1/72 Nakajima Kikka

I thought I'd share some photos of my build of the Nakajima Kikka (ornage blossom) which is available for free over at the Etsutan site. The Kikka was Japan's first jet fighter. The prototype was lost on it's second test flight, and the war was over before the 2nd prototype was finished. The Kikka bears a superficial resemblance to the Me-262, which still leads many to think it was a Japanese copy - it wasn't.

Etsutan's model is low res, so I redrew some of the panel lines (too heavy). I also darkened and mottled the green fuselage. It's built stock except for the landing gear which was scratched from paper wrapped wire. The assembly method is typical skin and bulkhead. No surprises, but the underside center wing piece does require some thought to get right. The middle engine nacelle skin (the one with the cutouts for the wing leading edge) is overlarge. It needs to have about 1mm of paper removed to get the diameter down to the right size. I had to trim the engine nacelles a bit to fit my Kikka's rounded wing leading edges, too. I glossed up the opaque canopy with 3 coats of clear acrylic to make it stand out from the rest of the fuselage.

I mounted the finished model on a woodgrain paper base with tarmac and grass groundwork downloaded from the net. I'm pretty happy with it.
I wish the photos were better.

Kikka1.jpg


Kikka2.jpg


Kikka5.jpg


Kikka4.jpg


Kikka3.jpg
 
Z

Zathros

I like your steady steady workmanship, the results speak for themselves :)
 
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