Yes, soon I too will start to contribute my two Ki-45's to this build journal. But I have to finish up two current projects first... then it will be time.

Spiros, @fiveten
I see you have been busy on your Nichimo kit... and all the extra details you added look fantastic ! You must be a busy man buying chocolate for your QC team 🙂 and they have been keeping your production work in line, for it always looks wonderful.

Thanks lot Louis @lgardner amd Colin @coling!

The Nichimo kit is an old beauty, surely lacking a bit behind the new super duper kits, but it is really sweet. I just love it, my younger son is obsessed with it too, ("I want the white plane" - lol).

I will try to clear off my stash a bit, meaning finishing the "Korean" Greek C-47, which is not that far from the finish line and then catchup with the Toryu (well, maybe even sooner!).

Oh dear, don't tell me about chocolate...a never ending story!

Colin, if I got it right, you wish to put comments on the pics.

Well, having uploaded the pic (before posting your post), click on the pic; it will open in bigger size; at the bottom part you will see "ADD NOTE"; click it; a small box is created at the botom side of the pic; write whatever comment you wish for whatever part that can be seen in the pic; after finishing, place the pointer on the box; continously left click, drag the box and leave it wherever you like; place the pointer on the red circle; continously left click, drag the red circle near the part your comment refers to; at the right bottom of the page press"DONE" and you are done!

Hope I helped!

Thank you, Spiros. That info will be a big help. I will be updating the Shiden Kai right after this (riveting mostly finished!).

Thanks for your additional comment, Louis. I am happy to hear that you are enjoying the Shiden Kai build. It's in teh home stretch before painting now.

Oh no! It's got circular oil coolers...

I did some heavy silver drybrushing to the nice looking engines and painted the ignition cables "copper".

I then had a look at the Hasegawa instructions and found out that the engines sport circular oil coolers, as per the Nate. They are not provided in my Nichimo kit...

What to do?

Oh, of course, modify leftover F-104 tyres from a Hasegawa 1/48 kit I built wheels up 15 years ago, what else!... (translation: dont' hang around with this bloke...)

Anyway, here are the F-104 tyres:

Here is the result (painted copper, silver welded holders to be painted on):

And here are the tools used...:

Cheers! Great EoJ GB!

Spiros my friend, @fiveten
Life has been getting in the way of my hobby lately... I have not had hardly any time to do anything hobby related, including posting on here. But I must commend you on your ingenuity. That is a perfect reason why you never toss out old parts... I have several small sealed containers with various leftover items from previous builds.

You're leading the way with your Toryu ! It is looking good. I hope to join you very soon with mine... and then we also have our monster scale 1/32 Revell He-219 "Uhu" kits as well. So we have our work cut out in the future.

Thanks for these wonderful postings. Your Nichimo build is looking very nice indeed. I also want to congratulate you on your Aichi D3A Val that was shown in the headlines section on Modelling Madness a few days ago. It looks just as good over there, as it does here.

Well gents - you've just about rope-a-doped me into joining this menagerie! I have a Hasegawa 1/72 Nick in the stash... After I move at month's end and unbox the stash, I'll pull it out and see if mojo strikes! I love twins, and seem to have been on a Japanese kick lately, so might just dive in!

Thanks my friends Louis @lgardner and Greg @gkittinger!

Louis, even if life sometimes gets aggressively between us and our hobby, our souls are still in the hobby! So, it's just a matter of time to physically rejoin, with friends always here waiting.

Thanks for liking my Toryu and my article in MM!

Greg, please bring on your Toryu! Granted, it will be a super build!

Thanks my friend @airbum!

It's really interesting to dig into the details of the individual type, or Squadron, or even plane that you are modeling: I had no ide that there was a dedicated ramming Ki-45 unit. Ah, the magic of aviation and modeling!

One extra info is that, as depicted in the Hase instructions, understandably, the rear gunners gun, gun mount, seat, accessories and the gunner himself (!) were deleted to save weight, in order for the Toryu to climb faster and higher to ram-intercept those foe B-29s!

So, the sparsity of the rear Nichimo cockpit worked to my benefit (he he!).

Cheers