In With a Hasegawa Ki-61 I

[Greif8]

Hi guys, I am in with a Hasegawa Ki-61 I.  I plan to build this mostly oob adding only an Am seatbelt and some better IP decals along with a few cockpit decals.  The kit comes with a Pewter pilot figure; however, I may use another one as the casting is a bit soft.  I look forward to following along with everyone else's builds as well!

 

Ernest

 

 

Edited December 2, 2022 by Greif8
Spelling

[BradG]

It's a great build, the figure came in the first edition of the kit. This has been sitting your stash a while then lol

[Greif8]

58 minutes ago, BradG said:

It's a great build, the figure came in the first edition of the kit. This has been sitting your stash a while then lol

 

Hi Brad, I have had the kit for about 4 years; I bought it from one of the guys on the forum.  I had actually forgotten I had it until the group build title pinged my memory!

 

Ernest

[themongoose]

Awesome camo scheme. I think turning Japanese is going to really be ALL ABOUT THE PAINT

[Greif8]

Started working on the cockpit last night.  I did sone very minor scratchbuilding adding some cabling and wires, a couple of connectors and minor modifications.

 

The sidewall on the left  has had a few wires added and, though hard to see in the photo, I have modified the throttle handle by cutting and bending it to a more correct angle, as well as adding two tiny levers/handles to a couple of the molded components.  Finally I added a line connection point at the lower right of the large rectangular part.  I will add a few more lines and wires added after painting.  The sidewall on the right has also gotten some wiring and lines added to it.  As with the other sidewall I will add a few more after painting.  Other additions are the beige colored bottle with line and a couple of line connectors.   

 

Though not the best photo you can make out the modified throttle handle and one of the crank handles I added.

 

[Greif8]

Progress on the cockpit continues.  I just need to finish painting the leather padding and add a bit of wear and tear and the cockpit will be finished.  I sprayed a black primer coat then oversprayed the areas that needed the cockpit color with a Tamiya Olive Drab and Khaki mixed at a 6:4 ratio.  Once the paint had dried I added the rest of the wires/cables, gave things a wash and highlighted a few areas.  Both the IP and any instruments on the sidewalls were replicated with a mix of painting and AM decals; the kit decals fell apart once I brushed some setting fluid on them - not a good sign for future use that. 

 

Ernest

 

Work remains to be done on the leather padding and some wear needs to be added.

 

The IP turned out halfway decent, much better than I expected due to having to use generic decals and hand painting.

 

Not much to say about the sidewalls, they get the job done.

 

 

[Gazzas]

Nice!   I think your cockpit details looks excellent.  Interesting color for your interior green as well.  Isn't it funny that the interior color of so many Japanese aircraft is still up for speculation. 

 

I'm a big fan of Aotake which....if I understand correctly looks like clear blue over bare metal, turning to a clear green over bare metal as it ages.  I remember most flight sims I have played have Japanese cockpits as a hideous green somewhere between pea-soup and baby poop green.

[Alain Gadbois]

Great work on the cockpit!

I really like the color you have chosen, as it is suggested in the Japanese Cockpit Interiors book, and the photos seem to confirm the color is the same as the exterior green.

 

Alain

[Greif8]

10 hours ago, Gazzas said:

Nice!   I think your cockpit details looks excellent.  Interesting color for your interior green as well.  Isn't it funny that the interior color of so many Japanese aircraft is still up for speculation. 

 

I'm a big fan of Aotake which....if I understand correctly looks like clear blue over bare metal, turning to a clear green over bare metal as it ages.  I remember most flight sims I have played have Japanese cockpits as a hideous green somewhere between pea-soup and baby poop green.

 

Thank you Gary!  The kit cockpit is just fine with a bit of scratchbuilding and work and I saw no need to go AM.  I like Aotake myself, I have a mix that I made using Tamiya Acrylics (Keeping it incountry as it were), that looks either bluish-green or greenish-blue depending on how the light hits it.  Very nice color!  I did some research on Nick Millman's website and he mentioned the mix of Tamiya paint for the cockpit color of this aircraft.  As Nick is a subject matter expert on Japanese aircraft paint colors, I went with his opinion.

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

3 hours ago, Alain Gadbois said:

Great work on the cockpit!

I really like the color you have chosen, as it is suggested in the Japanese Cockpit Interiors book, and the photos seem to confirm the color is the same as the exterior green.

 

Alain

 

Thank you Alain!  As I told Gary above a almost always follow Nick Millman's views on colors.  I'm glad I checked his site as the instructions got it very wrong.

 

Ernest

[Alain Gadbois]

I will certainly go look at this website, thanks for the tip!

Also, the suggested color in the instructions seems to be the « accepted norm », for some reason, and most go along with it.

 

Alain

Edited December 5, 2022 by Alain Gadbois

[Dave Williams]

Doing some research for looking to start my build.  Thinking of trying the AK 3rd generation acrylics as they have a set for IJA cockpit colors.  One of them is IJA #7 Ohryuko Nana Go Shoku, which looks similar to the color you’ve chosen.  I too was on the RLM 79 train, until recently.

[D.B. Andrus]

22 hours ago, Greif8 said:

Progress on the cockpit continues.  I just need to finish painting the leather padding and add a bit of wear and tear and the cockpit will be finished.  I sprayed a black primer coat then oversprayed the areas that needed the cockpit color with a Tamiya Olive Drab and Khaki mixed at a 6:4 ratio.  Once the paint had dried I added the rest of the wires/cables, gave things a wash and highlighted a few areas.  Both the IP and any instruments on the sidewalls were replicated with a mix of painting and AM decals; the kit decals fell apart once I brushed some setting fluid on them - not a good sign for future use that. 

 

Ernest

 

Work remains to be done on the leather padding and some wear needs to be added.

 

The IP turned out halfway decent, much better than I expected due to having to use generic decals and hand painting.

 

Not much to say about the sidewalls, they get the job done.

 

 

 

Very nice work, Ernest!

 

Cheers,

Damian

[Greif8]

The cockpit is finished and the fuselage has been joined together and smoothed out.  

 

Getting the wires/cables threaded was a bit fiddly.

 

While the IP does not look quite as nice as an AM IP it gets the job done when viewed a normal distances.  

 

The left sidewall turned out fairly nice.  The wires and cables, and the decals add some life to it.

 

A very poor photo of the right sidewall (I could not get the light ballance to work).  

 

The leather portions of the seat turned out well.  You will notice there is no seatbelt.  The AM one I wanted to install was the wrong type - very poor prep on my part.  As this was planned as an OOB build I opted not to order an AM one.  Should have brushed the dust off before taking the photo!

 

The fuselage join was pretty good and mostly trouble free.  However, the upper engine/gun tray cover was another story.  It took quite a bit of positioning and sequential gluing to get it somewhat close to being correct.  That was followed by a fair amount of sanding to get it shaped like it should be.  I had to rescribe the two inner latches on the right side, and as you can see in the closeup I did not do a perfect job.  The left did not require nearly as much shaping so I managed to keep the molded details intact. 

 

 

 

The front part of the cover had a gap that I filled with a small piece of plastic card and sanded into shape.  I managed to save the molded details here as well, for which I was thankful as scribing is my worst modelling skill be far.  You might be able to make out that the part of the cover closest to the cockpit is slightly raised.  I opted not to correct this as the Ki-61 was based on the Bf-109 and it was common on those aircraft for that part of the cowling to be raised slightly - and sometimes more than slightly.

  

Edited December 7, 2022 by Greif8

[Greif8]

On 12/5/2022 at 2:03 PM, Alain Gadbois said:

I will certainly go look at this website, thanks for the tip!

Also, the suggested color in the instructions seems to be the « accepted norm », for some reason, and most go along with it.

 

Alain

 

On 12/5/2022 at 4:24 PM, Dave Williams said:

Doing some research for looking to start my build.  Thinking of trying the AK 3rd generation acrylics as they have a set for IJA cockpit colors.  One of them is IJA #7 Ohryuko Nana Go Shoku, which looks similar to the color you’ve chosen.  I too was on the RLM 79 train, until recently.

 

On 12/5/2022 at 4:30 PM, D.B. Andrus said:

 

Very nice work, Ernest!

 

Cheers,

Damian

 

Alain, Nick Millman is considered to be a subject matter expert on IJA/IJN aircraft colors.  His websire/blog is well worth a visit - lots of fascinating stuff on it.

 

Dave, I've heard the SK 3rd Gen paints are quite good and accurate.  I think you won't go wrong with them.  I almost followed the kit instructions calling for RLM79 as the cockpit cover.  I am glad I remembered to look at Nick Millman's information.  I probably did not get 100% color matching with the mix I made, but I think it is close enough given the huge range of hues and shades any WW2 paint would have been at any one time due to several factors.

 

Damian, thank you very much for the kind compliment!

 

Ernest