This was an accidental work in progress, brought on by another search of my garage for something I needed for an RC project. I started work on this one while attending 757 school at Boeing in Seattle in 1994. It was small enough to fit in my bag and didn't require taking a lot of stuff with me. I got as far as assembling the fuselage and wings, then it went in the box to be forgotten until this morning. There's a story behind this one, which I'll relate when its finished, that spurred me to get back to work on it. A few hours later, she's ready for paint. Since our local hobby shop closed, that will have to be mail ordered. It went together very well, with only a little filler needed at the forward wing to fuselage join and on the horizontal stabilizers.

This is my favorite Japanese fighter.

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Finally got the paint ordered, and hopefully, the weather will cooperate and I can do some painting sometime this weekend.

Gregor, I'm going to try to weather it best I can. I know now why I don't build 1/72 anymore! Watching me try to get the instrument panel decal on was the best comedy show anyone could imagine!

Paint is here, arrived yesterday. Hopefully, I can shoot the model tomorrow.

Gregor, I built 1/72 quite a bit in my younger days when my eyesight was better! I found it's really easy to get carried away with the weathering, especially on a model this size.

Finishing the Seafire sort of put a crimp in this project, but now that that one is done, I can get back to the Ki-61.

I decided to add the pilot figure to cover up lack of cockpit detail. He was painted and installed. The oil cooler is about the size of the head of a pin, and came with some serious sprue attach blobs that needed to be filed off. Some of that will be easier to take care of now that it's installed on the bottom of the airplane. Then I spent a truly fun hour masking the canopy. I just went one panel at a time, using thin strips of blue painters tape. I have a small pair of curved manicurist's scissors that made the job a bit easier. Once that was done, the canopy was glued to the airplane. As soon as it sets up, I'll prep the model for paint. It's a little too cold and wet to paint now, but hopefully it will warm up tomorrow.

The little Kawasaki is painted. Model Master IJA Dark Green and IJA Light Gray used. Going to start decaling tonight. It amazes me that the fuselage antenna and the pitot tube survived being in storage all these years, but the cannon barrels are nowhere to be found.

The "doh!" moment of the night came when I realized there was no decal for the yellow leading edge. This means a trip back to the old fiasco hatchery...

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Almost there...

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Thanks, Al.

Considering their age (the kit is a 1987 issue), the decals came out pretty well, with only a little silvering around the fuselage stripe and some of the service stenciling. The yellow wing stripes were leftovers from an RC project. The flat top coat is on, and I started on the weathering. I have to watch that - it's easy to get carried away on a model that size!

I finally got back to the model this afternoon. It didn't quite go as smoothly as I would have liked, as I broke one of the gear doors while trying to sand it down a bit. There were several moments of panic thinking that one door half had launched off into space, but after a frantic search it was found still attached to the strut.

Prop shaft had disappeared long ago, so a small piece of sprue was substituted. Attaching the exhaust stubs reminded me again why I no longer build 1/72 scale. Then the usual post assembly weathering and touchup.

I'm officially calling this one...DONE!