**** DONE: GB-54 1:48 Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien - Pacific Theatre

Nice

Nice start

Neato

Ah yes, the goofing. We all fall victim to that at times, like the Porsche, I put the gearbox on upside down. Love your detail Andy, shame its all covered up.

Thanks again guys. Spent more time at the bench today to rest my ankle which I mildly sprained on the weekend. Work continued on the cockpit.

First off, the instrument panel and side console are now done. For the IP, Tamiya provides 4 separate decals with the instrument faces and these fit over the raised details very well. I think I got lucky that the setting solution didn't move these off center. It's tough to line them up but I'm happy with how the panel turned out. The console, not so much. I should have known not to try to brush Tamiya paints as they never do that well but I will accept the mediocre result. The lower part of the console is hidden anyway. The red lever at the extreme right is for the undercarriage selector and so should not be in the up position for my subject so I cut it off and moved it. Apologies for the lousy pic.



Here's the IP in place. Looks a bit better.



The seat and frame were assembled and painted per the instructions. This time, I airbrushed everything. Thanks to the photo, I now see that I neglected to clean the ridge off the seat frame so I'll go back and fix that. The seat and frame are not yet glued to the floor and dry-fitted here only for the pic. You can see the console here as well. I will need to rustle up some seat belts as Tamiya keeps providing those silly decals which to me look very cartoonish. Seems this bird only had lap belts but if anyone knows otherwise, let me know.



Finally, the starboard wall got some attention as well. I black based the wall and then decided to add some wiring, which I actually should have done first.



And here's how it looks after painting. After spraying the Desert Yellow, the wires were painted by hand and the high points were brushed over with XF-57 Buff to make them pop. As Geo mentioned, I left off the American oxygen regulator which was installed after this aircraft's capture. The mount for the regulator was also scraped away but I wonder now if there should have been a Japanese oxygen system placed somewhere instead? Surely this plane must have had one? The black spot is a placard which I decided to add after my paint brush slipped from my fingers and placed a dab of black where I didn't want it.



That's all for today. I'll do some more on here yet to dirty things up but it's a start. Thanks again for watching.

Neat work Andy.

Very nice Andy

coming alomg nicely

Really nice internals. Especially the seat backing.

Thanks friends. Digging for a few pics of the Japanese Type 100 gun sight, it appears Tamiya provided an early model of this sight though I wonder if a late type would be more appropriate for my subject. The latter has a wider stance and bigger crash pad but I can't really see modifying this part to suit the late style. Here's the sight as provided with the kit. The reflector glass, shade, and bead sight will be removed as these are almost always moulded far too thick and it's an easy fix to make the parts look more realistic.



I wasn't in the mood to start this fiddly work and so went and glued the wing halves together. There are 4 main parts here: the wing bottom, two uppers, and the central radiator fairing. The latter part spans the whole chord of the center section and the fit is incredibly good. The seams line up with actual panel lines and you would never know there is a separate part there. What a pleasure to work with such a quality kit.



Back soon with more.

All good stuff, be nice to see the finished gun sight once you get in the mood.

First stab at the gun sight follows. The unit had an old ring and bead sight which could be rotated out of the way and so I found an old PE ring in my stash and glued that in the stowed position an made a support for the bead. Happy with how those turned out but less than enthused with the reflector and visor, which seem too thick. I have some thinner clear plastic and so may replace these.



If I do replace them, I need to find a better way of obtaining the green shaded finish on the visor without springing for a whole bottle of Tamiya clear colours.

Do you not have a bit of green cellophane or similar sculling around in the never throw away box.

I read somewhere a long time ago, not this forum (actually forums did not exist at the time), that a guy made his own "clear" colors buy mixing regular Tamiya colors with Flat Base (X-21). I suspect you could use Flat Clear (XF-86) or Clear (X-22) as well depending on your preference. I also remember reading that some people mix colors with Future to get clear versions. I have not done this myself, so I cannot attest to its efficacy, but it could cut down on the purchase of clear paints if it meets your needs.

pgeno71 said:

I read somewhere a long time ago, not this forum (actually forums did not exist at the time), that a guy made his own "clear" colors buy mixing regular Tamiya colors with Flat Base (X-21).

Click to expand...

IMHO this formula doesn't give you a clear colour at all. Mixing any Tamiya paint with flat base makes the paint simply matt, not transparent.
I have produced clear colours using Future + ink (for printers or else). Different shades of gray can be made with black ink. The rest of the colours are mixtures of the basic colours. Greens are relatively hard tricky, compared to yellows, blues and reds or orange.
Cheers!