Ki-86a Cypress - ICM 1/32 - Complete

[Alex]

2 hours ago, mozart said:

The Quickboost boots are “underwhelming” Alex, I’ve got a set which I haven’t bothered with. Much simpler to build up or mould your own in situ. I took some clear pics of Annabelle’s if you need them. 

Thanks Max, it would be good to see if you have some photos of Annabelle’s plane that are not in your walk around post.  I don’t think it will be difficult to build them up in situ.  A bit time consuming, probably.

[mozart]

Alex, I put all the pictures that I took that day into a walkaround:

 

https://www.largescaleplanes.com/walkaround/wk.php?wid=189

 

 

[Alex]

Finished all of the rigging attachment points, finally.  The wires that run from the forward fuselage to the upper wing inboard of the cabane struts emerge from fairly large holes in the sheetmetal, obviously being anchored to some fitting within, as shown in photos from the walkaround that Max did:

 

 

These holes are not represented in the kit, so I drilled them.  I could have thinned the plastic from the back to get scale-ish thickness at the lip, but I'm trying to do this kit in less than the three months that the Zero took, so I'll just paint the interiors black when the time comes and call that good.

 

 

I then glued some little pieces of plasticard to the back to close them up:

 

 

And drilled smaller holes to glue the rigging (EZ-Line) into when I get to that step.  You can kind of see them...

 

 

I've actually done a bunch of additional parts prep such that almost every part I need is off the sprue and cleaned up.  I keep feeling antsy to shoot some paint on something, but I still need to do the cockpit control linkages and wiring first.  Then the thing should start coming together rapidly.

 

I will also have to do a much longer session on the Silhouette software to make all the masks.  Probably won't be able to fid time to focus on that until next weekend, though.

[Alex]

Continuing to make headway here.  Because there's going to be little visibility into the interior of the finished model, I resisted adding more than a few major control linkages to the cockpit, and proceeded to closing the fuselage up.  For those who plan to build the kit, plan to carefully test fit and trim the interior frame sections as you close up the cockpit.  They are cast a bit oversized, but can be trimmed to achieve a nice square fit for the interior framing.  Here's the "floor" frame with wooden footrests installed into the lower wing:

 

 

Again, because this build is about the exterior paint scheme and the cockpit will be tight and dark, I'm deliberately avoiding investing time in weathering things.  The fuselage closed up OK, and although the main seams required some vigorous sanding to smooth out, the critical fit around the vertical stabilizer (where it would have been very hard to preserve detail in the face of a poor fit) was actually very good.  Here's the partially complete cockpit with fuselage halves joined:

 

 

I decided that I did want to join the fuselage to lower wing before painting, and that was a good choice.  With the cockpit in place there was a subtle gap at the wing root - better to fill that now.

 

 

The fit of the firewall is FAR from positive, and it took some "strapping up" of the parts to get everything aligned for the addition of the upper front part of the fuselage.  Don't worry that there are pronounced gaps between panels in the front - on the actual aircraft these are distinct pieces of sheetmetal that don't join seamlessly at all, so it's "supposed to look like that".

 

This is overexposed to try and show some of what's there in the cockpit.  It'll be nigh impossible later with the doors and upper wing in place, although I may mount the doors on one side open in the end.

 

 

It's kind of fun building a simple kit of a simple airplane - quite a change from the Tamiya Zero.  Should take just a couple more sessions and I'll be ready to start into exterior painting.

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Terrific update on a great project, Alex.

 

Kev

[Out2gtcha]

2 minutes ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Terrific update on a great project, Alex.

 

 

100% agreed! Looks like a great little kit

[Alex]

12 hours ago, Out2gtcha said:

 

 

100% agreed! Looks like a great little kit

I would certainly recommend it.  Given the many military users of the plane and then the huge number of civilian aircraft still in service, there’s just no limit to the number of schemes and customizations you might do.

[mozart]

VERY smart Alex! 

[Alex]

The kit provides this little plastic bit to represent the exhaust headers.  I considered drilling it out.

 

 

Then figured I could make something better fairly quickly

 

 

 

Although I mimicked the spacing on the kit piece, it actually does not line up perfectly.  I'll tweak it a bit before painting it.

[LSP_Kevin]

Superb upgrade, Alex!

 

Kev

[Out2gtcha]

Sweet! I like using brass a lot, and in this case it looks great

[Brett M]

Very nice and simple upgrade! Looking good 

[mozart]

VAST improvement, and it’s little details and enhancements like that that make all the difference. Well done Alex. 

[Alex]

I ended up deciding to throw the kit engine together and paint it, even though it's the wrong engine.  The intake openings in the cowling are big, and I was afraid it would look worse to have nothing in there then at least have a glimpse of something enginey-looking if you try to peer in.  Since the cowl will be glued in place the front vent will be the only place to view this from, so detail and polish aren't too important.

 

 

Here are the major airframe pieces primed-up.  Once this has thoroughly cured (tomorrow) I'll hit it with a fine sanding cloth and then it's time for color...

 

 

And speaking of color, I decided that I should shoot for a base color that was representative of the effects of scale, sun-fading, dirt, and general weathering on the trainer yellow-orange.  And frankly a color that is easier to look at without actually blistering one's retinas than straight-up hi-vis orange.  Below are a bunch of tries, with the pure Mr Color Yellow and Orange-Yellow labeled and the color I finally settled on indicated with an arrow. 

 

For the two-tone green camo I'm leaning towards just using two Mr Color green hues I have in stock that are well-different from each other, one light, one medium-valued.  Who the heck knows what *actual* colors the IJA maintenance crews found to slap on these birds in Manchuria in early 1945?  Another detail lost to history, I'm sure.  So I'll go for something that looks good to my eye.

[Alex]

First attempt at one of the mask files.  The insignia on this beast are either white-outlined or white.  So I'm going to start with a white base coat covering the areas of the insignia, then protect the white *plus* the interior red or black shape with a (red outlines) mask, paint the yellow and green camo, then finally pull the interior shapes from the first round of masks, mask around those cutouts using the blue shapes, and spray the interior color.  I think they can all work this way except the small kanji characters, which may be too small to be able to leave the positive mask behind reliably.  These I might paint as a negative (standard cut-out) mask at the end.  But but that presents the challenge of getting opaque white over yellow and green.  We'll see.

 

 

Once these work I will post the files on Kevin's mask forum too.