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Violet Lightning--Improved N1K2-J


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The surface detail on this kit is nicely done but a bit overstated in places, mainly the cloth covered flying surfaces. To me they look like the body of a seahorse with course texturing and that sunken in effect. I glopped on a thick coat of acrylic primer to fill in some of it and I'll sand it later. Hopefully this will smooth things out a bit and give a more realistic appearance.

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For Kevin and John who are also building this kit and those who might build it in the future I offer these notes. There are two glaring weaknesses to this kit, the cockpit and the engine. My approach is to use the Revell A6M5 kit cockpit and make slight improvements. If you can get one of these the fit is near perfect. I know it lacks accuracy but unless you plan to scratch build I don’t know of a better option. If you’re going to scratch build, I have some paper templates for the floor, front and back firewalls from somebody that did scratch build a cockpit for his. I can share these if you need them. The kit engine is slack and I considered adding push rods and solder wires for detail. Once the prop, spinner and cowling are in place there won’t be a great deal of engine to see. Engines and Things has a great resin copy of the Homre but its $20 if you can find it. Greatmodels lists it as a special order item and they have a 67% chance of getting it, whenever. My option is to use the two piece engine from the Tomy Ki-84 that I got from a good friend who has the resin Homre. How could the same company make the same engine for two kits so differently is something I don’t understand. The Ki-84 engine looks much better, there’s no comparison, use it if you can. It’s nearly a drop fit and by adding wires it looks very good. Just trying to save you some headaches.

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For Kevin and John who are also building this kit and those who might build it in the future I offer these notes. There are two glaring weaknesses to this kit, the cockpit and the engine. My approach is to use the Revell A6M5 kit cockpit and make slight improvements. If you can get one of these the fit is near perfect. I know it lacks accuracy but unless you plan to scratch build I don’t know of a better option. If you’re going to scratch build, I have some paper templates for the floor, front and back firewalls from somebody that did scratch build a cockpit for his. I can share these if you need them. The kit engine is slack and I considered adding push rods and solder wires for detail. Once the prop, spinner and cowling are in place there won’t be a great deal of engine to see. Engines and Things has a great resin copy of the Homre but its $20 if you can find it. Greatmodels lists it as a special order item and they have a 67% chance of getting it, whenever. My option is to use the two piece engine from the Tomy Ki-84 that I got from a good friend who has the resin Homre. How could the same company make the same engine for two kits so differently is something I don’t understand. The Ki-84 engine looks much better, there’s no comparison, use it if you can. It’s nearly a drop fit and by adding wires it looks very good. Just trying to save you some headaches.

 

Thanks for the input, I have come to the same conclusions, I elected to scratch build the cockpit, and detail the existing engine. Some pushrods and ignition wires along with a wiring harness. when everything is put in place this arrangement is more than sufficient.

 

John

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Thanks for the input, I have come to the same conclusions, I elected to scratch build the cockpit, and detail the existing engine. Some pushrods and ignition wires along with a wiring harness. when everything is put in place this arrangement is more than sufficient.

 

John

 

With mine (if I ever get to it), I'll be scratch building the cockpit like John, and using the engine from a Hasegawa Frank (thanks Russ!). Are you guys going to use the kit stickers?

 

Kev

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With mine (if I ever get to it), I'll be scratch building the cockpit like John, and using the engine from a Hasegawa Frank (thanks Russ!). Are you guys going to use the kit stickers?

 

Kev

 

Yeah i've got too use the markings for Kano's bird, fuselage stripes liven up a normally boring green finish..

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Engine update: Thanks to my modeling buddy Mark Mallinson I have a much better Homare engine to work with. The green engine on the left is the kit engine for the Tomy Ki-84 and the gray resin on the right is the Engines - N - Things version. Since Mark will use the resin engine for his Hayate he gave me the green kit engine...thanks again Mark! Compare it to the nubby-blob kit engine from the Tomy N1K2 I posted earlier and you'll see why I'm excited. I'll paint it and add wiring and a few pieces here and there and it'll look good and its a drop fit because company used the same method and placement for both engines. So... :( why did they make the two kit engines look so different again? :P you figure it out.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey guys, I finally got a few minutes to model after a long dry spell. I've cobbled up some parts from the Tomy kit cockpit and the Revell A6M5 cockpit to get this quickie, budget, home brew version for my N1K2-J. Once its painted and installed it'll do the job. I've been fighting to keep the AMS out of this build but its hard to skip details that I know I could make to improve the kit. The deal is that I'm getting very little time to model these days and I have to keep this project moving.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Finally after a long hybernation I made some progress starting with the "waffle iron" look of the flying control surfaces. They look better now and after the final coat of paint it'll all be worth it

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Here are a couple of shots of the engine now that it's finally painted and wired. I added a darker wash to the cylinders that are supposed to be the back row to make them appear to be farther back. There are a couple of added pieces of plastic on top and bottom of the engine hub. Just generic plastic stuff from the stash to make it look more accurate.

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Here is the old, frowned upon, Revell A6M5 Zeke instrumentation part right out of the box with a little paint and clear lenses made from drops of white glue. Not bad for 65 year old technology huh.

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And remember this cockpit started life as the parts from the same Revell Zeke kit. I added a few levers and knobs plus some of the pieces cut from the kit cockpit. The primaary modification was made to the stock Zeke seat to make it look more like a George seat. The color is a mixture of Polyscale greens until it matched the reference images I got from me ol' modeling buddy Mark Malinson. He built the 1/24 Bandai N1K2-J kit years ago.

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