Type 1 Army Fighter (Nakajima Ki-43-I Hayabusa)

[Jakko]

This Fujimi kit is now done — really just a simple olive drab over light grey finish, almost everything per the kit instructions even if that doesn’t appear to be 100% accurate according to information I found on Japanese colour schemes. The only thing I did different was to paint the underwing stores (bombs? fuel tanks? I don’t know) yellow instead of light grey as instructed, because the box art shows them that colour too. This took three or four coats of paint, as yellow doesn’t exactly cover well. I decided to finish it as if the real plane had just been painted — I kind of intend to do a Ki-43-II or -III in more typical highly weathered finish in the future, though, which should be a nice contrast.

(The build thread is here.)

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
A very nice model. Just goes to show that light relief in the middle of a much more demanding build can produce something to be proud of.
Jim

 

[stillp]

Very nice model Jakko.
Pete

 

[flyjoe180]

Lovely result Jakko. Your subtle weathering is well done. Nice to see a Japanese fighter without lots of peeling paint.

 

[Jakko]

Thanks, though I had originally bought this model with the intention of painting it as one of which most of the paint had worn off. Only then did I discover this was an early type that would have been slightly better painted

 

[Ian M]

Nice One Jakko. I find it refreshing to see a Japanese aircraft with paint on, instead of the normal sandblasted after a night on the Saki type finish.

 

[colin m]

Nice job. And well done resisting temptation to destroy the paint work - a point at which I might have failed.

 

[Jakko]

I find it funny that everyone compliments me on not painting it as very weathered when that’s the more realistic option for most Japanese Army aircraft

 

[Ian M]

As you said yourself Jakko, It's an early model and the paint was better than the lacquers they used later in the war. I just found it very refreshing to see a Japanese fighter with paint on.
It is almost as if it is compulsory to paint them beaten to hell and back.
I think I read somewhere that the Lacquer they started to use was 50% less weight and gave a good boost to the aircraft's speed and or free up weight for more ammo.... Of course, by the time the lacquer had worn off they where even lighter... lol.
What ever, it looks nice.

 

[yak face]

I find it funny that everyone compliments me on not painting it as very weathered when that’s the more realistic option for most Japanese Army aircraft

Not necessarily the most realistic jakko , its probably more like its the most seen option on models, more often than not overdone too. Dont forget that they all started out with a full fresh paint job and eventually weathered to the very chipped flaky finish that everyone seems to aim for . Personally i like to see a used , moderately weathered finish . The occasion when the highly weathered finish would be appropriate is if modelling a kamikaze machine , as by this late stage in the war any aircraft that had survived that long would have looked well knackered plus the older and more battered a machine the better for the role , it wasnt coming back ,so the more serviceable aircraft were kept for regular use. Anyway i really like yours , a great little build of a lovely looking aircraft , cheers tony

 

[Jakko]

From my reading on the subject, the reason the paint job on many Japanese Army aircraft looked so bad was because they were delivered in bare aluminium and painted in the field, usually without primer or even cleaning the metal before the camouflage paint. This is, of course, not a good recipe for keeping the paint on your plane

Navy planes for use on carriers were much more durably painted, so a heavily weathered finish would be inappropriate for them.

 

[yak face]

Also the navy aircraft had a red oxide primer as extra protection against salt water corrosion .

 

[Jakko]

That’s what I meant, yes Properly painted to withstand the conditions at sea, whereas the Army planes were seemingly as often as not painted by the first person to know which end of a paint gun to not point at yourself