John Haas presents the fourth and final part of his magnificent scratch build Ki-74 'Patsy' project in 1/48 scale. Links to previous instalments: Part One, Part Two and Part Three. In his own words, the finale then:-
'On Finals'
'So finally I arrived at the last chapter of this modelling history. In Part Three I had airbrushed the upper surface in the final JAAF olive green. Now the underside had to be painted in light grey. It was difficult to tape everything for airbrushing so I chose simple brushing by hand. I only taped the edges and everything went well.
'After the paint had dryed I airbrushed a coat of Acryl based satin varnish to obtain a nice even finish. Now it was time for the last details, to paint the wheel wells and undercarriage doors in Aotake. I made my own kind of Aotake by first applying aluminium then over that a coat of metallic green, and finally a wash of dark blue to highlight more details. Finally I applied some panel lines with a black pencil.
'The hinomaru came from the spare decal box. Next were the navigation lights, so back to a study of the photographs and, as I had indeed discovered with other planes, some extended onto the wing upper surface.
'Almost there; glazing the porthole windows. I don't use Micro Krystal Klear as I found a better Dutch alternative - a universal household glue called Velpon, almost as clear but much stronger and easier to use for large windows. The final detail; the wireless atenna - a piece of clear stretched sprue did the trick - and finally complete!
'I omitted any squadron markings, etc. Firstly I did not find them on the photographs and secondly I like to keep my models mostly in a rather clean finish, just as if rolled out of the factory. This was a long and sometimes complicated build, but I learned some new tricks along the way.'
With very special thanks to John for sharing the ups and downs of this exacting project as well as the work in progress and final images of the wonderful model which resulted - and which began life as pieces of wood!
Image credit: All © 2020 John Haas