I need a break from the ETO so I figured I’d drag this one out for a quick out of the box build. This is one of those Japanese subjects Ive always liked. The Shiden, or “Violet Lightning” was one of the best fighters to see service in the IJN. It was fast, manoeuverable, and with the right pilot, it could more than hold it’s own against the P-38’s, Hellcats and Corsairs. It’s Achilles was a problematic/weak landing gear and engine reliability issues. The N1K2 addressed these issues and was an even better fighter.
Of course I actually mean “mostly” out of the box. There’s a good chance I’ll add some stuff, like gun barrels and or wheels. I’m sure I’ll paint the markings too. Anyways, I started with the cockpit which was fairly basic, certainly not up to Hasegawa’s Ki-84 standards. Perhaps these were basic on the real thing. I mixed up some XF-71 Cockpit Green with a touch of XF-49 to fabricate my own Kawanishi Cockpit Green. I had some Japanese PE belts so I threw them on.
The IP was basic too. I used some Airscale decals to spruce it up.
I’ve always thought these planes looked very neat, almost like a Japanese P-47. Nice to see a Japanese fighter that isn’t a Zero
Cockpit looks sparse, but I think you’re right, they were probably pretty spartan anyway. Paint looks nice to me, it’ll be nice to see what magic you pull on the exterior.
Thanks gents. Indeed it is somewhat Jug-like. It’s also one of my favorite IJN planes. I prefer it over the low wing N1K2 appearance-wise. Thanks for following.
Well, my P-38 woes have sort of rendered this turkey to the back burner. I did designate a little time for it the other day. The Hasegawa wing root gaps reared their ugly head on this kit. I solved them by supergluing a toothpick under the cockpit to spread the fuselage slightly. I suppose you could use sprue too. Your choice. It worked great.
Other than that it was a great fit.
I added a primer coat to await some Aluminum. I ordered some AK Interactive chipping fluid as I intend to try the peeling paint technique on this subject. It should be interesting.
Looks great, lawdog! Should have probably done this on my Spitfire. I did it the hard way, though. This is obviously a Hasegawa theme… I wonder why this happens so much!
Question about the Alclad primer, do you just shoot Alclad over top of the primer, or do you spray some clear over it? I’m working on a car kit and am trying to decide which route to take for my metallic parts.
BTW: I’ve tried the chipping fluid but I personally can’t see much difference in it and hairspray. You can even just pour the hairspray into your airbrush and spray it the same way you do the chipping fluid.
Max, it goes right on top of the primer. I find that sometimes it leaves some rough patches here and there, but those can be sanded out with 2000 grit sandpaper. You may need to sand the primer before the NMF too.
Gamera, thanks for the compliment and info. Unfortunately I already bought the stuff. Besides, I tend to prefer using stuff that is designed for modeling. One of the reasons I don’t particularly like Future. Others swearby it but I’ve never had much luck with it.
I find myself between projects at the moment. This one has been giving me the evil eye from the shelf so I figured I’d drag it out again. It got back burnered over a year ago when the back of the spinner went missing and getting a replacement from Hasegawa was impossible at the time (probably still is…Hasegawa is not known for good customer service). I figured I’d wait until I found a reasonably priced kit on ebay then I’d use it to fabricate a new spinner back out of scrape styrene…a visual reference if you will. So I got cracking…
I left off after I sprayed the airframe Alclad Duraluminum. If you recall, this will be a experiment with chipping fluid. I’m going to go for heavy chipping without overdoing it…if that’s possible. I will be using this stuff, which is essentially the hairspray method so I’m told.
I sprayed the stuff on the NFM and let it dry. I forgot I bought Montex for this project, so out those came. I painted the appropriate color then masked thusly. I also added the wing walk stripes and yellow leading edge markings and taped them off.
The underside will remain NMF, but the upper will be XF-11 JN Green. I did a little preshading.
I then added the JN Green. It’s quite dark and covered most of the preshading. I added some XF-57 Buff and faded it a bit.
After removing the masks, I got to the chipping. I wanted it in certain areas, like heavier on the port wing root, a bit on front cowl, and more on leading edge wing root where the prop would blow stuff back. Again, I didn’t want to go crazy with it. I wet an old Testors stiff paint brush and started rubbing some off. The water helped break up the paint and I was surprised about the control I had. I was fairly happy. I stopped here with the risk of overdoing it.
The underside got some attention too. I sprayed the control surfaces XF-76 IJN Grey Green to simulate the fabric and also sprayed some panels different shades of Alclad. This will get dirtied up later.
A few coats of Alclad Aqua Gloss went down to seal everything. I still have a couple decals that need to go down.
Overall I’m quite pleased with how this stuff works. I think I got the look I was going for. I see more in the future.
Looks fantastic Joe. Did you apply the chipping fluid with an airbrush? If so did you spray the entire model with it or just the areas that you wanted chipped? Can’t wait to see the finished project
