Infamous ship-killer

[Torbjorn]

 

...just not sure which particular ship yet, but one of those parked at Battleship row.

 

 

It’s a lovely kit, plenty of ordnance options, 3 variants of canopies and folded or unfolded wings. John has posted details of all sprues here, so rather than reproducing, here’s the link:

 

 

One thing bugged me. The thick plastic which will be apparent on these side windows. I will start nibbling asap:

 

 

 

 

It has been remarkably difficult to find images of the cockpit. I guess I might try googling in Japanese?

Edited March 15, 2019 by Torbjorn
spelling

[trickyrich]

welcome along with a lovely model of a very infamous aircraft!

 

I saw a couple of these built in the Pacific at war GB, gee they're a nice model. Gee the fuselage side are rather thick.

 

I may be able to help you out with the interior, I have a couple of books just on Japanese aircraft interiors;

 

Monogram's - Close-up 14 - Japanese Interiors Pt.1

Monogram's - Japanese Aircraft Interiors 1940-45

 

...the second book is the best. Just PM me your e-mail and I'll send you the appropriate pages. I also have the "Famous Aircraft of the World" book on this aircraft as well, but unfortunately it's all in Japanese, though I think it may have actual photo's of the Pearl Harbour aircraft though I can't read photo notes.

 

Anyway, good luck with the build, hope you enjoy yourself and look forward to seeing her in the gallery.

[Torbjorn]

Many thanks, I will not say no to help (PM on its way)!

 

I’m bogged down with work currently, so there won’t be much happening for a while I’m afraid

[Muddyf]

I have put one of these together and then went out and bought another. Il be watching this build.

[trickyrich]

no problems at all, I'll extract the pages and get them off to you today, glad to be able to help.

[Torbjorn]

Thanks again, they will help.

 

I couldn’t stop myself and went ahead and ordered some Czech brass for the cockpit.

 

Waiting for the postman, I started with those windows. I came up this solution: I enlarged the opening and thinned the walls, and glued a piece of acetate to the opening. The enlarged window will do several things: 1) allow me to be less-than-perfect when cutting and fitting acetate window and instead putty the imperfect joints, and 2) make the walls seem really thin: by masking the original size and painting the rest, the wall will appear to have the thickness of the paint. Or so I hope - I didn’t get further than glueing the acetate windows, here’s a comparison, where the one on the right got its window:

 

 

 

The inside is trickier, but the large curvature of the fuselage will hide it even with an open canopy.

[Col.]

This aircraft and its involvment in Pearl Harbour certainly define ship-killing. You're off to a clever start there with the side window work.

[Torbjorn]

On 3/23/2019 at 9:01 AM, Col. said:

This aircraft and its involvment in Pearl Harbour certainly define ship-killing. You're off to a clever start there with the side window work.

If it works... will be awhile before we see that.

 

 

 

Started at the most important part, the torpedo - the rest is just the delivery system!

Aerial torpedo type 91 with, as references seem to agree upon, modification 2. In order to function in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese did a few mods to improbe stability and roll control to prevent the missile to plunge too deep. These were the pair of flippers for roll control which where enhanced with a wooden glove to increase the area to enable better control on air, and wooden fins added to the tail for stability in air. Both wooden addons shattered upon impact with the sea surface. 

 

In the kit the torpedo is in 4 pieces, front and bavk, each in halves. This is the tail pieces: 

 

 

The instructions doesn’t say, but a second optional tail piece with the wooden stabiliser is also included in the kit, but I will use neither.

 

Why not? Because beer can makes better fins!

 

The fin configuration is also dofferent: the horisontal planes are about twice as long and the (undetonated) torpedos found in Pearl also had 4 extra fins in between. Here’s the assembly drying:

 

 

I put together propellers from brass sheet: two four-bladed and counter-rotating to keep the thing straight. Mine rotates but in the same direction... 

 

Drilled some holes seen on photos (three in line along the centre), but I haven’t figured out if they should be on both sides. Holes for the roll control flippers have been drilled too. Next I will start on those wooden addons.

 

 

I also started on the engine, a Nakajima Sakae. The kit version is ok (I like the pushrods, they look the part and are not too thick) I added a magneto box and ignition wires (28 of them, as usual each cylinder has a redundant spark plug). The ring harness distributing them are molded in the cap piece, so I just glued half on its back and the rest on the cylinder piece. Also drilled out for the spark plugs (which will be ”blob-o-glue” style) on the front row. The others won’t be seen:

 

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2019 by Torbjorn

[Peter Lloyd]

Nice detailing work, and good pictures. I'll be following this the next time I have to make a Japanese torpedo.

[Col.]

Great work on those fine details. Looks as if we're in for a treat with this one

[trickyrich]

fantastic work on the modifications, especially the Torp's. I keep forgetting this is a 1/72nd scale model, engine wiring is bad enough in 1/48th!!

[Torbjorn]

Thanks guys! I’m glad you liked the torp, because I’ll bore you with another installment.

 

 

I added the roll control flippers, or ailerons if you will. The fixed wing was made of scrap aluminium and the moving parts from styrene. In reality, the moving parts were beefed up for the short air trip by larger wooden addons that were screwed to the metal ailerons. There were two versions of these addons, one with the same protusion as the wings, and one a bit larger. Drawings are available by a little googling.  Not knowing which were used at Pearl,I choose the larger which measures about 2.5 mm square in this scale. 

 

The aft wooden stabilisers were made of .5 mm cherry, which has nice, dense and small grain (so I don’t have to paint!). Now, they were presumably paintsd aluminium, but maybe some had forgot the paint(I like the wooden look :D)

 

I glued the parts together, sanded, primed, saw the seams, repeated a few times. Added the sling from stretched sprue.  Here’s a dry fit, with props removed, before final (I hope!) painting:

 

 

 

For the engine, only exhaust manifold missing, but no picture - it won’t be seen anyway. Here is a pic, final wash drying:

 

 

 

Now I’m out things to do before cockpit brass arrives, will need to find something else to waste my evenings on (as the woman in house phrases it).

[MarkSH]

Great detailing at 1/72

[Col.]

Nice touch using some real wood on the torpedo stabilisers. Both torp and engine are looking good.

[Torbjorn]

Was just about to start a Vindicator thread to pass the time, when Mr Postman brought this:

 

 

A lot of brass, and a cheap time-saver.

[Valkyrie]

Great detail and effort loving the torpedo work 

[AaronKSJ]

17 hours ago, Torbjorn said:

Mr Postman brought this:

 

 

 

 

Looking forward to seeing your work in the cockpit! 

[dogsbody]

Looking good so far.

 

Would it be possible for you to post larger pictures? Something in the 600x800 range? My old eyes are having some trouble seeing all the details you've made.

 

 

Chris

[Torbjorn]

11 minutes ago, dogsbody said:

Looking good so far.

 

Would it be possible for you to post larger pictures? Something in the 600x800 range? My old eyes are having some trouble seeing all the details you've made.

 

 

Chris

If you click on the pictures, does it not give you the original (large) version? Maybe that is only on the smartphone? If not I can link the originals directly.

[dogsbody]

2 hours ago, Torbjorn said:

If you click on the pictures, does it not give you the original (large) version? Maybe that is only on the smartphone? If not I can link the originals directly.

 

I mostly use my PC and clicking on your pictures doesn't make them bigger. I even have a 22' HIGH-DEF  monitor.

 

 

 

Chris

[Torbjorn]

I tried enlarging the pics in the next to last post (torp and engine). Can you see any change?

[dogsbody]

The engine one is good at 640x616, but the one of the torpedo above it is still a bit small at 640x268.

 

A number of years ago, on some forums that hosted their own photos, the standard size was 600x800. A good size to see details without taking up too much bandwidth. As I used Photobucket then, I had the uploader set for that size. Of course everyone was using a PC type computer back then. Now, a lot of people are using their phones and tablets which work differently and have small screens. I'm still using my PC with a large screen which doesn't translate some photos the an appropriate size on the screen.

 

One of the disadvantages of getting old and falling behind the tech curve.

 

 

 

Chris

[dogsbody]

Just a test to see if you see any difference.

 

The first picture is 628x640:

 

 

 

This second picture is 785x800:

 

 

 

I see a difference in size. The second picture is about 1/3 larger.

 

 

This is the usual size I post here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Hewy]

Superb details your adding torbjorn 

[Torbjorn]

Thanks for the compliments, gents.

 

—-

I see the middle Hurricane slightly sharper than the other two. I’m using a smartphone. I guess the forum changes the size, because I posted a much shaper image. On my phone, I can press the images and the browser takes me to to originals at imgur. Let’s try an experiment - flipping the torpedo:

 

edit: no, still much reduced 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Torbjorn