Thanks for your feedback, Louis and Spiros. I decided to go with fully painted flaps as this was most clearly evidenced in period photos. I also made tricky adjustments to the flap position, based on photos of period aircraft and museum examples. Hasegawa makes the flaps difficult to fit close enough to the wing (i.e. without too much of a gap showing). This is because of the way the flap mechanism sticks out on either side of the flap.
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1. Flaps as Hasegawa would have you fit them hang down much too far (as shown). I tinned down the area where the control arms were connected and worked the flaps into the troughs where they were meant to be located (not yet achieved in this photo)
Anyway this was one of many final tasks I had to do with the model fully painted, weathered and decaled (in key places). Quite a chore to handle the model while wrestling with such big components. I managed to avoid disaster. Here is a list of other stuff I did in the final stretch, being super careful not to mar the finish with each addition.
Underside hinomarus were done as decals. The metal coat was too fragile to risk masking and painting the hinos and the Hasegawa decals looked good in the end. No carrier film and good conformity to the rivet detail.
I spent quite awhile getting the decals for the flap boundary on the upper wing to stop silvering - lots of work with Micro- Sol, Future, and brush painting with IJN Green before respraying MM acryl Flat. - looks fine, in the end but quite a last minute PITA.
The engine was finally weathered slightly with oils and attached and the cowling fitted (some repair work needed on the metal coat)
I finished and attached the landing gear and doors (the oleo was polished with rub n buff on a strip of paper (as shown).
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1. I pulled the strip of paper back and forth over the oleo in the gap to polish it up. It made a good contrast with the duller matt aluminum of the gear leg.
2. Oleo is here where the paper strip is inserted
The drop tank was painted IJN Grey Green, clear coated, weathered with oils, matt-coated and attached (some surgery needed to fit properly)
The tail rudder base light was attached.
Brass 20mm wing cannons were painted and attached (Tamiya Flat Black rubbed with powdered graphite (pencil lead).
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1. I uses the kit supplied cannon barrels to test how the brass barrels should fit. The kit barrels are actually hollow and pretty good. In the end, I had to drill out the openings to get the brass versions to fit - more nerve-wracking last phase surger
The canopy masking was removed.
Inner latches attached to the canopy
The tiny wing lights were painted with clear blue and clear red and attached (each smaller than a grain of rice).
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1. Rice grain wing lights in place. Although fiddly, they are very nice little details that paint up and fit very nicely.
2. Other blue starboard light here
Additional chipping done with silver pencil.
Lastly, I took quite a bit of time on the wood and metal headrest. Here are closeups of one museum example with a very strongly defined grain or lamination.
I decided to go for a more straightforward wood grain. I painted the component Tamiya Wood Deck Tan, Tamiya Clear then painted the grain with oil paints - Burnt Umber and VanDyke Brown for a reddish hue. The metal plate components on the top and front are done with Rub n Buff with an oil wash for detail.
I was very pleased with the results.
So, that's it. I am uploading pics of the completed model in the headlines section. Please check it out and let me know what you think.
