Hasegawa

1/48 Nakajima B5N 1-2 Kate

Kit Number: 09844

Reviewed by  Fred A. Amos, IPMS# 6672

MSRP: $52.95 Kit provided by Dragon Models USA : Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Design of the B5N began in 1935 with the Hikari radial powered B5N1 and was accepted in November 1937. Mated with the Sakae radial the B5N2 was accepted in December 1939. Flying from all six carriers of Nagumo's task force, struck a crippling blow to the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The B5N Kate kit is of typical Hasegawa quality for fit of parts, assembly, and decals. It comes with to engine choices, the earlier Hikari radial as the B5N1 or the larger circumference Sakae radial of the B5N2. I chose to build the B5N1 and may do the B5N2 at a later date. As always, construction begins in the cockpit. Floor and sidewalls are adequately detailed with a lot of small parts added to fill in the open spaces. You will want to paint the sides and floor and let them dry while you are painting the smaller pieces. Be careful not to forget to any of the smaller pieces as I did. I forgot to place the bombsight and ammunition drums on the sides and had to do it after the sides were in place. Decals are provided for the instrument panel and radio faces. But once painted and assembled, the large open cockpit looks busy. Of course, not too much is visible when the fuselage is closed up. The interior fits into the fuselage like a glove. I left the machine gun and it's mount out of the fuselage until just before gluing the canopy in place. If you choose the open canopy the gun is in the up position. If the canopy is closed the gun would rotate to the inside of the cockpit. It can be squeezed into place after the fuselage is joined. Also at this time glue the windows into the sides of the fuselage. Of course in the meantime you could have been putting the wing together. You will have two options as to bomb loads and their racks so at this point it is a good idea to drill the appropriate holes in the lower wing part. You also have the option of having the landing flaps up or down. I chose to put the in the down position but now I wish I had left them up. Fit of the wing parts is good; the only problem I encountered was that the holes for the flaps needed to be cleaned out for a better fit. Don't forget the observation window on the bottom. Fit of the wings and stabilizers to the fuselage was very good but I felt that a little putty was needed at the wing roots. To avoid loosing surface detail I used a rag soaked in denatured alcohol to wipe down the body putty I use. It takes a bit of intense rubbing but it saves clean up of the details later. As I said earlier, I chose the closed cockpit. However a word of warning is due here. While trimming the Tamiya tape with a sharp #11 blade I felt and heard a crack. The canopy split on one side half way between front and rear. Fortunately it didn't go all the way across so I was able to get it glued to the fuselage with out breaking it the rest of the way. Leaving the engine and cowling of I sprayed a primer coat to look for problems. I painted the nose area and cowling flat black and when dry I used a quarter as a template and cut a mask for the black area in front of the windshield. Then I painted the bottom the suggested Gunze Sanyo number 56. With that dry I masked the bottom and painted the topside with Gunze Sanyo 59 ( IJN Green) because I have no Gunze number15 in my collection of paint. I probably should have toned it down with a little white. After a liberal coat of Future the decals were applied in place. The decals are in registry and fit well except at the rudder. I couldn't get the forward ends to meet so I cut a small scrap from the other yellow markings and joined the decal at the forward base of the rudder. After the decals had dried I sprayed the model with a liberal coat of Testors Dullcoat. After that was dry I finished assembling the engine, cowling and other small details. Once again Hasegawa has delivered a great model of a World War Two aircraft. I can heartily recommend this kit to a modeler with a basic assembly experience. A big thank you to Dragon Models U.S.A. for providing the kit to the IPMS/USA Reviewer Corps.