1/48 SANGER Mitsubishi Ki-67 Vac...It BEGINS!

Thanks Wojtek!
I'm on a roll now, so to speak. So I decided to take the painting to the next stage.
Since the Sanger Decals just don't look usable (and they are rather poorly printed and there are no individual markings, since the whole sheet is coated) I decided to take another route.

I got some low tack sheets from work (which we use as an adhesion foil to put lettering on shop windows) this stuff is more or less a gigantic 3M post it note, but with the adhesion all over the back. I leaves no residue whatsoever and can be easely cut as it's some kind of coated paper. Unfortunatly, I can't be bought at a regular shop.

So here's what I've done.
The model was fisrt covered in a thin layer of Future (Sols Plus here in Belgium) to act as a sealer for the paint.
Then I cut some discs from the sheet and aplie these to the model. I used Hasegawa's 1/72 scale painting and decaling guide of their kit for this. Sanger has the wing Hinomaru right for diameter, though those for the fuselage are too big.

Next I added more self adhesive paper to the wings to act as a mask, since I didn't want to risk any overspray.

Paint went on next. I used Vallejo acryl paint for this and used Isopropyl alchol (99%) as thinner (as it dries super fast)
I used Vallejo's flat white first to act as primer for the red and also to prevent any possible bleeding of the green paint.
Red was aplied next, with some chocolate brown added.
Pannel lines where lightly accentuated using the base red colour with some more Chocolate brown added and then some white was added to this colour to give a somewhat bleeched out red. I didn't want the colour ro be too bright.
The undersides where treated a bit different. Less white was added, as the underside markings don't get any direct sunlight. So this red is a bit brighter.



The fuselage markings have a white border. This is more tricky to do. I added a white disk and the smaler red one will have to be aplied on top of it. I still have to think about a good soloution to aply the red disk. Though I have an idea...


Due to the changing less saturated light, it's ofcourse hard to judge any of the colours on a monitor.
Though to my eyes the colours look good. I'm sure the weathering proces that will follow the coming week(s) will alter the apearance of these colours even more. As this is my first IJAAF aircraft, it's a bit a search colourwise. I've only did a A6M3 years ago. (and my memory is a bit foggy on that build )

Looking very good in my opinion.

As far as the Hinomaru markings on the fuselage are concerned... Apply the white colour now. Then make a new masks for the red disks only. Stick the new ones to these that you had stuck . Just don't remove these you have there at the moment. You may mark with a pencil small dots on the white that will allow you to keep the proper dimension ( thickness ) of the white outline and set the new masks for applying of the red. Just remember about the nice adhesion of the new masks , especially their internal edges to prevent against getting under them of the red.

Thanks for your good advice Wojtek! I'm gonna try the method you suggested.
The masking material is really good. I use a toothpick to make it stick to the model surface. No paint seams to ge underneath, which is very good.
I might try this material for canopy masks on future builds as it sticks better then masking tape and is somewhat easier to cut as it does not tear. It also seams to stick better over time on surfaces.

I'm gonna start some weathering on the model next. I think I'll go with a combination of oil paints (for the lubricants) and chalk pastels (for the normal dusty wear)
I also read about modellers using Future in combination with Tamiya Flat acryl varnish to get a semi gloss/mat finish.

This week I'll be looking at the props and landing gear. These will need some attention as to no one's surprise, the Sanger parts are ehm...Well...how do I put this....not sufficient

I started on the weathering process of the wings using artists chalk pastels. I had good results with these in the past. Though it's been a while since I weathered a model.
I like chalk pastels as these give a good mat scale wise result.

I'm gonna do one wing and add some oil paint based weathering arround the full caps to simultate leaks.
I like oil paints for these as once mixed with turpentine they apear "wet" (like real fuel and oil stains)These will hopefully give a realistic apearance on the wings.

Once the wing is done, I'll post some pics of it and await your input.
I like the the Villalba books, though I think/feel that the Spannish weathering is perhaps "too much" for my taste. Though weathering in general is always a bit difficult imho. There is personal preference and I never saw a real japanese Army bomber in the field at the end of WWII. I guess some dirt might be aplicable as I don't think there was a lot of time for maintenance on these aircraft at the end of the conflict...

This keeps getting better and better...gonna be a shame when Terry's Wildcat shoots it down. Just sayin'

Excellent progress!! She's looking great.

Hey friend!! , bring a tremendous job done. I liked the application of the colors of your airplane and form of paint the Hinomarus is an excellent reference for my futures Nippon models.

Congratulations for the beautiful job and I'm slope monitoring.

Saludos!!

Great looking bomber! I'm excited to see what it is going to look like once all that masking is removed! Another way of tackling the fuselage hinomarus is to paint the red first, apply the smaller circle mask and paint the white border after. That way you can visually reference the inner and outer circles to make sure they are correctly centered.

Great job.

Geo

Thanks all for the nice replies

Yesterday I had a little setback on the Ki-67. While further weathering the wings I suddenly noticed that the left end on the engine nacelle that tappers towards the end of the wing was actually shorter then that of the right wing... Somehow I missed this thru the build and it only came to light when sitting with my nose right upon it...
After a somewhat "àç"!'è(ç"ç!!'((è" (please insert favorite curse word here) I had to fix it.
So I cut some masks and grabbed the milliput (I use the B/W package, which I believe is "fine" smooth miliput, anyway, I love this stuff!!)

with some very, very careful aplication of the miliput I was able to fix it..
(very scary to put miliput on an already painted model and shaping it with water)
But when I checked again this morning, the miliput dried rock hard and doesn't need any additional sanding...Pheeeewww...
Since I was at it (and after checking the scale plans) I added some missing pannel lines and missing fuell caps with the scriber and templates at the engine nacelles and top of the fuselage.

I'm very happy how it turned out. Added part/miliput and pannel lines will need some painting but it will result in a better looking Ki-67 model.
It would be a shame imho to leave the too short left engine nacelle after all of the work I already put in this model... Imagine the comments...
"Wow nice build Sanger kit, to bad he can't cut two engine nacelles at the same lenght"

Will post pics of this later!

very nice scratch built roundels. They look terrific to me

Got a question....how did you get the roundel cut outs so perfectly round? A straight edged blade should always produce flat bits in your circle curve I would have thought. Also, the way you've applied the paint seems really cool.... no paint runs along those very pronounced seams I notice.

Other guys will laugh at my question, but for me, they would be real challenges and issues to confront me...

Great work going on here! Looking forward to seeing how your nacelle fix turned out.

parsifal said:

very nice scratch built roundels. They look terrific to me

Got a question....how did you get the roundel cut outs so perfectly round? A straight edged blade should always produce flat bits in your circle curve I would have thought. Also, the way you've applied the paint seems really cool.... no paint runs along those very pronounced seams I notice.

Other guys will laugh at my question, but for me, they would be real challenges and issues to confront me...

Click to expand...

I used a "compass-cutter" to cut the circels. Just a regular compass but with a sharp knife inserted instead of lead pencil (same device though). I bought this compass cutter knife years ago at a arts and crafts shop. I think Olfa makes a really good one which also allows you to cut plastic card with. The one I have is just for paper. The Olfa one is on my "to buy" list though...

But I must add that the paper I used to mask of the wing is especially designed for this purpose. I makes life a lot easier as regular masking tape would be far more difficult to use for this.
It takes a bit of practice, but imho it looks more realistic then decals.

They certainly look good. i never thought to put a blade into the grips of the compass. I have some old drafting ink compasses that could do the same thing with small blades. Getting the masking material might be difficult, but maybe masking tape might work, if not as good, but good enough. Applying the futures to seal the existing paint applications is a great detail as well, something i hadnt considered before. just learning.....

Michael, you could try low tack frisket film Amazon.com: Grafix All Purpose Low Tack Frisket Film 9-Inch-by-12-Inch, Clear Pack of 12

Geo

Lovely work so far!

You've done some fine work thus far

Looking great mate!

As promessed a few pics of the last progress.

First the lenghtening of the nacelle with some white miliput.
This part will need some repainting. Also visible are the extra added pannel lines.
These will also have to recieve some paint.


A shot of the weathering of the wing with some artist chalk pastels.
I like the subtileness of this material as it add some realistic weathering imho.


Now something different. I cleaned up most of the sanger suplied landing gear
and checked it against refference material.
In all it seams workable. The main landing gear is dimensionwise ok.
Though the "cross bars" sit too low. I'm gonna partially use these parts and add
some scratch building. Again some major pieces are missing...


The following pic shows the part that Sanger completely missed. It's not included...


The tailwheel is somewhat undersized in the kit. But perhaps workable.
Fork holding the wheel is dimension wise ok.


Next week I hope to get some more painting done and some work on the props and landing gear.
I'm taking it slowly as I don't want to mess things up so near the end of this build...
Though they are a LOT of work, these kits become rewarding towards the end. It's not a perfect Ki-67
but I'm pretty happy about it. Seams I'm gonna make my deadline after all and I'll be able to show it at
our clubs anual show as a non contenter on the contest table...