1/48 Arii (Otaki) Ki-43 Hayabusa (Finished!!)

[Luftace43]

Time for an update methinks. Since last time I resanded and touched up some of the nmf under the belly since I could see scratches I couldn't live with. I added a scratch built coaming with hand holds and the mount for the reflective sight from styrene. I then masked of the Hinomaru with masks cut with my new circle cutter. It works a treat! Also masked off the combat a stripe on the tail, anti glare panel and IFF strips. The anti glare panel was painted with a mixture of Model Master enamel gunmetal and dark red. The IFF strips were painted with Colourcoats ACJ19 Japanese ID yellow. The Hinomaru were painted first with MM Acryl flat white followed by insignia red. The combat stripe was painted white as well. Control surfaces were brush painted Tamiya XF-14 IJA Grey. I then proceeded to apply the camouflage with Colourcoats ACJ05 #21 Ki Midori Iro according to my single reference picture and profile at hand. I still need to apply the darker lines weaving over the top of the lighter green mottling as well as make masks for the sentai tail markings. So, this is what it looks like so far. I will get better pictures taken in daylight up later as the colors appear a little off in the artificial lighting at my bench. Not too bad I think for not having much experience with doing camouflage with an airbrush.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

NICE !

 

[Crimea_River]

Looks good Chad.

 

[fubar57]

Beauty. I am this close →║← to getting that circle cutter. I managed to do my own RAF roundels once and they look much better than decals

 

[Luftace43]

Thanks guys!! Really glad it looks ok. With this now wearing some color it means I am going to have to get to the parts I have been avoiding, ugh. That will be the landing gear, scratch building the reflective sight and pitot tube and working on the canopy.

fubar57
Do it!! It does come with the centering jig and it made the fuselage markings really easy to do. Both the cutter and the jig have a rubber bottom (silicone I think) that keeps it from slipping. It came with one 60° blade but I subsequently ordered the 30° blades to be able to cut thin styrene too. I already cut out a couple discs I will be using to make the wheel covers later. So if I were to do it again I would order the other blades at the same time and save a few bucks on shipping. Here are some pictures from the initial unboxing.

Everything is nicely packaged and protected. Two white arrow stickers are provided for indicating the circle diameter which is marked out in engraved hashes each representing 1mm increments. You have to "calibrate" the cutter once it is assembled, which assembly only took a few seconds. You basically just just pick a size, make a test cut on some scrap paper then measure the circle diameter using a ruler or preferably calipers (I used a ruler since I don't yet have the latter). I tweaked this slightly until I got an exact diameter reading, no fractions. Then it is just a matter of placing the arrow sticker on the cutting arm so that it is pointing at the tick mark that corresponds to your measurement. I carefully placed it using the tip of my Xacto then made another adjustment and checked that the new cut circle matched the indicator. Once all was checked for consistency I burnished the sticker down.

I know I was a little late but hope this passes well enough as a brief review Geo! I will gladly answer any questions you may have about it.

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

Loaded up my PayPal. Just need to check out shipping prices

 

[Crimea_River]

No doubt a nice tool but I'm not prepared to shell out that kind of coin for it.

 

[SANCER]

Good progress with the painting, Chad, I have a very similar version of Tamiya (I do not have the aircraft type at hand) but I remember the box art with that scheme, so it will be useful for me.
I also hope someday to make me that circular cutter ... !!

Saludos

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[Luftace43]

Thank you all for commenting on my build thus far, I hope I can further hold your interest with the following updates.

I applied the second camo color over the initial green mottled. After consulting with Nicholas Millman of AviationofJapan.com, it was determined that the second color would have most likely have been #27 Ao Midori Iro, a dark blue-green color, instead of brown according to documented colors used on New Guinea based aircraft. There is even a possibility that the darker color was IJN D2 dark green from leftover supply stocks since the airfields were previously used by IJN units and later transitioned to IJA as the New Guinea defense responsibilities were handed over from the navy to the army. I used Colourcoats IJN D2 green, which is close to #27 but not quite blue enough. I mixed a combination of the D2 with Testors enamel Dark Sea Blue approximately 2:1 to achieve the desired color.

The "crazy paving" pattern was applied with a fine point brush and the paint thinned quite a bit to reduce brush strokes. Because the paint was thin the color had to be built up with several passes. I could have achieved the thin line patterns with my airbrush, but the actual aircraft seemed to have had this secondary color applied by brush, so I tried to reflect that. While I feel a red-brown would have been a catchier looking color, I opted for historical accuracy instead. The conclusion was arrived at by looking at the browns in use at the time and when photographed in black and white would have little contrast with the #21 green camo tonally, unlike a darker green which does contrast quite a bit when photographed against the lighter green, even though it doesn't appear as stark when viewed in person.

I masked off the anti slip strip on the port wing root and applied Polly Scale grimy black acrylic with a piece of sponge.

I am happy with the look and feel I captured the look I was going for. That is of one with subtle texture and wear. I will add a few more chips to it later when I get to weathering the model.

And in conclusion of this update, here is an overall topside shot of the aircraft as she is now. These pictures were taken outdoors in natural light and more accurately reflect the colors as opposed to my previous update showing the initial painting stages of the camouflage.

I have more to post shortly, so stay tuned. In the mean time I would be glad to hear what you guys think, good, bad or ugly, as long as its honest.

Thanks for looking, off to type out the next update.

Chad

 

[fubar57]

Good stuff Chad. I wish Colourcoats came in acrylics as they have the best selection of WW2 colours however, a very quick conversation with Jamie Duff of Sovereign Hobbies suggests that this won't be happening in my life time

 

[Luftace43]

Next step was to tackle the wheels. The ones in the kit are very basic and virtually void of any detail. The only saving grace is they have the concentric tread pattern I desired for my aircraft already molded on them. The Nichimo wheels from the donor kit I have been using are more detailed but are not correct for the later model 2 hayabusa. They feature smooth tread and the earlier style wheel hub cover. I figured it would be easier to add detail to the kit wheels rather than try to modify the Nichimo ones.

Note that the kit wheels have a very prominent mold seam in the center of the tread. Luckily I have the tools at hand to easily and quickly remedy this. I centered these up in a mandrel chucked into my motor tool. Using the back of my X-Acto blade (like one would do to scrape seams) I held it to the ridge on the tread and used it to bring the wheel to shape, essential using the motor tool as a makeshift lathe. Once satisfied with the profile I used the point of the blade to carefully restore the tread by creating uniform concentric grooves. I finished it up with a few touches with a sanding stick, and then cleaned up any burs by smoothing everything up with Tamiya Extra Thin cement, with the tool not turning for the latter part of course.

The mounting holes on the wheels were too big to fit on the Nichimo gear legs I am replacing the kit ones with.

The solution for me was to drill the mounting holes bigger. Sounds counter intuitive I know, but stay with me!

Using the plastic stick from cotton swabs provided the perfect adapter. They fit snuggly in the newly drilled holes in the wheels and the inside diameter of the tube fits on the pins of the Nichimo gear legs. Just a matter of trimming the tube to length now. The cleaned up tread pattern can also be appreciated in these pictures.

That's all for now, I still have another update to post, so will be back again soon with more.

Chad

 

[Luftace43]

Good stuff Chad. I wish Colourcoats came in acrylics as they have the best selection of WW2 colours however, a very quick conversation with Jamie Duff of Sovereign Hobbies suggests that this won't be happening in my life time

Thank you George!

I know what you mean about acrylics. I primarily use them exclusively myself, but decided to jump for the Colourcoats paints for my Japanese subject since they are currently the closest match to IJA/IJN colors for modellers available at this time, hands down. The AK Interactive colors seem to be pretty accurate as well from reviews I have read and they are acrylic, but unfortunately they only have colors for IJN aircraft only and have yet to release an IJA set of colors. I will say that aside from the smellyness and needing to be more careful in handling that I really like using enamels for spraying and brush painting for that matter. They just seem to go on nicer and are more forgiving as far as tip drying, leveling qualities etc. is concerned. A bit of a hassle but enamels are growing on me. I still prefer acrylics for brush work though simply because clean up is so easy with a cup of tap water and paper towels at hand.

 

[Luftace43]

Alright, final update for today I think.

Since the wheels are void of detail, I needed to fabricate the wheel hub covers.

First I measured the wheels to determine the correct diameter for the covers in mm. I set the measurement on my circle cutter and using the 30° blade cut out circles from thin styrene sheet.

Consulting my references, I scribed a single line down the center of each disc. Then using a pencil I marked out the position of the six bolts that would secure the cover to the wheel. I pierced each mark with a thumb tack to represent each bolt recess.

Here are the new covers ready to be installed after painting. Another plus of choosing to go this route of making the wheels is that I can paint everything separately and assemble later without the need for masking. Woohoo!!

Next I moved onto the landing gear legs and covers.

I drilled holes in the torsion links per the actual aircraft. A simple yet effective way to add a touch of interest and refinement to the kit parts. These are the gear legs from the Nichimo kit, far more accurate and detailed than the Otaki/Arii parts, plus they have the oleo boots that were on the particular aircraft I am modelling, another win.

The gear covers from the Nichimo kit are nicely detailed with subtle rivets that matches that of the rest of the aircraft. I thought the appearance could be improved though by making the covers closer to scale by making them thinner.

Instead of spending a lot of time sanding down the parts, I decided to scratchbuild new ones. I applied masking tape to the Nichimo covers and trimmed it to match. I used this as a template, placed it on thin sheet styrene, traced with a pencil, cut out two new covers with my X-Acto and cleaned up the edges with a sanding stick.

Using the original covers as a guide I scribed in the separation line with my scriber and added rivet detail with a thumb tack.

The new covers with the original Nichimo part. It does not show from this angle, but the new pieces are about 1/3 the thickness of the original parts. I still need to make the small rectangular covers that will be at the top of each leg.

That's it for now guys. All these small details drag out the project but hopefully it will make a difference in the end.

Chad

 

[fubar57]

Great to see the circle cutter in action. Aside from the obvious use for roundels and wheel masks, what I would like to use it on is those pesky round parts on windscreens...

 

[Luftace43]

Great to see the circle cutter in action. Aside from the obvious use for roundels and wheel masks, what I would like to use it on is those pesky round parts on windscreens...

That would be a great application! I am having my own troubles masking the windscreen on my Oscar but unfortunately no round parts that I could employ that technique to remedy the problem.

 

[Crimea_River]

Great work there Chad.

 

[Luftace43]

Great work there Chad.

Thank you Andy! All this extra work is truly a labor of love.