Just finished this one today, Hasegawa’s excellent 1/32 Ki-84 Frank. No AM parts were harmed during this build, the few additions are all home-made. They include engine wiring, spark plug wires, oil cooler intake screen, brake lines, modified kit seat, seatbelts, parachute, pitot tube, and antenna mast. I also used Montex masks for the hinomarus and white outlines, and masked the wing walk strips, leading edge identification marks, anti-glare area, and propeller markings. Painted with Tamiya paints, and include pre/post shading, and panel fading. No decals used on this one! The photo I have of this aircraft shows the left panel under the cockpit heavily chipped, but the techniques I chose to use for that area didn’t lend themselves to that kind of damage (silver pencils). Next time, I will pre-paint the panel aluminum, and then mask the chipped areas. Comments and constructive criticism welcomed!
Long time no chat and hope all is well with you! I really like the over all finish of the Frank [Y] It is especially nice to see a build being built with out the use of any type of AM stuff…
What you have added really brings the detail out and I of course you know me, I like a well detailed office!! How did you make the parachute and the buckels?
Again Frank, it is always nice to see your builds!! Thank you for sharing!
That’s the ticket! The result is well-worth the effort… I used the Old School rubber cement masking method for the chipped paint here on my Val. Also used some masking tape to pull off some of the green here & there…
You did an excellent job on your kit… The cockpit painting and shading is beautiful, and the panel looks as real as one can get in1/32… And that engine… Bee-yoo-tee-ful… Did you rebuild the cowl flaps, or open and bend the kit’s?
Not familiar with that… Is that a type of Frisket paper?
Overall score’s a “9”, Daywalker… If you’d have “weighted” the tires a bit, you’d have gotten a decimal-point or two higher… [t$t]
Thanks everyone for stopping by! This is the most enjoyable build I have had in a while, and I look forward to doing another one in the future.
Kirk- Now that is crazy… how weird! Enjoy the kit, it really is one of Hasegawa’s best IMHO.
Hans- Thank you very much! Love detailing kits the old school way, cheaper too! The kit offers both open and closed cowl flaps, as well as actuators for them in the open configuration. The Montex masks are very thin vinyl, and worked well. Only thing against them are the fact that the low-tack adhesive left shadows on the paint which needed some gentle scrubbing to remove. I asked around to see if others had experienced similar troubles, and I was not alone. Still, they sure do make painted-on markings easy to do. Funny you mention the tires… I realized as soon as I had glue the landing gear bits onto the model that I had forgotten to do that. I considered ripping them off and trying it, but in the end decided to leave them as is. Maybe the ground crew accidentally overinflated them this morning? [whstl] Thank you for noticing, I always enjoy the feedback.
Nice job on my favorite Japanese fighter. It’s kind of refreshing to see that didn’t chip the heck out of it, which appears to be pretty vogue of late on Japanese A/C.
tigerman- Thank you, my favorite Japanese fighter too (and not just because of the name LOL!). I was originally going to beat it up a little bit more, but after realizing that the tools I was using to do so would not give me the effect found in the photos of this aircraft, i opted to restrain my efforts. I am glad I did, as I really like how it came out.
Andrew- LOL, thanks buddy! On the markings, not sure why there were no unit identifiers on this one. I have run across a few different Ki-84’s with this phenomenon in my research. Either they were not specifically assigned to a unit, or possibly the late war desperation of the IJAF precluded them from keeping them up to date. Here’s two photos of the aircraft I was modeling:
Will I build another 1/48 kit? You can count on that! [;)]
Looks excellent, everyone produced had newer paint at one time in its service life. Like said above its refreshing to see one without the heavy handed weathering & paint chips.
Agreed with Hammer regarding the tires. They can be sanded in place & a ‘bulge’ added to the sides if you do not mind repainting the tires by hand. Your call, or sunk in a display base showing tire tracks would work as well.
