Hasegawa 1/72 Mitsubishi Ki-46-III Dinah Interceptors x 2

[Stew Dapple]

Well since there's still a while to go in this Group Build I thought I'd try to thin the stash a little further with a couple of Hasegawa's 'Dinah' Interceptors  

 

I built a couple of the reconnaissance version of this kit in 2016 (where did the time go?) here:

 

 

 

I've had the interceptor versions in the stash almost as long  

 

Anyway here we go:

 

 

Here's the box contents, it's the same for both of them, apart from the transfers:

 

 

 

I did invest in one item of aftermarket:

 

 

A huge thank-you to Previous Me for that, as there's a lot of glazing to deal with. I started with that, as it's always good to get it out of the way:

 

 

Hopefully I can make some progress today  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

 

[Roberto]

Nice project👍

[Andwil]

Love a Dinah, this should be good!

 

AW

[trickyrich]

Arr Stu, now that's the spirit!  

 

It's nice to see a Diana in the build, and 2 even.....though I would have let you off with just one 1/48th beast......... would have looked good with those wee vehicles! 

 

I really must add one of these to the stash one day, I have built the old Airfix one many many many moons ago.

 

Masks for the canopy in this scale has to be a must!

 

Good luck with these beauties.

[Stew Dapple]

Thanks gents  

 

@trickyrich it did occur to me to try to get a Tamiya 1/48 Ki-46 to go with the Ki-45 but the Tamiya kit is rather hard to come by here and tends to be a bit spendy if you want one badly enough... which I couldn't really justify with the 72nd scale ones in the stash  

 

I got the interiors assembled, one with the massive breech of the 37mm gun that pokes out through the roof in a sort of 'Schräge Musik; installation:

 

 

I added the nose-pieces to the fuselage halves rather than attaching the completed nose to the joined halves of the fuselage as per the instructions, I did this on my last Ki-46 build and got away with it, you only need to deal with the vertical seam if you are careful at this point:

 

 

Then I added the engine and landing gear bulges to the upper and lower wings - the kit uses the same wing for the -II and -III versions but provides different bulges according to the boxed variant, as the -III had a bigger engine than the -II and subsequently bigger fairings on the wings:

 

 

Incidentally if you are building this kit, beware that the instructions do not tell you to open the boxy structure for the port wing light when assembling the wings, they simply show you fitting the light in the next stage of assembly, which is a bit late if you haven't already opened up the slot for it.  Anyway once that was done the interior parts were pretty much ready for painting; re-reading my old thread provided me with the interior colour I had used on the -III before, a 50/50 mix of Colourcoats ACJ04 - IJN Interior Buff Green and Colourcoats ACJ18 - IJN Interior Olive Green:

 

 

Mmm... bilious  

 

That's where I'm up to, hopefully can get the interior detail painting done and the fuselage halves joined in the next couple of days  

 

Cheers,

 

Stetw

[trickyrich]

didn't take you long to get off to a great start.

 

I agree with your idea for joining up the fuselage side first, it really does make sense after building similar constructed models.

 

Yeah some of the Tamiya models in 1/48th can be a bit hard to find and expensive when you do. They need to release more each time and then re-release them more often!

[Stew Dapple]

I got the interior detail painting done (such as it was, there isn't a great deal of detail in there) and the cockpit area installed:

 

 

I gussied them up a bit with some Eduard etched seatbelts (these are actually IJN seatbelts rather than IJA but I trust you not to tell on me ) 

 

 

... and used the kit's transfers for the instrument panels:

 

 

Incidentally have a look at the differences in colours between the older Hasegawa transfers and the more recent ones:

 

 

It looks a bit worse than that in real life, shocking, isn't it? Luckily I can use the newer tail markings choices on both models, and will paint the yellow ID markings, the Hinomaru and the 'bandages' myself so won't need the transfers for most of it.

 

Finally I assembled the wings - I opened the holes for the Ta Dan bomb-racks for one model (the one without the 37mm gun, to compensate ) and masked the ventral window - I'm not sure these wouldn't have been plated, or at least painted, over on the interceptor version but Hasegawa says they should be there and I don't know enough to argue :

 

 

Next I'll be joining the fuselage halves and attaching them to the wings  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Andwil]

Looking really good Stew.  Its a shame how Hasegawa let themselves down with poor decals as the kits themselves are usually pretty good.

 

AW

[Stew Dapple]

Thanks mate  

 

In fairness the transfers shown date from nearly 2 decades apart, the older yellowish ones are copyrighted 2000 and the newer white ones are 2019 - the new ones actually look pretty good, they're thin and glossy so hopefully the days of poor decals in Hasegawa kits has passed  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Stew Dapple]

I painted the anti-glare panel in the forward cockpit, installed the gunsight and got the tailplanes attached:

 

 

Then I attached the canopies:

 

 

I didn't intend to fit the nose cannon at this stage, but a test-fit showed the nose-cap that the barrels fit into was a very poor fit indeed, and it required a fair bit of sanding and filling to get the desired result - I didn't want the filler to block the holes for the cannon so I added them now. I haven't heard any mention of the nose parts being a bad fit, so it could be that I am the variable in this particular equation, or it could be that the parts don't actually fit very well - it's something to watch out for if you do build one of these, anyway  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[trickyrich]

how's this one progressing Stew?

 

I'd love to see these in the gallery, there's still plenty of time.