Figure 1. Scratch-built Foot Pedal Assembly	Figure 2. Scratch-built and kit supplied instrument panels	Figure 3. Scratch-built Throttle/Propeller Pitch Quadrant	Figure 4. Right Side Interior	Figure 5. Left Side Interior

Supercharger and Fuel Tank Bays

The kit supplies interior parts between the cockpit and the engine including a firewall, intermediate wall, tubular engine bearer structure, the supercharger and two of three tanks. If built OOB, this area would be sealed and hidden when the fuselage halves are glued together. This forced me to perform plastic surgery with a razor saw and carefully cut these thick panels away from the rest of the fuselage. The remaining details including the missing hydraulic fluid tank and all of the actuators, tank support straps, plumbing and wiring which were all scratch-built using lead solder, copper wire, styrene card and aluminum foil. My general strategy while detailing this area was to start adding details near the aircraft centerline and progressively move outward. Once installed, parts were washed with POLLY Scale oily black from their model train line of acrylics.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Figure 6. Right Side View of Supercharger/Fuel Tank Bays	Figure 7. Left Side View of Supercharger/Fuel Tank Bays

---

Engine Modifications

A real challenge in detailing Bandai’s Homare 21 was figuring out how to model and install the forward and aft engine baffles. These intricate stamped sheet metal baffles cover half of the forward cylinder heads and all of the rear cylinder heads. I managed to model the forward baffles using wine bottle and kitchen aluminum foils. After trying a few different methods to get the correct shape for the aft baffles, I settled on a more simple “artists impression” version using wine bottle foil. Both sets of baffles were then glued to a baffle ring that I made from a CAD produced pattern chain drilled into Evergreen sheet. All other missing brackets, oil lines, propeller pitch control mechanism and wiring were made from copper wire, solder and styrene.

Figure 8. Engine Baffles Made from Wine Bottle Foil

Another challenge to detailing the Homare 21 was modeling and installing the two Cowl Support Rings. Bending solder sections to shape and taping the sections down onto a flat surface, the joints were super-glued together. After painting flat black, the rings were centered around the engine and elevated using rods. With the Ring taped in place to the rods and rods to the table, mounting brackets were made from styrene strip and CA glued in place. Then the tape was carefully removed and spacer rods slid out from under the mounted rings.

 Figure 9. Cowl Ring and Attachment Bracket Installation

Compared with the ~100 parts added to my Oscar’s Sakae engine, this big beast required close to 200 scratch-built and modified kit parts.

 

 Figure 10. Finished and Washed Homare 21 with Forward Cowl Ring

Wings, Combat Flaps and Wheel Wells

Bandai’s wings are much like the Airfix 1/24 scale model’s wings with flaps molded “up” and wheel wells with little detail. For this kit, Bandai did include the main spare that provides wing dihedral and acts as a closeout for the aft of the wheel wells. The rest of the wheel well details must be added from styrene strips and frames cut from styrene card stock.

I decided early on that I would deploy the fowler-type combat flaps to their maximum 30 angle. Cutting the flaps from the wings, the missing leading/top edges were built up using laminated styrene card that was sanded to match the airfoil shape. The flap wells in the rear of the wings were closed out with thinned and shaped styrene sheet. Following photos in AeroDetail #26, I modeled the flap roller assemblies and bent tracks from extruded styrene T-section rod. Extra lengths of track were included for each roller assembly, then cut to proper length during installation. To aid installation and ensure the same deployment angle on both wings, I made a fixture out of cardboard that could be taped to both the flaps and the wings. This fixture held the flaps in place while I cut and glued the tracks and installed the solder deployment rods.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Figure 11. Wheel Wells with Structural Details	Figure 12. Combat Flower Flap and Deployment Rollers and Tracks	Figure 13. Installed Combat Flap, Tracks and Actuator Rods

The weathered interior was primarily Tamiya acrylic flat aluminum and their IJN interior green (XF-71). Green was applied over primed aluminum with a short/rough brush in a “splotchy” and uneven application to simulate heavy wear as seen in photos of the un-restored USAFM George.

The exterior was similarly primed with Tamiya flat aluminum acrylic. On the underside, I picked out several panels and highlighted them with a mixture of lightened or darkened aluminum. This resulted in subtle contrasts between the different panels.

Due to moisture damage to the kit decals, I decided to paint the Hinomaru using a custom mixture of insignia red and red/brown. In order to mask-off the meatballs, I used some adhesive-backed frisket paper and a couple circle templates. To ensure consistent color for all Hinomaru, I first sprayed Tamiya white on top of the flat aluminum, then the custom red. While the meatballs on the wing’s upper and lower surfaces were relatively easy to do, the fuselage with its white ringed Hinomaru was a bit more difficult. This involved using a carefully centered frisket paper ring around the white primed area prior to applying my ‘rising sun’ red.

Figure 14. Painted Hinomaru on Flat Aluminum Primer

The main fuselage color was sprayed with Tamiya IJN deep green acrylic, thinned with rubbing alcohol. After a couple days, I sealed that under brush and sprayed layers of Future. This outer color was then given around one month to dry before any further work. Final weathering was based on period photos showing heavy chipping and fading of the IJN green. This was accomplished with a rounded Xacto blade, a Prismacolor silver artists pencil and a variety of sanding sticks and fine grit sandpaper used to wear-away the paint down to the aluminum primer.

This model has been by far the most involved project I've ever attempted and my wife is glad it’s over. There is much about this effort that I've left out and there are several simplifications, oversights and errors that I discovered too late to fix. With the recently announced re-release of this kit and Bandai’s 1/24 A6M5, the timing seems right to publish this article. While this kit could be assembled OOB to produce an attractive and impressively large George, my research and scratch building based on it have been a good learning experience.

1. Aero Detail #26, “Kawanishi N1K2-J “George” Shiden Kai” ISBN #4-499-22711-9

2. Guttman, Jon, “Mighty Wind, Violet Lightning”, Aviation History magazine, January 2002

3. Mikesh, Robert, “Japanese Aircraft Interiors”, Monogram Aviation Publications, ISBN #0-914144-61-8

4. Lawson, Paul, “Violet Lighting”, Scale Aviation Modeler International magazine, August 2001

5. Dave Pluth’s Japanese Aircraft web site, Walkaround section
http://www.j-aircraft.com/

6. Lynn Ritger’s Detail Page web site
http://detailsite.tripod.com/

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2002 by Mark Mallinson
Page Created 16 August, 2002
Last Updated 04 June, 2007

Back to HyperScale Main Page

Back to Features Index