To spice up my collection of 1/48 WWII Japanese aircraft, I decided to add the Nakajima / Hayabusa Ki-II 43 from Hasegawa Models. Went to my local hobby shop for some supplies but this model caught my attention. Later at home, I discovered that I’ve got it for a very good price ($21.00 + tax). For its age, the kit offers a fair amount of detail. The cockpit has enough detail to make jealous more modern kits. The downside is that most of these details will not be seen if you choose to display your canopy closed. Even with the canopy open, there is little room to see what’s in there. As seen on the WIP pictures, you can see the detail. I took the time to paint it but didn’t bother to give it a sludge wash. Instead, I used PRISMACOLOR Gray and Silver pencils to make some scuff marks.
The kit:
In general, the kit has some nice surface detail, the panel lines are receded with positionable flaps. Both halves of the fuselage fit perfectly. If you take care during the fuselage join step, you’ll have a very little sanding to do next. Also, the wing to fuselage fit is very good as well.
Make sure you align well the 2 engine halves. They have 4 molded small prongs on each side that you will glue and slide into the cowling. How well the cowling aligns to the fuselage will depend on this. No big deal but worth a heads up.
The cockpit was painted using Tamiya Cockpit Green XF-71. The instrument panel has some nice receded detail (see the pictures below); it is up to the modeler to either dry brush it or use the decals provided with the model kit. I used the decals and if you do the same, have a strong nice decal solution. In this case, I did used Walters SOLVASET.
Colors and Markings
The kit comes with a decal set with markings for 2 aircraft:
-54th Flight Regiment 2nd Squadron, aircraft of Captain Yukichi Kitakoga. June 1944, Kashiwabara Air Base in Horomushiro Island.
– 54th Flight Regiment 3rd Squadron, aircraft of Captain Hisashi Koshiishi, Spring 1944, Kashiwabara Air Base Horomushiro Island.
Painting the Hayabusa Ki-II OSCAR
Here is the trick, the color calling from these kits including some Tamiya kits are not to be trusted 100%. These kits were released back in the 70’s. Some of the colors we use today come from research on the subjects and many of them were not even available when these kits were originally released. For example, when you check in the instructions for the color of the propeller, it calls #131 Propeller Color.
Well, that is not so helpful, isn’t it? With so limited pictures of the time of the Nakajima on-line, it is hard to see what the underside color is. Some planes were painted with a light gray shade while many were left in natural aluminum. After reading this interesting article about the Nakajima, I literally took artistic license.
This model was painted using as base color, ALCLAD 2 Duraluminum ALC-102. Alclad is very resistant and dries very fast. 15 minutes later I was masking to paint the anti-glare section using Model Master Acryl Interior Black. For the green streaks and blotches, I used Tamiya J.A. Green XF-13. Because Alclad 2 is a very thin and smooth Lacquer, it makes the green blotches look thick by comparison. To overcome this, I used and Squadron finishing stick # 30507.
I used the gray side and buffered wet the green spots, make sure to do it wet. Clean the surface with purified drinking water, avoid tap water with chlorine. Once the model was dry, I coated it with Alclad 2 AQUA GLOSS ALC-600. It does not ruin the metal effect, dries fairly fast so decals can be applied faster. Once the decals were placed and dry, I did airbrush more AQUA GLOSS 600 over the decals to protect them from the upcoming wash.
Wash:
As I mentioned above, Alclad 2 Aqua Gloss was used to keep the metal finish from being ruined and leave the surface ready for decals. Once the decals were placed and weathered, I sprayed another coat of ALC-600 just over the decals and not the entire model. Aqua Gloss dries fairly quick but it was late and I decided to leave it to cure overnight. The next day, a wash with WINSTON & NEWTON Lamp Black oil was applied.
To seal it up and matte down the sheen on the model, a last coat of Alclad 2 Klear Kote Semi-Matte LC-312. The reason why an oil wash was given, is because the Aqua Gloss unlike the rest of the Alclad 2 sealers is water based.
Finished 1/48 Nakajima Hayabusa Ki-II 43
Comments and or questions about this topic can be left below.