SPA Modeler

Thanks guys! The riveting work is almost done. Just the upper wings left to do. I've been using the drawings in the Aero Detail book as my riveting guide and luckily, they are scaled at 1/48. So it was a pretty easy thing to scan and print them to 1/32 scale. Which makes copying the rivet lines onto the model a little bit easier.

After the lines have been drawn in pencil...


After the rivets have been applied and the pencil lines cleaned off...


And finally the wings after they've been sanded and a given a brown pastel wash.






Another round of dry-fitting to check the overall appearance of the rivet job. By now, I've scrubbed the pastel wash off of the fuselage so those rivets aren't going to show up well in photos until the end.



I've chosen to depict the combat flaps in the down position although they were only engaged in flight. Let's assume that they could be lowered on the ground for maintenance. Also note that the rivets aren't visible at this distance. Which is indicative of the subtlety that I like about the rivets that you can get with a riveting wheel.



I added some wiring to the wheel wells. The other metal bits you see are from the Brengun PE set. Taking a page from my Corsair build, I figured out that I could glue the wheel wells to the wing spar without gluing these into the wing. This made the wiring work a little easier.

Dedication, with a nice result.

All I can say here is that all of this is going to add up when it's all said and done into one beautiful masterpiece of a build. You're taking it to a whole different level of modeling. Wow!!

It's been a long time since my last update. I'm still around but as usual, during the summer months my mind/attention starts drifting towards fishing. My favorite lake is closed to boat fishing due to the pandemic so I'm not actually out fishing as much as I'd like but I'm still doing the beach fishing thing, playing around with my tackle and doing solo trips to a small private pond.

The wheel wells for the Shiden Kai have been painted and glued into place. Prior to this, I took the trouble of scrubbing the wings to try and remove as much of the wash and sanding dust from the panel lines and rivet lines.



And then I glued the upper wings onto the bottom wing half. I'll spend some time cleaning up the joints, especially around the cannon fairings before I glue the wings onto the fuselage.

Now that don't make much since. To me it would be safer isolated out on a boat rather then on the bank where anyone could just walk up to you.

Looks like you got some good progress done.

I was wondering about this project and where you’ve been on it. Good to see this latest progress update. The wheel wells look great!

You consider 10 days as a long time? Man, I'm happy if I can pull out an update per month!
As always great progress, John!

Very nice!