George, @blackadder57
I remember reading that bit of information when you were building one in an earlier post. The thing that makes me rememebr it so well, is that when I was building my new tool Tamiya Ki-61, I had just installed the blue regulator, and it then disappeared. I don't know how or what happened to it, it simply vanished... It's probably lurking somewhere under the seat or up in / around the firewall area. I spent some time looking for it, and then I read about what you had posted after I couldn't find mine... So it was meant to disappear. Thank you VERY much for sharing your knowledge about the type with us. I sincerely appreciate this, and hope you continue to hang around with us as we get these two done... You just never know, I might crack open the box lid on another new tool 1/48 Tamiya Hien. Thanks buddy and Merry Christmas...

Spiros, @fiveten
Thank you for the compliments, and for starting a work journal for our mutual He-219 "Uhu" builds. I am very excited to build these. Last night I completed the props for these two Hasegawa Ki-61's. I used Liquefied Styrene to fill in the small gaps on the spinner backing plates. That stuff works like magic... Merry Christmas my friend. 🙂

Tom, @tcinla
Thanks for posting pictures of your Ki-61 conversion. I have plans to build one of these up in a complete bare metal finish, marked as one of the decal options in the kit with the solid red tail surfaces. On the second model, I want to build it up as a machine from the 68th (or possible the 78th) Sentai flying from New Guinea. The resin nose effectively converts the Hasegawa "short nose" version of the Hien to a later "long nose" variant. I don't think these newer "long nose" types were in use during the time the plane was in operation in New Guinea. My understanding is this later type came into service and was used in the Philippines, Okinawa and the Home Islands of Japan.

Meanwhile, here are a few pictures of the completed propellers. I went over to Nick Millman's website "Aviation of Japan", and found a very interesting article (for me at least), on the various colors that were used on Japanese Army aircraft propellers and spinners. I found it very interesting that the spinner is sometimes a slightly different shade of brown from what is found on the actual propeller blades. On the late war examples, the spinners were also painted a shade of green, to match the overall upper surfaces on the later Hien's that were delivered from the factory in a camoflauged scheme of dark green.

Following this advice laerned at the Aviation of Japan website, along with that provided by our friend George, @blackadder57
I painted these two props using the same color I used on the Ki-45's. I went with a WW2 German Army Panzer color called "Chocolate Brown"... One look at the color and you will know why it was called this.
Here's the pictures.

Delicious propellers Louis (@lgardner)! (I just got a tin of Chokoladenbraun with my last(?) package from the UK, and a few Ki-61's are in the stash. . . )

As an additional update, last night I ordered one of these 1/48 Tamiya Ki-61 kits. This one is "chrome plated", and it's something I didn't even know existed. It's a special edition model.

So look for a brand new build journal to pop up on the "Empire of Japan" group for this new 1/48 Tamiya Hien soon. I'll be sure to start a new journal for this kit, so as not to confuse it with the ongoing 1/32 Hasegawa kits I have underway here.

How nice would it be if Tamiya used this model as a platform for a new tool Ki-100 or even a "short nose" Ki-61 Hien ?

Good to see you continue on this, Louis @lgardner
I'm especially looking forward to the scheme of the 68th, so difficult to apply.
Never saw these kind of kits with silver plated up forehand.
You will be doing great on this one.

Thanks fellows for the kind words. I am definitely looking forward to the new chrome plated Ki-61 arriving. According to Sprue Brothers, it is supposed to arrive this Saturday.

Tom, @tcinla
I understand your thoughts on chrome plating kits. You are absolutely correct about how the "chrome" will not allow you to glue the parts together. If you take your time and scrape (or sand) away the edges where the parts will be joined together it's no big deal... at least to me. I have built the chrome plated Hawk kits as a kid. I made the Lysander, the Bearcat, and the Mustang. None of these remained in one piece, as the chrome prevented the plastic from getting a good bond. So after sitting for a little while, they simply fell apart. Mine were the chrome plated kits marketed by Testors, but the original molds were Hawk.

I did run into a little bit of trouble when I built one of the 1/48 Tamiya chrome plated MiG-15's. It had a plastic that was slightly darker than your usual light gray that we find in almost all of the newer Tamiya kits. Now for some reason, the liquid glue I was using didn't "grab" and hold the parts like I am used to. It did take a little more effort, only because of the additional surface prep, and additional gluing.

One other drawback is the chrome plated surface is very easily scratched. I did sand (or scrape) the MiG-15 along the fuselage seams. The leading edges of both wings also received this treatment.

However it was much easier to get the "metal" look I was after, and boy was it a lot easier to only apply Bare Metal Foil to these areas, and not have to worry about covering the entire aircraft using foil. In fact, this was the primary reason why I chose to purchase this particular kit...

The new 1/48 Tamiya Ki-61 is another one of these planes that I have always wanted to do in a complete bare metal scheme. This is the main reason why I pulled the trigger and bought it. It will likely need some special care as I did with the MiG-15 chrome plated edition.

Now I would LOVE to get one of these chrome plated F-84G Tamiya kits. I think it would be perfect to build an Air Force Thunderbirds jet with one. This was the main option for this kit, and it's also shown on the box art.

As far as the new Tamiya kits being "toy like"... That's where we disagree. The new tool P-38 Lightning is as close to a perfect kit you can have. The Ki-61's are also another wonderful model. The last one I built was the very best fitting model I have ever constructed. Here is a picture of my completed 1/48 Tamiya Ki-61. It was also featured on Nick Millman's Aviation of Japan, as have some of your builds been done.

I have taken your advice and finally broke down and purchased some of the newest Eduard Spitfires, FW-190's and Bf-109's in various incarnations. I even picked up several of the "Overtrees" for the Eduard Mustang.

They do indeed look like very nice kits in the box. The acid test will occur when I start building them. I do have plans to build these in my "Iron Werke" fashion, where I will have a bunch of various models of the same type underway, with the clincher being these kits will be from various manufacturers. I will be certainly writing up build journals when this happens. So far I have yet to build anything new that Eduard has produced, so I can't comment about them from personal experience. That will soon change.

So time will tell how my building experience will be. I'm sure there are fans in both camps. There's nothing written saying we can't like certain things about the various manufacturers.

As far as Tamiya being "toy like", I will disagree with you on that one.

My experiences with building Tamiya kits have been positive, as they are not as "fiddly" (as reported by those who have built them) to build as what has been described by others about the Eduard kits...which also look equally impressive in the box.

We live in the Golden Age of modelling. I think we are spoiled with how many choices we currently have, and that's a good thing. I can also remember building the ancient Aurora B-29, P-38, FW-190 and Bf-109. Now these kits were HORRIBLE ! They had all sorts of raised details, and even the location for the decals was done as raised panel lines...

You are crazy busy my good friend.

Can imagine it felt like an early Christmas, Louis @lgardner
Great to unpack those boxes and, in this case, finding very nicely detailed and shiny sprues.
Looking forward to that one being build.
Those profiles are great to be used as reference in this case, looking forward to those as well.