Finishing a JGSDF Type 87 reconnaissance vehicle at last

Jakko

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After finally deciding to finish my nearly-complete Mowag Piranha 4×4 prototype, I decided to do the same with a Japanese Type 87 reconnaissance vehicle that had been sitting near the Piranha on my modelling supplies cupboard for probably about 12 years or so :smiling3:

The model is from the Trumpeter kit, which I bought and built soon after it was newly released in 2005, minus a couple of details. I finished it the other day:

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The kit is pretty much straight from the box, except I replaced all the clear periscope and vision slit “glass” by white plastic card because they’ll be difficult or impossible to fit after painting, and I’m not convinced a clear pericope looks all that convincing anyway. All the brass parts visible in the photos come with the kit, as does the tow rope. Some filler was needed at the back and to get rid of ejector pin marks in the turret hatches, but no more than that.

The wheel hubs are missing because I left them on the sprues for painting. I like the way Trumpeter moulded the tyres separate from the hubs, as this will make painting both a lot easier.

All in all, this is a very nice kit. Fit of parts, as I recall, was very good (other than the rear hull join already mentioned) and detail is certainly acceptable for my standards. Checking the box, I paid €12.95 for it, and at that price I can’t hesitate to recommend it — you even get some sprues with two crewmen and three or four infantry thrown in for your money! (Though the quality of the figures isn’t quite up to that of the vehicle, they’re not bad as such.)

As I was spraying the Piranha anyway, I also did the Type 87:

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Trumpeter's instructions only give Gunze-Sangyo references, but my very small collection of that brand’s paints doesn’t include the colours mentioned, so I turned to the instructions for Tamiya’s Type 90 MBT. I accordingly mixed the brown from roughly equal parts of XF-49 Khaki, XF-51 Khaki Drill and XF-64 Red Brown, which turned out to be surprisingly difficult to see against the grey-green plastic of the kit.

Once that was dry, I put XF-65 Field Grey into my airbrush and began spraying the camouflage, again per the Tamiya Type 90 painting instructions. However, despite being a very different colour to the brown, it had almost no contrast with it so I was only able to tell where I’d sprayed it by tilting the model to and from the light … I decided to go for green instead, since Trumpeter’s instructions recommend two different paint schemes: brown and grey-green, or a different brown and dark green. I took Tamiya XF-13 Japanese Army Green, which is a bit lighter than I expected it to be, but still looks good to me compared with online phots of real Japanese vehicles.
 
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JR

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Jakko .
Looks a very clean build. :thumb2:
John .
 

Jakko

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Didn’t you see the glue stains? :smiling3:
 
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JR

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Jakko .
Having only one good eye certainly has its advantages ! :smiling2:
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Jim R

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Hi Jakko
Paint job looks fine to me. 12 years certainly qualifies this as a very old shelf queen. About time it was finished :thumb2:
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Jakko

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I have a good number of almost-complete models that are a fair bit older than twelve years … Worse is that I still know exactly what the plan is (not “was” :smiling3:) for all of them.
 
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