1/72 J7W2 Shinden Kai Conversion

[ShindenKai]

Converting two of Hasegawa's 1/72 J7W1 Shinden's into J7W2 Shinden-Kai Jets..

Filling the intakes for the oil-coolers + vents for exhaust ejectors, in the fuselage halfs..

J7W2_FuselageHalfs.jpg

One of the two will have the gear up (easier to fly around the room in mock dogfights, of course!) I removed the insides of the wheel-wells to allow easier install/positioning of the gear doors, very quick and easy work with a Dremel

J7W2_GearUpInside.jpg

The gear doors had be to cut-apart to fit the wheel-wells, as can be seen Hasegawa accounted for the squat of the aircraft..3" of it may be a bit much..

J7W2_GearUpGap.jpg

This just shows how well the stock length gear fits in unmod'd wheel-wells.

J7W2_LongMLGinWell.jpg

The length of main landing gear (MLG), stock.

J7W2_LongMLG_Ruler.jpg

[ShindenKai]

MLG, shortened.

J7W2_ShortMLG_Ruler.jpg

Nose-gear, stock.

J7W2_LongNoseGearRuler.jpg

Shortened nose-gear. FYI: The Real Shinden's (all two of them) used the MLG from the Nakajima C6N1 Saiun

J7W2_ShortNoseGearRuler.jpg

Long vs short gear.

J7W2_MLGvsShortMLG.jpg

To reinforce the gear I drilled them out, through the oleo and approx the same length of oleo into main struts.

J7W2_ShortenedNoseGearAsmbly.jpg

[ShindenKai]

For those paying attention, the torque-link has been rotated 90* from the first shortened set, not sure which type I'll use yet, depends on what I decide for wheel-wells.

J7W2_MainGearTorque90.jpg

J7W2_MainGearTorque90_2.jpg

Shortened nose-gear well+MLG well progress.

J7W2_ShortenedNoseGearWell.jpg

More nose-gear well detail.

J7W2_NoseGearWell.jpg

More progress on MLG wells.

J7W2_MainWingsUnderside2.jpg

[ShindenKai]

Slow progress: Shortened nose gear wells, as stated before one will have gear-up. -The deleted exhaust ejector is seen at the rear of each fuselage, the white rectangles in fuselage sides are the deleted oil-cooler scoops.

[ShindenKai]

Showing the now flush, fuselage sides.

[ShindenKai]

More MLG wheel-well work

[Mark in Cleveland, Tn.]

That brand kit is a good one to upgrade, I did one years ago.The tires and gear struts areweirnly wrong though and will need much re doing to be correct

[ShindenKai]

Huh? From all the pics I've found, Hasegawa did a very good job on the gear. No complaints. I'm shortening the gear because it was made so long to provide clearance for the large 6-blade prop. The jet wouldn't need the clearance = shorter gear.

[ShindenKai]

I actually have 4 Shinden, in-progress, these are the other 2..also 1/72. One is obviously being painted to represent the most photographed prototype (need to respray the gloss) The other I had originally intended to paint up similar to the NMF Ki-44s & Ki-84s flying home defense, but I don’t like the way “aluminum” finish turned out. Final finish undecided.

[ShindenKai]

Filling in the unusually located cowl-flaps

[ShindenKai]

Cowl flaps deleted and some panel lines rescribed.

[ShindenKai]

J7W1 Piston-Engine placement vs Ne-130 Jet
-Piston-engine/structure drawing from F.A.O.W #129
-Ne-130 drawing from Japanese Secret Weapons of WW2, Ground Power Special Issue (mislabeled as being a drawing for Kikka installation...)

[ShindenKai]

Trimming out the MLG wheel-wells. Shaping MLG doors.

[ShindenKai]

Micro update: wasn’t happy with how the MLG legs fit inside the wheel-wells. I know they’ll be glued in place AND not really visible when its done, but it matters to me. So, I’m trying again.

[ShindenKai]

Vertical tail & rudder mods...they don’t need to extend so far below the wing to help protect the prop anymore and they’d get rip’d off if the J7W2 had to belly in, this’ll fix that.

The trailing edges will be built up to match upper portion. Rudders will be rescrib’d w/dynamic balance tabs..

*One vert stab has a white spacer cuz I did dumb thing and cut the first try with pinch cutters, so I lost material in the process, the 2nd try was just a simple vertical cut w/razor blade.*