselage stripes.  I haven't quite decided how those will be done... masks or tape?

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Very nicely done, John!

 

Kev

[zaxos345]

Awesome!!!!!!

 

John

 

[Rockie Yarwood]

Beautiful, John, just beautiful.

 

Rockie

[nmayhew]

looking super as always!

 

good technique with the hinomaru white border - that's how I do RAF roundels (which i actually find way easier than crosses!)

 

chipping looks glorious  

 

can't wait to see more

[dodgem37]

It all looks so wonderful, John.

 

Am I missing something, here?  How is it there is no overspray on your stand?  Do you not paint on the stand?  Do you paint closely and in small increments?

 

Why not use a nylon brush to remove the green top coat?

 

The last time I combined the hairspray method with adhesives I got such a lifting catastrophe as to be the catastrophes of all catastrophes.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mark

[Thunnus]

13 hours ago, dodgem37 said:

Am I missing something, here?  How is it there is no overspray on your stand?  Do you not paint on the stand?  Do you paint closely and in small increments?

 

Why not use a nylon brush to remove the green top coat?

 

 

 

Thanks Mark!  I normally don't paint with the model on the stand.  I usually hold the model in my gloved left hand and spray with my right.  For mask work, I spray very closely and in small areas to reduce/limit overspray as much as possible.

 

The nylon brush is a good tool for chipping but I found it to be a little TOO stiff and potentially damaging to the paint surface if used too aggressively.  I also experience bristle loss and got tired of wiping away all of the little lost bristles.

 

Painting continues on the Shiden Kai.  More bumps in the road but I'm used to them by now and have learned to roll with these punches.

I used flexible white Tamiya tape to mask off the fuselage stripes.  Lots more paint lifting occurred.  Again, the lift patterns are pretty interesting and almost usable.  If I was going to do a really heavily chipped Japanese scheme, I would've incorporated these mishaps into the build... maybe even purposefully caused them.  But for my bird, I've decided that they are just too much.

 

 

I've not found a good way to preserve any of the paint lift areas so it is all or nothing.  I carefully masked the white stripe areas and repaired the paint lift sections.  You will note some paint lift on the wings which resulted from the masking and painting of the red NO WALK line.  They are quite heavy but since they are constrained to what I consider to be the highest wear area, I've decided to keep them.

 

 

I elected to paint the engine mount area in the interior green color as offered in the kit instructions.  I still need to do a pastel wash and post-shading so this area will get more dirty as we go on.

 

 

This is what it will look like with the engine mounted.  I am leaning towards leaving the engine cowling unglued.  The prop is removable via polycap so there will be an option to pose the aircraft with the cowling off.

 

 

Some shots with the cowling in place...