Kyushu J7W1 Shinden Interceptor/Fighter by CDW - FINISHED - Zoukei-Mura - 1:32

[CDW]

This is the start of my 1:32 Zoukei-Mura J7W1 Shinden build thread.

 

The J7W1 Shinden made her maiden test flights in early August, 1945, after a very quick design phase that started in started in February, 1944, and saw her initial design completed in November, 1944. She was designed and built to counter the allied bombing of the Japanese mainland by high altitude B-29 bombers.

"A superior high speed land based fighter aircraft capable of mastering the shooting down of enemy bombers". She was a single engine monoplane fighter with forward airfoils. She was a design that had never been seen before.

She was powered by a 2030 HP 18 cylinder radial engine which turned a massive 6 blade prop located at the aft end of her fuselage. Her maximum airspeed was 405 knots and could climb from ground level to 8,000 meters in under 10 minutes 30 seconds with a maximum altitude of 12,000 meters. She was armed with 4 30mm cannons.

 

Zoukei-Mura is a relative newcomer to the injection molded model manufacturing scene, and has hit the scene with some incredibly detailed models of iconic World War 2 fighters and bombers. This kit is no exception and is regarded as the finest model of the J7W1 Shinden on the market, regardless of scale.

[Old Collingwood]

Very interesting  - the only a/c  I ever built in that scale was the  Airfix  Harrier GR-1   and  Tamiya  F-16.

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

Oh   and  I now love collecting these   - 

 

OC.

[CDW]

2 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

Very interesting  - the only a/c  I ever built in that scale was the  Airfix  Harrier GR-1   and  Tamiya  F-16.

 

OC.

How did you like the Airfix Harrier GR-1? That's a 1:32 model I never owned, but I did own the 1:24 Airfix Harrier a long time ago. I had the complete Parkins update set for that model, but ended up trading the set for something else.

 

Besides the J7W1 Shinden, I also have the Horten 229 flying wing. Both are from the Zoukei-Mura Silver Wings Series. The Horten is going to be a fantastic model.  

[lmagna]

1 hour ago, CDW said:

The Horten is going to be a fantastic model.  

I think that is the one I would like to see.

 

Not long ago there was a group that I think was trying to build a flying replica. I Think they ran out of funds but I believe another full size mock up was built and tested at Nortrop for possible STEALTH properties of the design. No one seems to know where the real aircraft went somewhere in the bowels of the Smithsonian, but the mock up ended up in San Diego at the Air & Space Museum.

Edited November 25, 2018 by lmagna

[Richmond]

Have you purchased the wood grain stencils for the Horten?

[CDW]

7 hours ago, Richmond said:

Have you purchased the wood grain stencils for the Horten?

Yes, I do have the wood grain decals for the Horten, along with several other detail sets I thought would be nice for the kit. Likewise with the Shinden. 

Part of the reasons I haven't started the Horten yet is trying to decide exactly how I want to finish and display the model. I like the wood grain, but don't want to do the entire model in wood grain. There are beautiful details in both models, but the Horten shell is molded in clear plastic. I'm not a big fan of leaving parts of the shell clear, so need to decide whether to display the model with some of the details removed (such as the engines) or to display with open panels to expose the details.

[Richmond]

Both methods are available, for selfish reasons, I would love to see both the decal and stencil options used by someone on the forum.

 

Assume you have visited the uschi website?

Edited November 25, 2018 by Richmond

[CDW]

10 minutes ago, Richmond said:

Both methods are available, for selfish reasons, I would love to see both the decal and stencil options used by someone on the forum.

 

Assume you have visited the uschi website?

To the best of my knowledge, I have not visited the uschi site.

Do you have a link for it?

[Old Collingwood]

13 hours ago, CDW said:

How did you like the Airfix Harrier GR-1? That's a 1:32 model I never owned, but I did own the 1:24 Airfix Harrier a long time ago. I had the complete Parkins update set for that model, but ended up trading the set for something else.

 

Besides the J7W1 Shinden, I also have the Horten 229 flying wing. Both are from the Zoukei-Mura Silver Wings Series. The Horten is going to be a fantastic model.  

Hang on!    was the Airfix 1/24  the huge one with that sliding canopy?    if so  thats the one I ment   when I was young  my late farther took me to my first airshow  and there was a Harrier GR1  flying there,  he then took me to a model shop and treated me to the Airfix kit  and duly did most of the building of it as I was about 8 then.

 

OC.

[Canute]

I've only built one a/c in 1/32 scale - a Hasegawa (?) FW190A series, while in training. Ended up giving it to a simulator instructor I was friendly with during said training, when I left for my F-4 checkout. Craig, that Shinden will be a spectacular model. Z-M is the Rolls-Royce of aircraft models.👍

[CDW]

I've never built a Z-M kit myself, Ken. So this will be a new adventure building my first one. Something very fascinating about the airframe designs of the Shinden and Horten aircraft. Way ahead of their time, almost like Sci-Fi machines.

Here in Tampa at MacDill AFB, we saw F-4's for many years. Always loved the lines of that brute. She was big and fast, with that distinctive dark vapor trail behind her. Then there were F-16's and now nothing but tankers. Before the F-4's, there were B-47's.

[Canute]

Check out the Luft '46 stuff. Why do you think the Allies grabbed up as much German stuff as they could right after WW II. There is a Ho229 in the workshops of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. Along with a Heinkel He 219 Uhu or Owl. That was the German purpose built night fighter. Earlier stuff was cobbled from existing light/medium bombers. The US equivalent was the Northrop P-61. They were big to haul around the airborne intercept radar sets of the day.

 

We eventually reduced that "distinctive" black trail by redesigning the engine combustor cans to make burning the jet fuel way more complete. Didn't help the mileage any, but it removed the exhaust trail. Only took GE, engine makers, 20 years to redesign the cans and another 10 for the Air Force to alter the contracts to buy the upgrade.

[Richmond]

Here is the link for uschi https://www.uschivdr.com a real artisan, you see a lot of his work in modelling magazines and WNW books.

 

and a further link for SWS stencils from an Australian outlet https://www.bnamodelworld.com/parts-decals-for-aircraft-1:32-zoukei-mura-sws08-m07?zenid=338c4e7d5d3842313127828f5650fd67, there  are two types of stencil available,

 

RB Productions do them also https://www.bnamodelworld.com/general-detailing-sets-model-planes-rb-productions-rb-t029?zenid=338c4e7d5d3842313127828f5650fd67 they have  4 types I believe.

 

I would find it difficult to believe that they would not be available in the US

Edited November 27, 2018 by Richmond

[CDW]

Fabulous website, Richmond. Thanks for sharing those links! 

There is an online shop here in the USA, Florida to be exact, who carries the Uschi products.

BNA is a go-to online shop for me. Even though it's on the other side of the world from here, his prices are competitive even with the shipping on many things. And his product selection is huge. Great shop.

[CDW]

Oh, by the way, don't do a general search on Ebay for "uschi", particularly if your admiral or children are standing anywhere near plain view of your computer monitor.

Been there, done that, and got the tee shirt.

[Richmond]

I noticed that 😱

[CDW]

On 11/25/2018 at 12:40 PM, Old Collingwood said:

Hang on!    was the Airfix 1/24  the huge one with that sliding canopy?    if so  thats the one I ment   when I was young  my late farther took me to my first airshow  and there was a Harrier GR1  flying there,  he then took me to a model shop and treated me to the Airfix kit  and duly did most of the building of it as I was about 8 then.

 

OC.

Yes, that's the one. The kit came with the long bottle-nose as a way to update the kit to a GR3 (?) if one wished to do so.

Sounds like you have some good memories of your Dad with model building.

[CDW]

With the workshop counters cleaned up, Attention is now focused on building the 18 cylinder radial engine. Here in these photos, you can see the photo etch ignition wiring while it is being threaded to the appropriate cylinders. 

[Canute]

Stainless photoetch? If so, gotta be real careful with those bends.  Engine looks great.

[CDW]

17 minutes ago, Canute said:

Stainless photoetch? If so, gotta be real careful with those bends.  Engine looks great.

While Zoukei-Mura is the sole provider of this and other photo etch update sets for this model, the sets are actually produced by Eduard. As far as I can determine, there is no logical reason why Eduard chooses to use stainless steel vs: brass on their photo etch sets. I am not a fan of stainless steel photo etch for the most part, and not a fan of Eduard for that matter. The sets are way over priced for what you get as are Eduard products in general.

And yes, a 90 degree bend in stainless steel is very likely to result in breakage.

[popeye the sailor]

awesome looking project CDW........your off to a real good start      I didn't gt no Tee shirt...  {see what happens when you tell kids not to do something!!!! }    kudos to Richmond for listing those links.........very nice eye candy   

 

I'll be following what looks to be a real fine model   

[CDW]

1 hour ago, popeye the sailor said:

awesome looking project CDW........your off to a real good start      I didn't gt no Tee shirt...  {see what happens when you tell kids not to do something!!!! }    kudos to Richmond for listing those links.........very nice eye candy   

 

I'll be following what looks to be a real fine model   

Thanks for stopping by, Denis!...and for the nice comments.

You didn't get the tee shirt? Well, at least you were warned to do it when the admiral and children were not in the room in view of your monitor. I was caught totally by surprise. 😎 

[CDW]

While I was wearing my Optivisor, filing away a sprue burr from a photo etch part, realized the photo etch is not stainless steel, but rather it is brass with some type of sliver colored plating or coating. Don't know what the plating is all about. Maybe to keep the brass from becoming tarnished?

Edited January 18, 2019 by CDW

[Richmond]

Looks great. It would be interesting to hear about your paint choices and weathering methods as you go through the build. Are you using pigments as well?

[CDW]

Thanks Richmond.

 

I used Mr Color Metal Aluminum on the engine cylinders and crank case, with Vallejo black ink for a wash to bring out the cooling fin details. Tamiya gloss black on the intake manifold and rocker covers. I used Mr. Color Metal Iron to dry brush the black manifold and rocker covers.

 

For most of this model (maybe all?), I will be using Mr Color Acrysion, Mr Color Metal, Tamiya paints and some Vallejo washes. Will use Pledge Floor Care as a generic acrylic gloss clear coat where necessary before washes.

[vossiewulf]

Uschi is definitely the place to go for woodgrain decals, paints, and metal finishes. The metal powder finishes are very easy to use and produce spectacular results. Below was me playing around with them, I made a balsa wood glider, filled the pores with lots of sanding sealer, painted Tamiya flat black over everything and then burnished that down (Tamiya flat black is soft and can be burnished out to a still-soft semi-gloss or gloss), and then rubbed in some of Uschi's aluminum powder. Once I was done I couldn't tell it wasn't solid highly polished aluminum.

 

Tragically the balsa proved much too unstable for that level of surface smoothness, after I set it aside for a month all sorts of ripples started to appear. But certainly styrene and resin and acrylic and other easily workable substrates can be made into complex parts that are indistinguishable from solid metal.

 

[CDW]

5 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

Uschi is definitely the place to go for woodgrain decals, paints, and metal finishes. The metal powder finishes are very easy to use and produce spectacular results. Below was me playing around with them, I made a balsa wood glider, filled the pores with lots of sanding sealer, painted Tamiya flat black over everything and then burnished that down (Tamiya flat black is soft and can be burnished out to a still-soft semi-gloss or gloss), and then rubbed in some of Uschi's aluminum powder. Once I was done I couldn't tell it wasn't solid highly polished aluminum.

That looks amazing! Will be giving those powders a try very soon.

A Z-M P-51D screams for that as a NMF.

[CDW]

This just about wraps up engine painting and construction. Maybe a few touch-ups here and there, and I'm rather certain the exhaust system will need a tweak to get them to fit the exits properly once the engine is placed inside the fuselage airframe.

[CDW]

A preview of the Shinden business office. Still more work to be done to call it finished.