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Showing results for tags 'Kawanishi N1K2-J (George)'.
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Hello all, This is only my second build of the year. It is Hasegawa’s 1/72 Kawanishi Shiden-Kai (George). The moulds are from the 1980s and there was a lot of flash, but the fit was OK and the engraved detail quite fine. I like these older Hasegawa and Fujimi kits. This was my first attempt at adding “rivets”. Here are some images I used for reference: As I was about to add the decals, I read somewhere (probably on Nick Millman's excellent Aviation of Japan site), that the identifying stripes on the fuselage were actually white, so these were hand-painted after masking rather than using the decals. Not the neatest, granted, but I couldn't live with the yellow or red stripes once I knew. Please don’t tell me that the lettering should also be white rather than yellow! Pilot figure (actually a chimaera of two figures): The Red Box IJN pilot and groundcrew set (fantastic detail and poses, but the plastic was a pain to work with). Paints: mostly Tamiya, Lifecolor and Vallejo IJN set. Decals: kit’s with MicroSet and MicroSol. I had problems getting them to conform (and have the hinomaru stay in one piece). Weathering: silver pencil before clear coating, then oil washes. Base: blue-tinted resin with metal weights, cotton wool (for clouds or white caps – whatever), acrylic rod and rare-earth magnets. Modifications: scratch-built cockpit details, mostly from stretched sprue and offcuts; kit canopy came as one piece, so that was cut in thirds; “invisible thread” for the aerial. I also used strips of painted decal for the framing of the canopy (after clear-coating them). It was fiddly, but better than masking or hand-painting. Exhaust pipes and cannons were drilled out with a pin vice. Here is a photo of the George kit from a post on another forum to give you an idea of the amount of cockpit detail (not much): The finished model: And some in the wind tunnel : I may try some outdoor shots and update the photos in a couple of days. Feedback and constructive criticism welcome. Thanks for looking! Regards, David