Hasegawa B6N2 Bomber

[nsmekanik]

It's been a while, but when things start to go wrong I like to put things aside for a while until I feel confident I can tackle the issue(s) without creating a total catastrophe, and in this case I was blowing through both IP decals without close to a decent appearance so back in the box it went.

I did pull it out occasionally and do a few things, here and there but nothing significant, mainly some carving on the seat cushions and a bit of painting

So anyway, after managing to stick some stickers on a Spitfire project without any seriously notable events I figured it was about time to get off the pot and have another go at it

And here it is in all it's resplendent glory being a mix of Mike Grant and any kit decals I managed to salvage, as many of them broke up despite being coated with MicroScale decal film

oh, and clumsy me managed to snap the control column in half while adding a few nobbies, go figure, and none of which were lost in space and all of which are solidly fixed in place so I guess that's a good thing......

So then it was time to pull out the new toy, got the first one done, could be better but then it's a learning curve

Of course when it came to the second one, after I got the fiddly bits tinned the "strap" decided to ping off into orbit..........so I decided to just forgo the strap and attach the peddle with out it. But then......in a twisted twist of fate as I was cleaning up the mess the fiddly bit returned from orbit and landed in the middle of the mat......now how good is that...... Mind you it did create the minor inconvenience of having to rip things apart and dig everything out agian but Hey Ho......

And then there is the engine wiring, not that a lot can be seen but enough that it absence might not go unnoticed if one is looking for it. Eduard do supply it on there etch, BUT, the problem is that on this particular engine the wires appear just behind the pushrods rather then being in a harness around the crankcase. After playing around with some wire with not a lot of success I settled on some .010 plastic rod which works well enough and should look ok with a thick coat of paint.

As always comments and criticisms welcome

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

Nice work man.....

 

[Crimea_River]

I agree. That anvil would come in handy for some of my more frustrating kits.....

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far!

 

[fubar57]

IP looks great

 

[nsmekanik]

I agree. That anvil would come in handy for some of my more frustrating kits.....

This is the "Beat your kit into submission" starter kit

And for those truly tough cookies where just flying it into the wall just isn't good enough

here is the deluxe model for the more experienced smasher that is designed to help turn those itty bitty bits of frustration into teeny weeny itty bitty bits of pleasurable mashing

 

[nsmekanik]

Thank you all for the positive respones

A little update, something I should've done on the side wall but didn't was try a bit of shading.

I think it turned out well and interestingly the floor with the black base is actually lighter then the side walls and looks better to my eye. Not going to worry about it as not much will show after all things are said and done. The big frustration at the moment are the seat belts which have been less then cooperative with the ends snapping off (due to clumsiness on my part), and the pilots shoulder harness being transported into an alternate universe (go figure after I managed to find that really small bit earlier) leaving me to make up a cheesy replacement which looks "OK" if you don't look at it. Oh well no matter due to funding issues they are going in regardless

 

[Crimea_River]

Pit look good though.

 

[fubar57]

Agreed. I'm not sure about the pilot's shoulder harness. My research showed none were used so I went with that

 

[Wurger]

 

[Wayne Little]

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[nsmekanik]

I bit of an update, I haven't been slackin........well maybe a bit

Right, so as is always the case, things get to this point

And along comes this.....

Maybe not from exactly the same type of plane but I'm sure they all looked pretty much like this in what ever and not the bland flat black that all mine have bee depicted as......

Oh well time to turn the page and move on

So I just has to try the silver pencil just one more time on the front cowling, and after ending up with a loverly metallic black finish I decided that a repaint was probably the better way to go.....and using Vallejo aluminum with a fine brush I think gave a much better result albeit a bit more difficult. I tried to show a wear pattern as seen in various pics. Unlike Mitsibushi, Nakajima cowls were just a basic semi gloss black the faded quickly so it was just a matter of adding a bit of white to black and running rampant with the airbrush. Although pics show an even faded effect I decided to vary things a bit and played around with semi gloss and matt finishing

I'm fairly satisfied with the results, I went for the 3rd option in the instructions as from what I could piece together, #1 was apparently slated for use as a Kamikaze and found abandoned in a sorry state at the end of the war, and #2 was most likely used in a training squadron where many Kamikaze were trained. There is a pic of a plane numbered 34 that would appear to be the one in the instructions, going by the 34 on the landing gear cover, in the book "Nakajima B5N Kate and B6N Jill Units" under which is captioned "These aeroplanes may be from Himeji Kokutai, which flew a mixed force of B6Ns on myriad ASW missions off southwestern Japan from Kushira airfield, on the southern tip of Kagoshima prefecture, in 1944-45." Although there is no visible 34 on the cowling I decided to ad it anyway

Now the wings are semi attached (the cowling is just set in place) It's time to move on to the landing gear.......which entails more mucking around with my new toy

Quite pleased with how things turned out

Till next time

 

[Wurger]

 

[nsmekanik]

Agreed. I'm not sure about the pilot's shoulder harness. My research showed none were used so I went with that

Oh and thanks Geo, I did pull things apart and just went with the 2 which looks much better then I had, and of course if it's wrong I can blame you........

 

[Crimea_River]

I love the cowl. It looks very realistic to my eye. Well done!

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far!

 

[Airframes]

Looking good.

 

[nsmekanik]

After my Faux Pas with the wings I've come up with a fix. At first I was going to just glue in some plasticard to try and add some surface to the joint, but it still strikes me as being a bit flimsy so I decided to pin them with some brass rod which has worked out very well, next up is to figure out something with the tail wheel....