Kawasaki Ki45Kai Koh Isamu Kashiide

Steffen Arndt
Another really old project.

Steffen Arndt
Besides Eduard Masks and PE I will also use Gators paint masks for the camo blotches and Miracle Masks for the Hinomarus .. .btw there is an old buildlog on Aeroscale just in case someone wants to have a look

Steffen Arndt
Yesterday I started to build the engines. These are pretty simple but you won't see much of it once installed. The engine was painted Iron and buffed a little with a paint brush. The crankcase was painted neutran grey and for the cooler I got a citadel paint that is some kind of bronze. I lost the polycaps over the years but that should be o.k.. In the 2nd picture I had applied a dark grey wash to enhance the details

Steffen Arndt
With the engines on it ist time to think about painting. I started to attach the fixed canopy parts. I am still not sure how I will protect the inside, but one thing after the other. Application of the Eduard masks will also take some time.

Steffen Arndt
Next I airbrusched the white for the home defence bands and yellow wing markings.

Steffen Arndt
Some more paint and some masking tape applied

Steffen Arndt
I airbrushed the upper side Kawasaki Green (Gunze laquer H130). Now I need to organize myself some transfer masking tape for gators masks (which represent pretty much Kashiides Ki 45 which shows especially at the tail)

Steffen Arndt
Today I got the masking tape and started to apply the Gators Masks. Sadly these are very (VERY) low tack and do not really stick to the model thus the stickiness of the masking tape is too much to peel it of the model leaving the camo masks on. That means I will have to apply each dot individually ... that will be tedious 🙁

Steffen Arndt
as I feared this is most annoying... I am not a big fan of vinyl masks anyway but these are very inflexible and do not stick. A piece of paper would be equally good. The tail masks are oversize so i just used the new mig masking fluid. It works o.k. and all in all it is like Maskol. Not sure how to mask the fuselage (yet) it is oval and I am pretty sure the masks will be little help

Steffen Arndt
Not the best paint job ever, but I am really happy how it turned out. Best thing: I kept the spirit and pushed it through today. Still a few touch-ups needed and next will be airnbrushing the Hinomarus with Mal Mayfields Miracle Masks set...

Steffen Arndt
I had ro repaint the wing Hinumarus as I positioned them wrong in the first try and I also got to make the white fuselage band smaller (I also thought first i did the meat ball wrong, but the band was wide when compared to the picture of the real thing)

Steffen Arndt
Sadly teh decals from Aviprints Set are too much work to adjust for Kashiides plane. So I looked though my stash and found Haseawa 07363 Ki 45 with projection cannon. Sometimes i am lucky so the spare decal that I do not want to use is close enough so I can make it immitate the correct markings with just a few cuts

Steffen Arndt
decals applied, not stellar, but looks o.k.

Steffen Arndt
Today I added a sludge wash with Tamiyas Black, dark brown and dark grey washes

Steffen Arndt
I could not build over the weekend, but this is the state from Friday. I had attached the undercarriage by then. Still need to optimize the flat spot on the main wheels and add one to the tail wheel

Munkyslut
Flat spots........ details I would never have considered!

Steffen Arndt
Well, the kit just has a more realistic stand when the wheels have a flat spot where they touch the surface ... in most cases it is not necessary to have bulged wheels

Steffen Arndt
Over the past week I have added many small parts to the kit and I replaced the pitot with steel tubes from Albion Alloys for better strength. The I gave the whole thing a flat coat with Gunzes smooth flat stuff

Steffen Arndt
Today I have de-masked the canopy and added some small parts like the belly gun, position lights, tail light and the open canopy parts. I have attached the antenna mast and painted it the light colour

Steffen Arndt
Now it is getting a bit tedious adding all the small parts. I had to drill a hole for the red position light on top of the fuselage. This was a bit risky, but the clear part fit perfectly, though the glue washed away the silver on the backside. On the lower hull I needed to droll a hole for the crew step. The position light was glued on using Gators glue. Lastly the nose guns were attached.

I still need to mount a few fiddly parts as the gunsight and the PE Parts for the canopies

Steffen Arndt
some of the last PE parts added. These give a nice touch to the gun and open canopy

Steffen Arndt
on the last picture i noticed that i forgot to paint the frames from the sides, which i meanwhile did

Steffen Arndt
Adding the final bits was most exhausting. The tiny auxiliary gun sight was twice on Eduards PE set. I lost both to the carpet monster but I was able to find one and rescue it from that villain. Had to search it again at least 3 times .. but finally I won that battle.

The antenna was a breeze in comparison. I drilled a hole into the fin and added a 0.02mm steel wire which was shaped with some more cyanacrylate. The wire itself is Uschi von der Rosten Rigging wire fine for the horizontal and stretched sprue for the vertical part. I added some gators glue on the front end of the wire painted silver to simulate a spring.

now finally I call it done.

Munkyslut
"...... carpet monster" haaahaha!!!