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1/72 Hasegawa Ki-45 Kai Hei of the 5th Sentai - Maj Yoshiaki Yamashita


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I managed to complete this one a couple of weeks ago but just realised I never post it up as complete on here

 

This aircraft is quite a controversial one because of it's paint scheme. The aircraft in question was flown by the 5th Sentai out of Kiyoshu Airfield and belonged to Maj Yoshiaki Yamashita. It was stripped of it's factory night paint scheme on the upper surfaces but retained the paint on it's underside, control surfaces and the engine cowls & faring's. This was done to try and raise the performance of high altitude interception of B-29's but was not approve by higher command.  There are a only 3 photo's of the machine that I know of but the main one you will mostly see is this one 

 

29-1

(Credit to the owner of the original photo) 

In the Hasagawa boxing of the Kai Tei of the 5th flight regiment this paint scheme is supplied but they show the upper wings being brown, the rudder as red as well as the nosecap. After speaking to Nick Millman we both agree that this was not the case. I have painted the model in the best interpretation we could come up with. The model is painted using SMS paints, the metallic's being a mix of Super Silver & Stainless Steel with Steel being applied on the darker upper areas. The underside is a custom colour to make the Japanese night black brown colour. All markings were painted on accept for the tail insignia & text as well as the odd stencil here and there. Weathering was done with Tamiya panel liner & some pigments.

 

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I was also lucky enough to take home Gold in the 1/72 Out of Box category with this one at the recent local model show which I was pretty happy about 

 

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Hope you like it!

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Awesome job!

 

The metal shine is fantastic.  I like how you made it to shine differently based on panels.

 

Question for you, have you seal the metal finish?

 

Certain metal paints need sealing to preserve the finish, but then I noticed it affects the shine (both the good and bad way).

 

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Thanks to everyone for taking the time to comment, really appreciate it and glad you like the model!

 

 

6 hours ago, cifenet said:

Awesome job!

 

The metal shine is fantastic.  I like how you made it to shine differently based on panels.

 

Question for you, have you seal the metal finish?

 

Certain metal paints need sealing to preserve the finish, but then I noticed it affects the shine (both the good and bad way).

 

 

Thankyou very much. No I don't seal my metal paints at all because of exactly what you said, it affects the shine. The only downside is having to be careful how you hold the model as it can rub off of the high spots or sharper edges (like wing leading and trailing edges). Lacquer paints are very durable though and can stand up to quite a bit of weathering 

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Wonderful Toryu! I never really noted this uniquely camouflaged plane. It's fair to assume that the rudder like all other control surfaces was not stripped of paint, which would have damaged the fabric. It would be interesting to know where the lower paint demarcation line was. It's almost redundant to say that I love your NM finish. I just think that Hasegawa's panel lines are too heavy - but what can you do...

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Thanks once again for the comments guys, really appreciate it! I have a couple on the go at the moment (an MPM Kikka & a Sword "Randy") but might have to start another one shortly with a NMF & do a build log once again.

 

17 hours ago, Toryu said:

Wonderful Toryu! I never really noted this uniquely camouflaged plane. It's fair to assume that the rudder like all other control surfaces was not stripped of paint, which would have damaged the fabric. It would be interesting to know where the lower paint demarcation line was. It's almost redundant to say that I love your NM finish. I just think that Hasegawa's panel lines are to heavy - but what can you do...

 

Many thanks Toryu. With such a small amount of photo's it's hard to be conclusive to what the final finish would have been. Here are the other 2 I used plus a 3rd I used for the aerial wire (still machines from the 5th though) 

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Ki-45 Rear quarter

 

Ki-45 Antenna wire

 

I also liked this colour profile for the demarcation line 

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With all the pictures above I think I was as accurate as I could be with the angles I had. Plus I was able to confirm the wing roots were not Black brown & the trim tab on the rudder was white. I also think the nosecap was a darker steel colour rather than brown. The panel lines I don't mind to much. From a normal viewing distance they dont stand out to much at all but close up I can see what you mean 

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