Building Tamiya's 1/48 N1K1 George
By Djordje Nikolic
Overview
The Kawanishi N1K1 George was considered by both its pilots and opponents to be one of the finest land-based fighters flown by the Japanese during World War 2. It was both heavily armed and well protected, standing out from the typical Japanese aircraft designs that included light weapons and little to no armor.
The Build
Tamiya's model of the N1K1 in 1/48th scale is a great representation of the real thing. As usual, Tamiya is right on the spot with respect to all the details, fit and finish. It was a pleasure building this kit. No major difficulties were observed. The interior was painted and weathered and to complete the already nice amount of details in the kit, I added photoetch seal belts from Eduard.
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The model was painted with Model Master gray primer and then pre-shaded with black-grey (Schwarzgrau) RLM66. I find that RLM66 shows well beneath most colors and tend to use it solely for pre-shading. After this was dry, I painted the underside and top with Model Master enamels from the IJA line.
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After a coat of Future, it was time to place decals. These laid down well only after being soaked with ample amount of Mr. Mark Softener. I hope Tamiya figures out their decals soon as they are, on some models, just too thick. After another coat of Future, it was time to do the weathering. I used a Vallejo brown shade of wash for the panel lines and an AK Interactive grime shade for streaking. Once all the weathering was complete, I applied a final layer of Model Master flat coat to blend all the colors.
This was also the first model I used AK Interactive's set (which comes with three different products) for weathering the landing gear and I have to say that I am very happy with this set and will continue to use it in the future.
Conclusion
I am happy with how this kit came out. I experimented with several different products and in my opinion, it paid off.