Ki-61 Tony; 68 Sentai

[Roadrunner]

Ever the ambitious chap, I'll be trying to finish this model in the next 9 weeks or so (by September 10th), for annual autumn event hosted by my home IPMS chapter.

Obligatory box art.

[Roadrunner]

This will be built mostly OOB, but with a very interesting (to me at least), 68th Sentai scheme. Scan from a SAMI magazine on this particular aircraft (offered up here under "Fair Use" terms).

Edited July 7, 2016 by Roadrunner

[cobraman]

That will be cool ! I will be looking in.

[Roadrunner]

That will be cool ! I will be looking in.

Thanks a bunch. Aircraft (and armor) are really my bag, so this should be a piece of cake. Plus, model at this point, is already about 75% complete, I just decided to copy/paste it over here from another forum.

[Roadrunner]

On the real aircraft (I have several photos of it), the red borders on the fuselage stripe are pretty ragged; I'd noticed that on several 68 Sentai machines in this Kagero book. Not real sure how I'll approach that particular problem. The Kagero decals are great too, with many different iterations, just the wrong scale. Bummer.

[Roadrunner]

Surfing through some of my Tony books, I stumbled upon this picture. Could these be the elusive olive green tanks I've so often heard discussed? (Scan from this Editions d'Along book.)

[Roadrunner]

One sort of minor purchase that I thought might make a big difference, is the Montex mask set, that would allow me to paint the markings instead of using decals. As it turns out, with my ham fisted, coffeine induced shakiness, I'd never be able to use these masks for the Sentai emblems, so I sought (and found) another solution.

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by Roadrunner

[Roadrunner]

OK, so after hunting down my airbrushes and hoses, i was finally I’m able to shoot paint again. Pit base coated, and awaiting detail painting and a wash at this point. I'm a happy pup! The new Iwata works great, takes a little bit of getting used to though.

[Jim B]

Nice looking aircraft.  That camouflage pattern should be interesting to paint. 

Kind of looks like Kawasaki's take on the early North American P-51 Mustang, I'm sure it's not though.  Must be that great minds think alike!

[Rider]

I'm pulling up a chair for this one.

[Roadrunner]

Thanks, fellas. If I can pull this off the way I intend, it ought to look pretty cool.

[Roadrunner]

OK, something I've been wanting to do for quite a long while now, the ceremonious "closing of the fuselage halves". I had intended to take a 1:32 Camel to our show here in September, but that's not going to happen (for various reasons), so this will be going in its stead.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Roadrunner

[Roadrunner]

Nose gets some wet sanding/polishing/surfacer, in preparation for the gloss black to eventually be sprayed. As stated before, parts fit, though not perfect, is actually very good, leaving little to need "adjusting".

Edited July 8, 2016 by Roadrunner

[Roadrunner]

I had to shim this piece behind the 'pit to get it installed flush, but I managed to get it in there really nice. A little sanding and surfacer, and it should look just fine.

[Roadrunner]

One thing I’m happy to have discovered is that while Hasegawa offers the intake as two pieces, with a corresponding seam, the actual intake has no such seam, so I’ve filled it with surfacer and smoothed it over. Some modelers seem to catch this, while others don’t, and I almost missed it myself. I've also filled the area where the venturi is located, as this aircraft apparently didn't have that mounted (still needs another spot of filler though.)

It's also apparent in this photo that cowl needs a bit more sanding to correct some minor fit and shape issues.

[Roadrunner]

Area inside the radiator discharge, has some real nasty pin marks that will need to be dealt with. Normally I wouldn’t bother with these, but with this model destined for a contest here in September, I dare not risk not dealing with them. In retrospect, I wish I’d looked at this area more closely before I glued the fuselage halves together, as it would have been way simpler to eliminate them then.

[Jim B]

You've been busy!

[Roadrunner]

You've been busy!

Actually, Jim, most of this work has been done for some time now. I'm just slowly doing a copy/past of it here from another site. Model is currently about 75% complete.

[Roadrunner]

Good news, my Wolfpack decals have arrived. Too bad the mailman saw fit to fold them in half to put in our tiny mailbox.

[Roadrunner]

And here the lower front seam area has been prepared for primer (Testors sandable lacquer) to follow.

[Roadrunner]

If building this kit, I'd recommend opening up gun bays from below, before installing doors from above, as doors are a teeny bit thinner than the openings, so they'll end up slightly below the surrounding surfaces. Either that, or shim as needed (probably easier), to achieve proper height. Here the doors have been installed, and Mister Surfacer, (followed by a 91% alcohol wipe), used to fill the small voids around the doors. Still needs a small bit of work.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Roadrunner

[Roadrunner]

Speaking of pin marks, radiator door has four of the little buggers. Thank goodness for Mister Surfacer.

And now dealt with. There was a weird molding anomaly on the trailing edge, but I've now addressed that issue as well.

[Roadrunner]

Surfing the J-aircraft site, I stumbled upon this, a diagram of what areas were theoretically scrutinized while researching aircraft that would serve as profiles during the creation of the fairly recent Ki-61 Aces book from Osprey. Quite interesting stuff, and reaffirms a few things that I had noted previously, as well as pointing out several things I had been completely unaware of. According to this, all spinners were brown, with a few exceptions, so brown mine will be.

[Roadrunner]

Bottom rear seam all polished out now. (It wasn't nearly as bad as I had originally thought.) Tamiya white putty came in very handy here.

[mustang1989]

Freekin cool!! And he busts out with a big 32nd scale kit for this one! Bring it man!