Thunnus Posted June 26, 2022 Author Share Posted June 26, 2022 Thanks Zac! Ok.. so the cockpit is pretty much complete now that I've made those last revisions. But I alluded to the resin nose, which still has not been fitted yet. It probably would've been smarter to have addressed the surgery required to fit the resin nose at the beginning before doing all of the cockpit painting. But sometimes we get lucky with the order and, now, looking back in hindsight, I think I dodged a few bullets. Here is the Wolfpack resin nose to convert the Hien from a Hei to a Tei. It's slightly longer than the kit nose but not as long as Ki-61 II nose, which I think is the sleekest of all Hiens. Not having made any decision regarding riveting, it has not been worked on except to smooth out the mold joint along the bottom. I decided to attack the cutting of the kit fuselage in several stages instead of trying get the stair-step cuts in one try. The first one would go completely through the fuselage, well away from the final edge so I opted to use the big blade. The ultimate cut line is marked in pencil and the big blade cut so nicely, I continued to use it. I've still left some wriggle room between the cut edge and the ultimate edge and that will be taken care of by careful sanding. The initial test fit of the resin nose was very positive. Looks great! The cockpit is re-inserted back into the fuselage for the next test fit. Looks like trouble. That extended deck in front is NOT going to fit! You can see here the mistake I made in not test fitting the resin cockpit components with the resin nose much earlier. Compared to the kit part, the front deck forward of the bulkhead needs to be removed. It would've been quite simple prior to painting and assembly but now it becomes a very delicate operation. The guns are temporarily removed but the IP stays put because it is glued on solidly. Before re-mounting the guns, the four tabs on the side of the bulkhead were scraped off. Very lucky to have performed the removal without even knocking off one of the delicate reflector glass pieces! The cockpit now has a much better chance to fit. Crossing my fingers that the gun bodies will clear. Success! Even the canopy seems to fit ok! Kagemusha, adameliclem, mc65 and 28 others 31 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted June 26, 2022 Share Posted June 26, 2022 Very well done, John! I must confess, I did wonder earlier why you didn't start with cutting and fitting the resin nose. At least you weren't permanently snookered. Kev chrish, Thunnus, Brett M and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nighthawk Calling 1 Posted June 26, 2022 Share Posted June 26, 2022 Nice recovery John. chrish and Thunnus 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodgem37 Posted June 26, 2022 Share Posted June 26, 2022 Great fix. Great show. Sincerely, Mark Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennismcc Posted June 26, 2022 Share Posted June 26, 2022 That is amazingly good, I could not duplicate it but trying to will improve my skills, I hope ! Cheers Dennis Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturmbock Posted June 26, 2022 Share Posted June 26, 2022 Problem solved! Too bad about the front deck but at least it fits like this! Good show! Lutz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scvrobeson Posted June 26, 2022 Share Posted June 26, 2022 Glad the conversion worked without much trouble. Keep up the awesome work John! Matt Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themongoose Posted June 26, 2022 Share Posted June 26, 2022 Oh you have got to be thrilled with this! Awesome assembly Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMaben Posted June 27, 2022 Share Posted June 27, 2022 On 6/25/2022 at 8:33 PM, Thunnus said: Success! Troy Molitor and Thunnus 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebf2K Posted July 1, 2022 Share Posted July 1, 2022 Fantastic work! Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunnus Posted July 2, 2022 Author Share Posted July 2, 2022 On 6/26/2022 at 12:51 AM, LSP_Kevin said: Very well done, John! I must confess, I did wonder earlier why you didn't start with cutting and fitting the resin nose. At least you weren't permanently snookered. Kev Thank Kevin! One of the drawbacks to working on simultaneous projects, especially when they are in similar stages. I really should've done the nose surgery at the very beginning of the build but like you said, I luckily avoided the snookery. On 6/26/2022 at 1:22 AM, Nighthawk Calling 1 said: Nice recovery John. Thanks! Happy it worked out this time. On 6/26/2022 at 2:08 AM, dodgem37 said: Great fix. Great show. Sincerely, Mark Thanks Mark! On 6/26/2022 at 2:12 AM, dennismcc said: That is amazingly good, I could not duplicate it but trying to will improve my skills, I hope ! Cheers Dennis Thanks Dennis! Hope to see your build soon! On 6/26/2022 at 3:44 AM, Sturmbock said: Problem solved! Too bad about the front deck but at least it fits like this! Good show! Lutz Thank you Lutz! No loss since the front deck serves no purpose on this build and would not be visible. On 6/26/2022 at 9:49 AM, scvrobeson said: Glad the conversion worked without much trouble. Keep up the awesome work John! Matt Thanks Matt! Looks like the nose should fit without any major issues, which is a good thing. On 6/26/2022 at 9:55 AM, themongoose said: Oh you have got to be thrilled with this! Awesome assembly Yup! Happy and relieved to be able to move on! On 6/27/2022 at 12:06 AM, MikeMaben said: Thanks Mike! 10 hours ago, Ebf2K said: Fantastic work! Thank you! Last time, I was able to confirm that the resin nose would fit onto the surgically altered fuselage pretty well. I spent some more time cleaning up the resin nose including tidying up this circular hatch and mismatched panel line on the bottom. After the adjustments were made, I sprayed the entire nose with Mr Primer Surfacer 1000. After some deliberation, I've decided to apply rivets onto this model. Using drawings from an older, Japanese-language publication, I sketched the rivet lines onto the resin nose with a soft (4B) leaded pencil. After the lines are sketched, a rotary rivet tool (Galaxy Tools) is used to puncture rows of small holes into the resin nose to simulate rivets. Unlike plastic, the riveting process on the primered resin does not create as big a mound of material around each hole but I still recommend sanding afterwards. After sanding, I applied a temporary pastel wash to highlight the riveting and other corrective work on the nose. Some of the nose bits like the spinner, the exhausts, the supercharger intake and gun barrels were added temporarily for these photos. I'm happy with the decision to rivet the Ki-61. I think the nose looks pretty bada$$ now. zaxos345, mc65, Paul in Napier and 27 others 30 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted July 2, 2022 Share Posted July 2, 2022 59 minutes ago, Thunnus said: I think the nose looks pretty bada$$ now. And so it does! Kev KiwiZac, Thunnus and mc65 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scvrobeson Posted July 2, 2022 Share Posted July 2, 2022 Great decision to rivet it. It looks much more purposeful now. Matt Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennismcc Posted July 2, 2022 Share Posted July 2, 2022 What an amazing improvement, nice job Cheers Dennis Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrish Posted July 2, 2022 Share Posted July 2, 2022 Beautiful work! Thunnus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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