Hasegawa Mitsubishi J8M1 Shusui

Not too long ago, an Me-163B made it into the completed column. It was a French postwar glider version in red and silver livery. Travelling with that model during most of its construction phase, the Hasegawa Mitsubishi J8M1 Shusui almost made it into 2017, but instead becomes the second completed project in 2018.

This is one of those kits that were molded by someone else but marketed by Hasegawa. The company was named NC1, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen another kit with that name on it; certainly not in 1:72. But there was nothing wrong with the molding. One curious aspect was that the clear parts take up most of the box, since they include a huge stand. I was planning to have mine on the ground, so discarded this.

Assembly was trouble-free. In fact, most of the issue with this one happened during the painting stage. I started out with an MRP yellow, though it was nowhere near orange enough.

An aside: never assume the lighter MRP colors will cover on their own. You’ll be much better off if you prime in first and then just color the primer with the paint. They are mixed very thin. It’s not a problem with most dark colors that I’ve tried, but this yellow began to pool and run badly and still didn’t cover well.

Eventually, I found a Gunze lacquer acrylic that was an acceptable tone. But this paint really didn’t react very well with the canopy masking. The one thing you want with canopy framing is that it be sharp and have no overflow. This became very grainy (how much of this was the priming I don’t know) and crept under the tape in a couple of places. I did all I could with toothpicks and WD40 on a cotton bud to try and get the canopy polished up, but I still wasn’t satisfied with the look.

It is what it is, and I’m trying to take steps to burnish the canopy masking right before painting to see if I can solve the problem. Still, it looks fine with the other 7 Me-163 variants I’ve already finished.

This is completed aircraft #485 (2 aircraft, 0 ordnance, 0 vehicles for the year 2018), finished in January of 2018.