After a long time, I’m trying to build an Imperial Japanese Army plane. It’s a Hasegawa Toryu. The upper part of the fuselage is equipped with an upward gun. It’s a twin-engine, so I wonder whether it will be quite big when finished. The box is not that big.
First, make a cockpit. There are some parts whose mounting angle is not quite clear, but is it roughly like this? There are many parts.
The interior was painted with the specified color. There are other parts to be painted with the same color in the nose and wheel compartment. If I prepare everything, it will take more time, so I started painting around here this time.
Painting small parts and putting decals. We can see how the inside of the cockpit was arranged.
The Toryu kit includes quite a few decals. Decals are also attached to the small meter decals and the instruments beside the cockpit. I appreciate that it can be reproduced easily and cleanly. I protected the surface of the decal with a matte clear after drying.
There was no seat belt, so I used parts from other companies such as Finemold.
In addition, radios and parachutes are also reproduced. Cockpits other than single-seat fighters are also quite interesting.
A while ago, there was a methane gas explosion at the construction site of Yumesu, the site of the Osaka Expo scheduled to be held next year. There is a lot of noise that they are covering up the damage situation. It took more than four hours from the time of occurrence to the time of reporting to the fire department, and even though the workers were welding, they were not injured. A piece of concrete is flying for tens of meters and no one is injured. Only one public photo. When the asphalt pavement is exposed to direct sunlight, the temperature of the ground rises, gas fills the manhole and drainage facilities, and even static electricity may ignite. It seems like they are making a lot of gas discharge pipes to take countermeasures, but I’m worried.
(2024/05/11)
Although it is a twin-engine aircraft, it is not a bomber, so the aircraft is smart. Maybe it’s because the flight performance is more important than the bomb load. I think there are machine guns everywhere.
The propeller attached to the wing and the landing gear cover are glued together. There is a small gap in a part, so I am filling it with putty.
It’s difficult to assemble the aircraft. It doesn’t fit very well. Isn’t it impossible to put all the parts together? I knocked the glue bottle down on the mouse pad in the middle, and the tension dropped.
The propeller, the ring oil cooler, and the parts underneath are also oil coolers. I make a lot of small parts. The shape of the exhaust pipe differs depending on the painting example, so I have to choose an engine cowl at this point. I want to finish it with camouflage paint this time, so I will choose the single exhaust pipe type.
The landing gear supports have a lot of paint, so I tentatively put them together and tried to remove them, but they fit tightly and couldn’t be removed. I sometimes want to paint it separately before gluing, and this trouble. It will probably be possible to paint with a fine brush, so I’m going to assemble it to the end.
(2024/05/13)
One of the hard things about Japanese aircraft is canopy masking. There are a lot of them, so it is enough work. The machine gun in the cockpit, I thought the tip was the opening of the gun, so I drilled it with a design knife, but the tip part seemed to glue another part to the canopy. The non-transparent part on the back side was painted with the interior color of the aircraft.
The landing gear hangar at the bottom of the aircraft was painted with the internal color of the aircraft. I will try to mask as much as possible before basic painting.
I attached the canopy parts to the aircraft. It is a very tense work because 4 clear parts are attached. The parts fit well. If there are gaps, fill them with putty or the airbrush mist will get in, so be careful. That said, the gunseat behind the cockpit has an open canopy, so I have to do some masking before painting.
Wingtip lights replaced with the clear part. It is troublesome to trim the edge of the main wing, and there is a slight bump, so I have to adjust it a little more.
I also replaced the tail lights with the clear part. It’s too shaved, so I’m filling it with putty or doing some troublesome work. I think I’m almost ready to start the basic painting.
Will the Russian offensive against Kharkov change the situation a little? The United States has accepted attacks on Russian territory, while Britain and France have changed their policy to not exclude sending troops to Ukraine. Putin has ordered a tactical nuclear weapon readiness and has already deployed nuclear weapons in Belarus. Is the war situation expanding further? It seems that both Russia and NATO are crossing the red line of no return. The world’s atmosphere is so bad and heavy that anything can happen. Although the F-16 will be deployed to the Ukrainian Air Force this summer, most of it will require language training in addition to pilot training. There are only about 10 pilots who can train in English. I wonder if a strong air force will be formed in time. I wish they could operate in the Ukrainian language.
(2024/05/17)
Recently I have been playing the game Anno1800 again and the plastic model has not progressed at all. When I added all the DLC to the game, it would be too busy, but it is very exciting. It’s bad. But I glued the canopy and blew the interior color first. The non-clear part of the clear part is quite wide, so I painted it properly.
I painted it black. It doesn’t have to be painted too fine. I mean, should I paint only the complicated parts?
After painting the underside of the aircraft, I’m waiting for it to dry. Since the wing area is not so wide, the painting work is less difficult than I thought.
The other day, my wife and I went to see the “De Chirico Exhibition” held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. It was rather interesting or easier to understand than I thought. The guidebook was as thick as a telephone book, not electronic, and expensive, so I bought only a few postcards. There were many souvenirs related to Italy in the shop. Imported goods were high, perhaps due to the strong euro or excessive profits. It doesn’t seem to be selling well.
So after that, I stopped by Kanda Myojin nearby and bought IT amulets and Rilakkuma amulets. It would be great if there are blessings on the god of business prosperity, medicine and health, and good luck.
(2024/05/24)
Masking was done considering the color boundary of lower and upper surfaces of the aircraft, and the parts to be neatly painted and blurred. The rest depends on how much fine blowing I can do. It might be manageable if I repeat painting several times.
The basic color of the top surface is Mr. Color #130, dark green. The canopy in the back seat is opened all the time, so I pack tissues and do simple masking.
I haven’t done a lot of airbrush fine blowing recently, so I had a little trouble, but I think the paint looks rather like a Toryu. I quite like this kind of work. When I built Savoia Marchetti’s anti-ship attack aircraft before, the painting process was quite difficult, Toryu took less time than that camouflage painting. I like the green camouflage pattern in different shades.
The decal is quite nice, so I think I will use it for white belt this time. Considering that I had a lot of trouble with decals when I made the old F-16, I appreciate that it is well prepared and in good condition.
I think I should stick a wide white belt first and paint it with an airbrush if it fails. Since the total number of decals is not so large, the work will be completed as soon as the position is decided.
There were all decals, including a yellow band on the front edge of the main wing. It’s a little hard to adjust the size. I think I will keep the same color decal left over to adjust the small details later. It might be easier to recover by painting. Also, there is still a lot of work to be done, such as painting small details. Additional parts remain glued to the vertical stabilizer.
(2024/05/29)
The Toryu was finally completed. The camouflage pattern failed in some places, but I think the overall result was beautiful.
I don’t really have a sense of Toryu, but since I play games all the time, being called a Dragon Slayer sounds cool.
This aircraft has a strong image of mainland air defense. In the latter stage of the WWII, the B-29 would strike the mainland, but I think it was one of the planes that achieved certain results against the B-29 superbomber.
The 4th Squadron of Flight, led by Captain Kashiide Isamu, the ace pilot who fought against the B-29 with this Toryu, is famous for its many achievements. Captain Kashiide had a record of 26 shootdowns of B-29s that flew mainly to Kitakyushu, according to the Japanese announcement, and he continued to fight until the end of the war. B-29 is called a fortress in the sky, so I thought it was unbeatable, but when I checked, quite a few were dropped by the Japanese side.
This is the marking of the 53rd Flight Regiment, 3rd Squadron, Matsudo Air Base, Februrary 1945. By the way, Matsudo is about 20 minutes by train from Tokyo and is quite big. In Japan, it is a city in the prefecture where Disneyland and Narita Airport are located.
I attached the rear machine gun later because it was hard to make masking. In addition, there were some parts to be installed later this time, such as the small parts of the vertical stabilizer. Since I didn’t position the decal carefully, I had to do some additional work such as retouching and painting later.
I used the attached decal for the white band. Although the quality of the decal is good, the color may be a little faint. The pattern of this area is simple, so I think the texture would be better if it was finished with paint.
The main wing is big and takes much space. I managed to get into shape again this time. This is the first time since the building of the Type 97 fighter, but I am glad that I enjoyed building it.
In Japan, corrupt politicians are rampant and the people are suffering from tax increases and high prices. The Political Funds Control Law cannot be decided either. Politicians cling to their interests. It’s almost a criminal gang. Everything like this should be listed from 1 yen and open to the public. In cases where bribery charges are applied by conducting audits by third-party organizations, it would be better to apply the guilt-by-association system and suspend civil rights for five years. Don’t spend too much time arguing about this nonsense, but think about economic measures to counter cost-push inflation caused by a weak yen.
(2024/05/31)
