My Ki-84 is now undergoing a restoration.

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My previously finished model is now a work-in-progress again. 

This was my favorite model that I finished, I was most proud of the paint & weathering job on this one. But I was never 100% happy with it, and when I moved across country a year ago, one of the landing gear ended up snapped, in the process of repairing it, I managed to break the other gear leg and antenna wire. In addition, the Eduard panel in the cockpit just never matched the rest of the dirty cockpit, I never did the plug wires on the engine, and the gearbox detached itself from the cylinders inside the cowl. 

I decided that it was time to make this pretty good model into one I am absolutely proud of. Its going to undergo a restoration and improvement.

 

Today...

 

One year ago

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Step one, fix landing gear.

 

I drilled out the legs and the wing with a .4mm pilot hole, then opened it up with a 1.1mm bit. I had some plastruct steel core plastic rod, this was 1mm, but it runs a little oversized. You definitely want to use hardened cutters to cut this stuff!

 

 

Pressed into place, not glued until it leaves for Chattanooga. I will also be adding brake lines too.

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Next thing to do, engine wiring. Drilled these out using a .4mm bit

 

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Got this sucker wired up, and added a few oil lines. Looking at this lad photos, these things were pretty simple for wiring on the front. I still have to paint the plug wires and oil lines.

 

Not a lot can be seen past the smallish opening.

[Grunhertz]

Nice my one started as a green over sky but I didn't get the finish you did so it was stripped back and had a nmf I'll see if I can find some pics. Like you I also wired thd engine 

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Yes, surprisingly, this aircraft has some wide color choices, unlike late war zeros. I plan on building my Ki-44 in NMF, ought to a nice contrast to the rest of the Japanese collection.

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3 minutes ago, Grunhertz said:

Nice my one started as a green over sky but I didn't get the finish you did so it was stripped back and had a nmf I'll see if I can find some pics. Like you I also wired thd engine 

My green was actually a mistake, I meant to paint it a lighter more olive green, but picked up the wrong bottle of paint, then found that it actually was a better color match (I was making a very specific aircraft). The bottom color was Tamiya IJA light gray.

[Clunkmeister]

Mark, not to be picking nits, but if you have the front off, IS that a molding line on the box (governor or mags?) sitting on top of the gearbox?

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Yes, I see it. Not sure if it can be seen with spinner in place. I’ll check it out

[Jeff]

17 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

Mark, not to be picking nits, but if you have the front off, IS that a molding line on the box (governor or mags?) sitting on top of the gearbox?

NOTHING wrong with your peepers, Ernie ............. good catch, I sure didn't see that, I had to go back and look.......................... sigh............................

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Ok, I decided to scrape that seam before I closed up the cowl.

[GazzaS]

That is a nice Ki-84!

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Final version, I finished the engine wiring, closed up the cowl, fixed the broken pitot, re-attached broken antenna wire, added brake lines, repaired broken landing gear, and added some dirt to the Eduard IP. 

Not perfect, but for a 30 day quickie build, I’m happy! It’s going to Chattanooga...

 

 

[GazzaS]

Nice!  May you bring home the gold!

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Thanks for the compliment, but I’m really just hoping not to embarrass myself.

looking at the pictures, I could have done better with the brake lines, I planned to add pe brackets to hold the line to the gear, but could not find them, later after I finished, I found them. I also goofed and attached one of them to the backside of the gear, I later pried it off and reglued it to the front. I also could have used something to represent the fittings, but wasn’t sure what. Next time I’ll do better.