1/48 Nichimo Ki-43-1 "Hayabusa" （Oscar)
The Nichimo Oscar has been around since the 1970's and in my opinion is the best Ki-43-1 kit to date. While out of production, they are quite easy to find on the model show circuit. I made some minor improvements to the cockpit, this biggest is cutting the front of the floor off and flipping this piece upside down to raise the cockpit floor, otherwise it is quite deep. I also replaced the kits oversized instrument panels with a resin copy from Hasegawa Ki-43-1. The kit is one of the best fitting kits I have built and this lends to rather quick construction. Since the kit has wonderful exterior detailing, it lends itself quite nicely to a bare metal finish. There is a slight pebbly texture to the parts that some may want to polish off, I chose not to. I painted the model in a few light coats of Floquil Old Silver. After letting this dry for a few days I began to buff and polish the paint with pencil graphite, SNJ aluminum buffing powder, and brown chalk pastel. I plan to have the kit completed for the May contest deadline.
Michael Furry - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Update #2
The polishing and buffing continues. I systematically work my way around the model working on a small area at a time. Masking over polished areas will leave a slight distortion to the polished and buffed areas. Simply re-buffing those areas with a small amount of graphite will restore the finish. Masking the clear parts provided a bit of a challenge since the corners are rounded. I still need to paint the rear of the canopy (I did not pay close attention when masking). Hopefully by the end of the week I can get the markings painted and start working on the bottom of the model.
Update #3
All of the markings were painted using stencils cut on a plotter cutter. My good friend Charlie Swank designed and cut these for me. The tail marking is 24 Sentai 2nd Chutai. This aircraft is depicted in the Czech publication Japanese Army Air Force Units Volume 1. According to the text, the aircraft I modeled was based in Formosa in 1942. I cannot verify the validity of this, I just liked how the red markings contrast with the natural metal finish. The wheels were weathered with light brown pastel chalk manipulated with water. The scratches on the drop tank were simulated with water color. I tried this method in order to keep the effect restrained. I will begin to polish the bottom of the aircraft to the same effect as the top but use a bit more brown pastel to simulate mud and dirt.
Thank you all for commenting!
Update #4
As I stated in an earlier post, Nichimo's Ki-43 is probably one of the best fitting model kits ever produced. Some of the detail is a bit questionable, but nonetheless, this kit will provide hours of trouble free modeling. I enhanced the kit by adding seat belts to the seat, replaced the over scaled instrument panels, raised the cockpit floor, added break lines to the landing gear, added mounting posts to the drop tanks, and finally replaced the molded on landing gear indicator pins with wire. All of the markings were painted. These were designed and cut on a plotter cutter. I elected to leave the wing landing light simply because I like the way it looks. Thank you to all for the previous comments and suggestions.
I spent some time observing my aerial wire lead-ins and decided that the white was too stark. I took the plunge and removed the entire antenna/aerial assembly and set off to create a better representation. I made the tail attachment out of thin wire bent into an L shape. I then coiled thin beading wire around the l-bend creating in essence a spring. I super glued the spring to the L-bend and inserted the aerial wire into the coil and fixed this with white glue thinned with water. I approached the antenna mast the same way. I made a wire coil, fixed this to the mast and attached the aerial wire to the coil. I then glued the tail antenna L-bend and mast to the model and shrank the aerial wire with the heat from a match. I think this representation is more realistic and offers a cleaner more streamlined appearance.
