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Archives for March 2025

03/09/25 HK-DO-335 B6 in 1/32 scale. Finished

Posted on March 10, 2025 // Leave a Comment

This kit was quite the workout. The overall fit was excellent. The way the wings attach to the fuselage is such that you really do not need to glue them in. However the cowlings were a different issue as I had trouble with the front cowlings especially the left side which I left closed. Both engines have excellent details and it’s a shame to close them up. The decals were a good fit mostly. In the gallery below, click on any of the images to start up a Lightbox display.

For the paint I used only the AK Real colors line of Acrylic lacquers. The colors used were RLM81, 82 on top and RLM 76 underneath. I choose RLM 76 instead of RLM 65. The paint was easy to airbrush on when thinned about 50/50 with AK real colors thinner.

This is the B6 version of the aircraft and it was actually manufactured in very limited amounts. The armament was (2) 20mm cannons in the nose firing though the propeller, (1) 30mm MK 101 firing through the center of the engine and out of the center of the propeller spinner and (2) 30mm MK 103 cannons in the wings. This aircraft was meant to be a bomber destroyer.

The kit was a long time to build up, mainly due to the complexity of the engines. HK plastic works very well with Tamiya liquid cement so I did not have any issues there. For the interior of the cockpit, I used an Eduard set, which was older but still added enough details. Some of the finer switches did not stay in place and were lost. HK give you the necessary weights to keep this big model on it’s nose and not be a tail sitter. I only left the front cowling open so show a bit of the engine. It’s actually loose and can be totally removed. The rear engine can seen at bit as I left the access panel open.

Written by Paul Caldwell for Arkansas Fine Scale Modeling.

Filed Under: HK Modeling, Modeling News // Tagged: , , , , , ,

03/04/25 Trumpeter Ju-87 in 1/32 Scale

Posted on March 4, 2025 //

These are some pictures of my build of the Trumpeter Ju-87 E, in 1/32 Scale

Ju-87 in Hanger
Ju-87 in Hanger
Ju-87 in Hanger
Ju-87 in Hanger
Underwing view Ju-87
Underwing View Ju-87
Top Down View Ju-87

This was not the easiest build I have worked one. The kit is the Trumpeter 1/32 scale Stuka E model, with the long range external fuel tanks. It’s an older kit from Trumpeter and there are many issues with the kit in both shape and fit.

Shape, the main issues is nose chin for the oil cooler which is not deep enough. Also the wheel spats are not the correct shape. I attempted to use a 3rd party correction set in resin for the nose. This set comes with a new propeller, the entire nose and wheel spats. As hard as I worked on this I was never able to get a good fit around the nose where the entire nose fits to the fuselage. Also the resin part did not have the same degree of detailing, no rivets and the panel lines were not as pronounced. One of the hardest things to re-create on a model are panel lines. Yes you can re-scribe them the it’s not the easiest process. After many attempts, I went back to the kit nose and just lived with the issues. If you go with the kit nose, you also can’t use the propeller as the hub is too large.

The fit issues were mainly with the wings. The Ju-87 had a classic gull shaped wing and the way that Trumpeter put the wings together was less than stellar. They mate in the inverted area and no matter what I did, I either had a gap on top or underneath. I chose to keep the gap underneath and just fill it.

Painting was also a total mess. I wanted to use the classic desert snake decal set from Eagle Cals. The paint pattern for this was very hard to work with as you had to paint the Ju-87 in the classic RLM 70/71 scheme and then over paint it with the desert color. I used AK real colors for the RLM 70/71 and the RLM 65 on the under wings. For the patterns I used tape as I felt that there should be a hard line demarkation on the colors. Even though I washed the kit before painting, I had many issue with paint pulling off the plastic. I had primed the kit with Mr Surfacer 1000, and was surprised at how many problems I had with paint pull off.

For desert yellow over color, I use a paint by tru-color pain, TCP-1419, FS-30266. This is an acrylic lacquer paint similar to the AK real colors. It sprayed very well through my Grex airbrush.

Decals were all by Eagle Cals, and they were easy to apply besides the actual snake, which was a mess as it has to fit over a lot of the smaller raised areas around the nose. Using both Micro Sol and Micro Set, I was able to get a pretty good fit. The Eagle Cals versions of the snake does not have red blotches instead it uses the color of the aircraft to fill these. There is a big question as to if the snake was red and white or just white with the aircraft color.

The canopy should have some of the structure internally represented, however as the Trumpeter canopy has hard lines for the framing, all on the outside, I left it like that. The actual Stuka canopy had both internal and external framing and its actually very complex.

Overall a fun build. I have left the kit with the glossy finish on as prefer this for cleaning later on. Much easier to remove dust from a glossy finish.

Filed Under: Modeling News, Trumpeter Modeling // Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

03/01/25 New Models coming from Zoukei Mura in 1/32 Scale

Posted on March 2, 2025 //

With the latest blog post on Zoukei Mura’s main website, it appears that sometime in the future (4) new kits are to be released in 1/32 scale.

Horton Night Fighter
Fw-190 A8
Ki-100
Zoukei Mura 1/32 aircraft models
4 new 1/32 aircraft models coming from Zoukei Mura
  1. The Horton Night fighter version. Over 2 years ago Zoukei Mura released their original Horton in the single seater version. Now they are going to follow it up with a 2 seater night fighter version. The Horton as an actual fighter never flew in combat, and I am doubtful that it ever flew at all. The war ending before Germany had a chance to finish the construction and testing. However as an aircraft it was one of the first flying wing designs. The night fighter was a 2 seater thus this kit will have the cockpit arrangement different than the first kit. Odds are this will be out in the 1/2 half of 2025 as there was not that much Zoukei Mura had to do to the kit besides changing the cockpit and adding the night fighter equipment. However I am hoping that it will not be released in the same clear plastic as the single seater. That plastic is very hard to work with.
  2. The Fw-190 A8 which was the main stream version of the Fw-190 A series during the war and had by far the most number of builds as there were so many variants. Zoukei Mura as stated that they will be releasing a A3 version this year to go along with their already released A4. Both of these aircraft had a shorter engine mount (egg) so it would be easier to release an A3. The A8 will need a larger engine cowling as all the Fw-190’s past the A4 had a slightly larger engine, thus a larger longer cowling. There would also be several differences in the fuselage and wings. Looking forward to this kit, however I don’t expect it to be out until mid 2026. Way out.
  3. The Ki-100, by far of the best Japanese fighters of WWII. The Zero always takes the front when Japanese Fighters are mentioned, however the Ki-100 was a much better aircraft. By the middle of WWII, the Zero was outclassed and under powered. The Ki-100 was equal in combat with both the P-51 (as shown in the air work) along with the Corsair and Hellcat. Hopefully this kit will be out in the later half of 2025. Zoukei Mura has been talking about it for over a year now.
  4. The Bf-109 G4, which was not so natural follow on to their Bf-109 G14 released last year. I had hoped that we would see a G6 next as it was by far the most numerous version of the Bf-109. Note that in the artwork, the G4 is shown with the 20mm underwing gondolas, which did not make it to the G14, even though they were shown during the development of the kit. Zoukei Mura is showing the G4 in a tropical paint scheme, but there are plenty of after market decals available since Revell released a Bf-109 G4 last year. Since it’s possible to build a G6 from the G14 kit, I am hoping to get a couple of the G4 kits and swap the wings so I can build up a G6 with the 20mm underwing cannons.

This is the most I have seen from Zoukei Mura in over a year and all of these kits will be well received in the marketplace. Now that the Kotare Bf-109 K4 is coming in the first half of 2025 the G4 from Zoukei Mura will be well received.

I only wish that Zoukei Mura would release the version of the HS-129, RIII B2 with the MK 103 cannon. So far there has not been any more mention of this version and it’s going on 2 years now. I really wish that Zoukei Mura or someone would just release an upgrade kit to their current HS-129 with the MK-103 cannon. The cannon with the current kit is the Mk-101 30mm and it was a totally different gun. Barrel and magazines were totally different.

Written by Paul Caldwell for Arkansas Fine Scale Modeling.

Filed Under: Modeling News, Zoukie Mura Modeling // Tagged: , , , , , , , ,