PeterB

Thanks Adam, It seems that the rear FN4 turret had a conventional solid back with the access door in it, but the nose turret was completely glazed as the gunner got into it from the bomb aimer's position underneath - I will need to paint the underside and the sling type seat as it will be visible through the lower glazing. Incidentally, just had another look at your build and you were right - Airfix have completely forgotten the locating holes for the pitot and D/F loop, though they did remember to tell you to drill out the one for the rear radio mast, even though that and the hole for the front one are on the centreline and so probably wrong. It is almost as if they either lost interest part way through the design, or somebody else did the parts with the various holes, engine fronts and undercarriage who was not as good! Still, all in all it is rather a nice kit but I have run into some problems right at the end. Firstly, as I suspected, the Eduard mask set is probably faulty - looks like the laser or whatever they cut them with did not go quite deep enough, which may explain why they are almost invisible on the sheet. Not only are they difficult to find in the first place, but then I am having considerable difficulty getting them to come off the sheet, which is a real PITTA! On top of that, the aperture for the gun in the front turret is far too narrow. It is not the usual case of a bit of flash from a worn mould as I pre-ordered it when the release was first announced so the mould should be perfect, and anyway is not thin flash but thickish plastic, though a lot thinner than the old turrets used to be. With great care and a new scalpel blade I managed to widen it enough for the barrel to go through, but then had to go a bit further as the "shield" on the gun also has to go in the gap it seems, though I narrowed that a little as well. Not at all what I was expecting from this kit, so once more no points for Airfix on this part. I have asked Eduard for an explanation so it will be interesting to see what they have to say. Pete

I have put the wheel doors on so that is the underside finished except for a little touching up. Then I will turn it over and put the rudders on. In the meantime I have made a start on the turrets. Normally I would paint the parts on the sprue but as it looked a bit fiddly, coupled with the tight tolerances on these later Airfix kits, I assembled them first and painted later. On the left is the nose turret with its single drum fed Vickers K, and on the right the rear turret with four Brownings. I now need to work out whether any of the glazing needs painting grey/green - I would imagine the back of the rear turret will but I am not sure about the nose one so I will see what info I have as Airfix don't give any paint instructions on that subject though they do say the base and gun mounts were. I am on the last page now! Pete

Good question Stew! The series of articles I have mentioned that were in Scale Aircraft Modelling International 20 years ago say that the JNAF did not generally switch to tea colour props until 1944, but the JAAF started using it on the rear of the prop blades quite early, replacing the black "anti glare" finish, and that they started painting the front faces in it as well during 1942 so it may well be right. The Ki-84 of course was an exception to that as the props were apparently a dark greenish grey for whatever reason. Pete

Hi Ian. British Road Services - that brings back memories. When I first went to Uni my parents packed up a ruddy big suitcase and sent it by BRS to Liverpool whilst I went by bus. The only problem was that I had to go to their depot and collect it once it arrived - nearly killed me. A couple of years later they apparently became the National Freight Corporation and have since been sort of merged/split out of existence it seems. Pete

When I am making coloured/white decs I often use white decal paper as my printer cannot produce good solid colours on clear paper. Might be worth a try for your stripe etc. Pete

The exhausts and undercarriage are on. To my mind Airfix have not thought this out as well as they could. The main legs have small tabs that go into sockets in the bulkhead, but structurally that is not very strong so I have reinforced the joint with CA. The "Y" shaped support strut is even worse. The back end has a tab which is meant to go in the rear bulkhead, but that is hidden inside the nacelle at this stage so you just have to poke it through a slot and hope you find the socket. As to the front forks they have no positive locating points on the legs and the illustration in the instructions is not very helpful, so more CA was used - I have some doubts about the strength of the undercarriage joints so care will be needed when handling the kit from now on - at least it is not that heavy! According to my plans the legs angled forward slightly but I may have overdone it slightly. As you can see I have gone for black wheel well interiors and will do the same with the doors, but have painted the legs and hubs in aluminium as many seem to have been early in the war - later they seem to have been overpainted in black. Pete

I was not suggesting using it for carpet as I agree with you about the texture - just thinking about how to glue it down. Pete

That's interesting Chris. The plans in the Warpaint book definitely show them on the Starboard side on a Mk V, but as you say photos show them on the Port which perhaps fits with where the radio is in the kit! Out with the drill and filler! Pete

Guess that will be "EII" then, as Zuikaku was the second carrier in the 5th Carrier Division. Pete

Hi Pat, I found that the props fall off the sprue and I seem to have only 3 between 2 kits at the moment - don't know what the Revell box is like but the Italeri one has opening ends so bit can easily fall out! Pete

Hi Enzo - nice kit! I will be interested to see how the mottle works out as it is always a pain to paint, though even worse in my normal 1/72 scale. I note that Hasegawa say the kit is a Ki-61-1 Hei i.e. I KAIc whilst the mottle says it is for a I KAId (Tei) but hopefully that should not cause you any problems as the only difference I can see is the armament - actually the Id is a very curious version for HGW to be modelling (2 x 30mm wing cannon and 2 x 12.7mm mg in the upper fuselage compared with 2 x 20mm in the nose and 2 x 12.7 in the wings on the KAIc) as few were built so maybe it is a typo? Good luck. Pete

A pair from Akagi and Soryu - nice! Pete

Hi Tony, Many years ago I built a model railway layout and used some Woodland Scenics "scatter" material on the grass areas - I suspect it is just dyed sawdust. I painted the areas in question green and tried scattering some of the powder on whilst the paint was wet but it did not stick very well, so next I bought an aerosol of so called "fixative" for mounting photos etc and that worked pretty well - for a while. Over the years, me leaning on the surface, moving things around etc resulted in a fair bit coming off but inside your cars that would not happen - at least in theory! Just a thought. Pete

Thanks Chris, In your list I suspect that they are thinking only of upper wing roundels when they say the A1 only went to 1939 - on the fuselage it actually lasted at least to the end of 1941 and probably into even into 1942 when they were replaced by the C1 though some units may well have thinned down the yellow outer ring.. In the meantime I have spotted what I think is an error by Airfix - they have moulded the locating holes for the two radio masts on the centreline, when my sources suggest they were, like the D/F loop, well over to Starboard!. Pete

Except for a bit of tidying up and of course the rudders, all the main painting is now done. I have used Xtracrylic Dark Earth, Dark Green and Night. Like their white which has a slight touch of yellow the black has a hint of blue. In both cases they still look white/black but it tones them down just a little compared with the bog standard colours. So now it is close to having the decs put on. As most of you will know, In 1938 the roundels changed to mostly what we call small B type red/blue ones - not sure if that is an official name or not. By the start of the war many planes were carrying the large A1 red/white/blue/yellow ones on the upper wings and fuselage and had A Type ones under the wings and large white serials. The underwing markings were removed fairly early on, and the upper wing roundels switched back to a large B type, and at the time this plane is being modelled, in March 1940, fin flashes were just beginning to make an appearance on Whitleys, initially the full height of the vertical tail though that would be reduced to the more common rectangular flash fairly quickly. On some squadrons attempts were made to "dull down" the markings, either by reducing the amount of white or overpainting it with blue. On this machine it seems that the outer yellow ring may have been overpainted instead though sources disagree on that point. Airfix provide a dec with the yellow overpainted so will see what that looks like - I may end up with a normal A1 roundel as shown in Warpaint! Pete