Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate pre-production version - Sword 1/72

[sroubos]

This is my most recent completion, Sword's Ki-84. I like the Frank a lot, it has clean lines and good looks, a true fighter aircraft. Some years ago I built Hasegawa's excellent but dated kit, and I've been looking for an opportunity to build another one. When I came across Sword's pre-production version (I believe the c variant), I had to have it.

Sword's kit is a popular candidate for best short run kit in these great 'What is the best xx-scale kit?' topics. As such I was curious to see how well it built. I found it to be a typical modern short run kit - nice detail, good use of resin parts (engine and wheel bay) but also somewhat spurious fit in areas (gun cover, engine cowling, wing root). All in all it built rather well but due to general hamfistedness it did take me a bit longer to complete than it should have. I drilled through the top of the wing when widening the locating holes for the gear... not my finest hour.

None of the kit's issues are difficult to resolve, the only slightly problematic area is the canopy; this seems to be a bit wider than the cockpit area it sits on, resulting in a small step. I filled this with Perfect Plastic Putty but it's still noticeable, especially when compared to Hasegawa's old but perfectly-fitting kit.

Sword gives you a choice of two color schemes, an unpainted aluminium plane and a 'Medium brown' with green mottling. I visited Nick Millman's blog 'Aviation of Japan' to get a line on the shade of brown I needed, and using the color swatches I found I created my own using some RAF Dark Earth as a base, mixed with Tamiya Red Brown and Olive Drab. This was applied over a coating of Humbrol Metalcote Polished Aluminium. The mottling was sprayed using Tamiya's IJA Green. I used some IJA Grey for the control surfaces, but I feel the shade is too green when I look at it now - if someone can verify what this shade should look like I'd love to hear it.

Sword's decals worked well but the set has one curious omission. It appears that the lines around the front and rear of the wings are red on an unpainted surface and yellow on camouflaged surfaces. Sword provides sufficient red decals to do to the unpainted variant, but for the camouflaged variant the yellow lines around the front of the wing are missing. I stole these from a Hasegawa sheet I have, but this created another problem, a mismatch between the yellow shades of the lines. In the end I therefore used all Hasegawa decals. After decaling I saw that the yellow on the wing leading edge had a decidedly greener tint than the rather orangey yellow of the lines. Oh well.

I was going to weather the plane quite severely, to try out some new techniques, then realized it was in use with a test squadron, and thought better of it - I suppose these guys must have taken some care of their mounts and/or wouldn't have used it for long. I picked some W&N water colors to apply a wash, a toothpick to scratch the paint around some of the panels in order to allow the bare metal to show through, and a combination of pastels and washes to create some staining.

I used a couple of minor after-market items on this build; canopy mask by Eduard, tubing for the pitot and gun barrels from Albion Alloys, a lens for the landing light from Little Cars and EZ-line type thread from some eBay seller.

In summary, a satisfying result from what is undoubtedly a very good kit of this important and beautiful aircraft. It joins its nemesis, the F6F, in my growing collection of 'Hellcats over the Pacific' - inspired builds.

Edited October 30, 2015 by sroubos

[dfqweofekwpeweiop4]

Nice work on what was probably Japan's best fighter. If they had better materials, fuel and pilots, these would have been more than a handful for allied pilots.

I've got one of these in my stash, along with a Sword Ki-44, I suppose I best get round to building them at some point!

thanks

Mike

[Touvdal]

Very nice model

cheers

Jes

[MikeR]

Very nice indeed!

Mike.

[Meatbox8]

A very smart Frank. I agree, it is a good looking aircraft.

[Carius]

Excellent!

Cheers

[Knight_Flyer]

Looks great, very nice job with the paint finish.

[russ c]

Superb Hayate, great job

[JWM]

Excellent

[Peter Lloyd]

Lovely model and thank you for the build information. It's a regret you had to use the Hasegawa decals, especially the hinomarus. One of the best things about Sword kits is the beautiful, thin decals... when they give you what you need, of course!

[sroubos]

Thanks for the reactions guys

The only Hasegawa decals I used are the yellow lines on the wing, the rest is Sword. They worked quite well, very thin as you say and they blended very well with the help of some Microset/sol. I scratched them a tiny bit as part of the weathering, which was a bit nerve- wrecking but it turned out well.

[ancient mariner]

Well worth a "like" I really like the finish you have achieved.