those look amazing, well done indeed
Hi Everyone,
Took my time coming here, though I’ve been following since the start! This campaign has reminded me of just how much Tamiya has contributed to our hobby. Initially, I thought of doing the 1973 Zero, a fine kit. Though due to my nature, I’d have to scratch the cockpit. It also reminded me that when this kit appeared at the local hobby shop, it had a price tag of 20 USD! With the nice kits coming out of Monogram at 3.50 USD the choice was pretty clear. It wasn’t till much later that I discovered the Tamiya brand. As a winged builder, I had forgotten how much armor they did. Most impressive! There are certainly some great builds happening in this campaign.
I’m kind of coming out of a modeling funk and also have had a hankering for doing some Japanese twins. So I decided to to launch into the 1/48 J1N1-S Gekko, allied code name Irvin.
I did purchase the Montex mask set, and while it has the canopy masks, I’ve found that they don’t perform very well. So, I added an Eduard mask set as well. I’m excited to use the masks to do a complete painted bird, with decals only for the interior of the bird. I feel good about this, so let’s see how it goes!
Till next time, be safe, wash your hands with soap and water, drain your compressor, and above all else have fun!
I managed to get some more bench time. Got the A-8 painted up. I had a dab at post shading and panel shading. While I’m happy with the results, I feel I still have lots of room for improvement.
I hope to work on the D-9 in a few days (when I’ll get a couple of days off)
Cheers 
I will join in this group. I have the 1/48 P-47 Razorback for my project.
The cockpit is amazing and there is absolutely no need for an aftermarket here.
Hi Everyone,
Raj, nice looking FW-190’s Hope they come together nicely for you. Dan, that’s a fun kit! So, as of January 3rd I began this adventure with the J1N1-S Gekko. This started with painting the interior with a base coat of flat aluminum
Then taking a mix of clear green and clear blue to mimic the atoke interior. was applied per the kit’s instructions. in preparation for the cockpit construction the lightening holes were drilled out
from the pilot’s seat and prepped for the atoke color.
The cockpit area was completed, given a wash of Tamiya black panel liner and added a set of Eduard seat belts.
The remaining interior parts were painted and then added to the fuselage halves, again given a panel wash and then test fitting to mating the fuselage halves.
Once satisfied with the fit, the fuselage halves were joined.
The cannon assembly was constructed, and overall, the engineering of this assembly builds into a sturdy component that fits perfectly into the fuselage. At this time the remaining radios and directional finders, etc. were added. Again, fit here was perfect!
The turtledecks were then added and fit was fine.
It was around this time that I really began to appreciate the aesthetics of the Gekko, in addition, the engineering was well thought out. Next I began to assemble the wings, these are very straight forward, and the engines are real gems, sadly, once installed they will be difficult to see.
The fit of the wing to the fuselage was oddly finicky. With some sanding to aid in the fit, things went better, however, there were gaps between the fuselage and wing mating surfaces on the top of the plane.
Using plastic putty, these were filled and appeared to be satisfactory. The tail surfaces were added, and things were sanded down. Aside from the plastic putty I didn’t use any other fillers on the build.
At this point I pondered using the Montex masks and determine a good path forward to see how these things perform! So far, this has been a fun build and no curse words uttered at the bird! A rarity for me, ha!
Till next time, be safe, wash your hands with soap and water and above all else have fun!
Hi Everyone,
Apparently, I’m a bit sick, but on a roll. So, I’ll continue with the painting of the Gekko. Unfortunately, I didn’t take as many pics as I thought I did, sorry.
I started off by painting on the colors for the masks. I’ve never used Montex masks for painting markings. I have however used their canopy masks with mixed results. In fact, these mixed results have led me to lean towards Eduard masks, mostly for greenhouse canopy’s or go the old school path using strips of washi tape and covering the canopies in that fashion. So, I was a bit cautious in my approach to the marking masks. The masks are vinyl masks and quite thin. Normally I use frisket paper, and these masks were notably thinner. So far, so good.
I set about painting the marking colors, yellow orange for the ID bands, hinomaru red and white. All of the colors are my least favorite to paint mainly due to coverage. Turned out I did three coats to get good coverage.
Using a needle I gently removed the masks and placed them in their appropriate places. These masks were thin, with an appropriate amount of adhesive, burnishing down on the surface quite nicely. Including the lettering.
With the masks all in place, I proceeded to lay a base coat on the bird. Normally, I go with gloss black, however, this time I wanted the INJ green to look a bit darker. It is a night fighter after all. Digging through the paint jar shoe boxes I came across Mr. Color Midnight blue. My thinking was that the slight blue would help to ting the overlaying green. I really like this color, and how it laid down. I looked at it, and thought F6F-5, hmmm. Once painted, I noticed that the left side wing root gap reappeared, so that was delt with and repainted.
Normally I go with a 1:4 dilution of paint to leveling thinner, for this project I opted to go a little bit thinner on the INJ Dark green. Using the airbrush I was about 8 inches from the base of the bird. I really liked how it turned out!
Using my trusty needle, the masks were gently removed. I was most impressed!
I’ve decided not to weather this build too much, minor chipping and exhaust stains. So, next up is a clear coat followed by adding the little things like landing gear and cannons. This has been a very fun build, relaxing, what this hobby is supposed to be! And the wife is impressed that there weren’t any outbursts of cursing.
Till next time, be safe, wash your hands with soap and water and above all have fun!
I finally applied the decals over a gloss varnish coat. I will start the weathering in the coming days.
Olivier
I have applied an overall brown wash followed by a darker brown pinwash to enhance the details. I still need to deal with the wheels and the tires and remove the masks. The aerials will be added at the very end.
Olivier
Today I put the final point to this one. I just added some dust to the underside and the wheels.
This post concludes my contribution to this tribute. I’ll keep looking at and comment the other entries.
Olivier
Well done Oliver. The light dusting is well done.
Beautiful build, Olivier!
A great looking machine Olivier!
Great job Olivier.
Thank you all. I’m glad you like it.
Olivier
Hi Gents
Tamiya makes the best models - at least of the major brands - that you can buy. So I’m glad to enter a kit or two into the Tamiya Group Build.
I’ll start off with the 1/48 BF-109 G-6. This kit was new tool in 2017 so I was expecting a great build. (A while back I built Tamiya’s Ki-61 - very close in shape and dimensions to a 109 and it worked out nicely.) As we shall see, this kit had a dual personality: some of the fit was Tamiya excellent, some of it was pretty bad. It almost reminded me of an Accurate Miniatures kit which alternate between brilliant and bewildering.
At least the kit has very good box art.
I don’t i I don’t build for the camera and know perfectly well that nobody is going to really see the cockpit. But I built one anyway, using Tamiya’s seatbelt decals. I painted it RLM 2 - a kind of gray with a bit of green in it. (BTW: I used RLM2 for every piece that the instructions wanted me to paint "medium blue. Eduard also makes a G6 and and you will find no blue in their rendition. As often is the case, I’m grateful that Eduard allows you to download their instructions - invaluable for camo schemes - especially the complex style you find on German fighters.) The cockpit went together perfectly. However, I started to become uneasy when I saw how Tamiya’s engineers handled the construction of the fuselage. You are forced to install the engine and propeller shaft from the outset. Eager beavers have the chance to show the engine and guns - using the Tamiya combination of polycaps and magnets. I chose not to do so, but I’ve still got a fuselage with a huge beak. Here’s the problem: if the pieces are not aligned perfectly, you’re going to have trouble down the line. And so I did.
I also ran into serious trouble with the wings. On the lower wing pieces you put in the apparatus for the landing gear - which I plan to have down. But the wheel wells are simply too thick - there was no way on earth was going to get the top and bottom wing pieces flush without major surgery. So I did the surgery and the wings came together well.
Attaching the wings to the fuselage was Tamiya at its best - popped right in with no need for any kind of filler. (Tamiya is a class act. They note in the instructions that there is a seam down the upper and lower seams on the fuselage - thus preventing some poor modeler from using up a month’s supply of putty to fill a seam that’s supposed to be there. Ditto with the BF-110.) So from a few feet away the completed fuselage looks pretty good. What you don’t see are 1) poor fit on the lower flaps on both wings; 2) a slight misalignment in the fuselage that made putting the top and bottom covers a real adventure.
Fortunately I had a couple of secret weapons. For a normal seam I prefer Zap A Gap “Super Glue”. If something more complex is required, I use Tamiya “Light Curing Putty.” As the name implies, you put the stuff on - texture like toothpaste - shape it in the “shade” and, when satisfied, put it under a light - preferably fluorescent bulb or, better yet, sunshine. Natch: today was cloudy and I don’t have a flourescent bulb - but a LED lamp put 2" away did the job nicely.
The second weapon - courtesy of the modeling genius Paul Budzig (do check his YouTube Channel “Scale Model Workshop” for good advice on basically everything) - is an automotive lacquer primer - that’s both fillable and sandable - made by Duplicolor: look for “Hot Rod Black” (#1698 availble on Amazon.) This stuff will hide minor errors with zero trouble. It’s also a perfect first step for “black basing” - a painting technique I use for all of my aircraft models. If you aren’t familiar with “black basing” check “Doog Models” YouTube channel - he has a whole series on it. It works really well. Or so I hope. I’ve got the model nice and black. Now I have to put on a German camo scheme - and I’ve never done that.
I’ll report in when finished.
Best
Eric Bergerud
Thanks for all the tips, Eric! Will the black primer also cover some fine details if it covers small mistakes?
Looking forward to see more. 
Duplicolor is a lacquer primer which means it adheres deeply to the plastic. (BTW - it’s in a rattle can with a “fan cap” to ensure even distribution of the spray.) So the details are very visible. But let’s say you covered an unwanted seam with super glue or putty - very visible before priming - invisible after. It’s really great stuff. Again, check Paul Budzig’s Scale Model Workshop on YouTube for details on primers and everything else concerning the hobby.
Eric
Worked a bit more on my twin build.
Painted up the D-9 as well. Tried the panel fading and post shading on this too. I hope to tone down the effect with some oils else I’ll chalk it up to experience.
Once the D-9 was painted, I went over both the A-8 & D-9 with some RLM76 to blend / tone down the mottling.
Next steps - gloss coat followed by decals.
Thanks for looking
Cheers
Looking great, Raj. Do you use a stencil for the mottling on the sides of the fuselage or is it freehand spraying?