Sunday 12 February 2023

Kawanishi E15K "Shiun" (Norm) in 1/72 by Andriy Kudelin pt. 1

In general, there is very little information about this aircraft (I found only 10 wartime photos), which made it difficult to work on the model... Also, I found a few photos of a Shiun wreck near Palau and a YouTube video of a wreck at Truck lagoon, which added more info about this plane. And, of course, I looked at N1K1 Kyofu as it may have a lot in common with the Shiun.

The model is a short-run kit from RS Models, quite good quality, although there are some differences with what can be seen in the photos of the real E15K. 


The panel lines are rather thin and accurate, but sometimes they are blurry and too shallow, the surface of the plastic is a bit rough, so I polished it and rescribed all panel lines.
The trailing edges of the wing halves are very thick so I sanded down them before glueing them together. 

The central float has slightly warped halves, so I glued a piece of plastic in it to strengthen the seam and added a lead weight in the nose. 

But when I looked at Shiun and Kyofu photos I noticed, that the float stand of the model is too thick. So I glued a piece of plastic inside of it and sanded its sides from 5 mm to 2.8 mm of thickness - it looks more realistic to me.

Also, I corrected the shape of the stabilizing floats according to what could be seen in the photos of Shiun.

I added some details in the cockpit, 

transparent navigation lights on the wing and tail, 

and rebuilt the engine cowling (it seems to me that it is more cylindrical in plastic like in E13A, but I think it was more conical as I can see in photos or when I look at the cowling of N1K1 Kyofu). Added engine cylinder details - they can be seen in a narrow gap between the cowling and airscrew, but there is an empty place in the kit.
Some sources report, that unlike prototypes (which have exhaust collectors and two exhaust pipes underneath) serial aircraft have a newer engine model - Kasei 24, and individual exhaust pipes. You can notice the presence of individual exhausts in the video of the Truk lagoon wreck. So I made them similar to J2M3, which also has Kasei 20th series.

Also, I changed and corrected some other details according to what can be seen in the photos. To depict the Type 92 machine gun I slightly modified the brass Lewis Mk III from Mini World and chemically blackened it.

The model depicts the hypothetical appearance of one of the aircraft on the island of Arakabesan, with the markings painted on (except for a few technical inscriptions and tail numbers) because the kit decals have a very unrealistic bright red colour for the hinomaru.

AK and Arcus acrylics are used, as well as Revell and Arcus enamels. Traces of operation were kept to a minimum - it is unlikely that these aircraft during their short service managed to get significant paint damage and pollution.


- Andriy Kudelin, Ukraine - 

1 comment:

jean Barby said...

A dedicated work on a rare bird. Congratulations!