Hasegawa

1/72 Aichi E13A1 Jake w/catapult

Kit Number: 51830

Reviewed by  Fred Amos, IPMS# 6672

MSRP: $18.39 Review kit provided by Dragon Models U.S.A: dragonmodelsusa.com This kit is an old one. The decal is dated 1990, the box has the date as 1995, and I am sure that I can remember the aircraft kit from the early 1980's. The same kit with the catapult was added in the late 1980's. There is a considerable amount of flash and lots of ejector pin marks. About what you could expect from molds as old as the ones that produced this one. But for the most part the kit has held up well. I will start with the catapult and get it complete before I move on to the floatplane. The Catapult The catapult kit consists of 40 pieces of Hasegawa gray styrene with just a little flash but many, many ejector pin marks in many areas impossible to reach. Color instructions indicate a Mr. Color Number 32, Dark Gray. Not having any Mr. Color I cross referenced to Humbrol Number 32 and found it was a Dark Gray so that is the color I will paint it. Assembly begins with the catapult base.

After cleaning the flash the builder must be careful with the location and orientation of the parts, the instructions are not that clear. Part number 28 when glued to part number 5 creates a tunnel for a cable that pulls the aircraft. I used some 15 pound test monofilament instead of the called for sewing thread. This will offer more strength and stiffness for pushing through the tunnel. I pushed the line through the hole in the bottom of the cat and pulled it out and taped it to the bottom until later. Next thing to look for is the parts for the air cylinders. Clean up three parts number 26, place two parts number 9 over the three cylinders but do not glue them yet. Place and glue the end caps, part 10. The parts number 9 should not be glued until the complete assembly is placed on the tunnel, part number 28, because the location of the cylinders is sensitive to other parts assembled later. When placing the sides of the catapult, be sure that the vertical details line up with the bracing detail on the bottom part. There are two wheels inside the square frame of the catapult that the line will go over. The brackets that hold the axels are just slots so the axels will need to be glued into place. The carriage the aircraft sets on is a fragile and confusing assembly. Pay close attention when building it and then glue it to the top of the catapult assembly. It will never set there by itself, with or without the aircraft setting on it. I tied a big knot in the end of the line after it was threaded through the holes in the carriage and placed the line over the wheels and pulleys as the instructions indicated. I pulled the line as tight as necessary and taped it to the bottom of the catapult. I dribbled some Super Glue gel into the hole it came out of and when it was dry I cut the excess off. Then the completed catapult can be glued to the completed turntable and set aside.

I am so glad that this assembly is finished and hope I never see another 1/72 scale catapult again. The Floatplane As I have said in the beginning, this is a very old kit. There is an extreme amount of flash and ejector pin marks. I must advise any potential builder of this kit to study the instructions very carefully. There are three decal options and each a/c is different in one respect or another. Of course, the assembly starts in the cockpit. The three seats are glued into the floor, the floor and seats and the fuselage sidewalls are painted Gunze H-63, Metallic Green. I doubt it but that's what the instructions call out. After all of the flash is removed from the fuselage halves, the instrument panels, with the decals applied, are glued in place. Surprisingly the fit is very decent for the kits age.

While the fuselage is drying move on to the wing and at this point decide which a/c you are going to represent. I chose to do option number three so the radar antennae on the starboard wing had to be removed and while I was at it I cut the pitot tube off to be replaced with stretched sprue later. Also you should decide now which float configuration you will use because there are holes in the bottom of the wing to drill open. Option two uses an extra strut for the floats, one and three use wire or cables for extra support. If you use the struts drill holes in the bottom of the wing and on the side of the float. There is a raised mark to indicate where to drill. Since I was doing number three I drilled a shallow dimple hole and used stainless steel wire, scaled for wire rigging for bi-planes. I made a dimple instead of hole so that I could wedge the wire into place and put a tiny drop of super glue in the dimple to hold it in place. You may choose to use stretched sprue for yours. When the bottom wing pieces are placed on upper parts there is a good size gap left to be filled. Don't forget to place the clear part in the bottom of the wing. When the wing was cleaned up it was glued into place. The fit was less than perfect so putty was needed. There are two holes at the trailing edge of the wing for the attachment to the catapult carriage. Be sure to open them up and know that you may have to enlarge them later. There are ejector pins on the tabs of the stabilizers but when they are removed you get a good fit to the fuselage.

I assembled the engine and cowling per instructions with the flaps open. The assembly went together surprisingly well considering the previous problems. When I mask a cockpit for painting I usually place Tamiya tape over the clear parts and burnish the tape to the framing with a toothpick before cutting around the frames with a new # 11 Xacto blade. But the canopy framing was so faint the frames were invisible under the tape. So I cut very narrow strips of blue painters tape and laid it over the frames. I put Tamiya tape over that and cut the tape next to the framing and then peeled the frame tape away. It is not a pretty sight but it works. The floats were assembled for the option I chose but left off the a/c till after painting and decaling. I am very clumsy in final assemblies so to avoid breaking things off, I leave them off. Painting and Decaling Now I don't claim to be an expert on World War Two Japanese aircraft colors and details so I generally follow the kit instructions for colors and details. Option number three calls for the a/c to be painted Gunze H-61, I J N Gray, which I did have in my paint stocks. But it appears to me to be a light shade of Green. Well that's what was called for so that's what it got. But first I painted the black area in front of the cockpit and on the cowling. After that was dry I masked the nose and painted the a/c and floats H-61 as called for. The bottoms of the floats called for dark gray so I went for a gunship gray color. When dry they were both sprayed with Testors Gloss Coat for handling protection. The decal sheet was in good registry but it was dated 1990 so I was concerned that they would disintegrate when it got wet. But they worked just fine. The decals were newer that I expected. Decals were compatible to Micro Scale and Champ solutions. I super glued the struts into the holes in the bottom of the wing and let it set for a while. I have some stainless steel wire that I bought some time ago for rigging bi-planes so that's what I used for the cable rigging for the floats. I measured the pieces "by guess and by golly". The pieces were cut a little long and I kept nibbling the ends off till I could wedge them into the holes in the wing and the floats. I apparently left one a little to long and got one of the floats out of alignment. But just between you and me, at this point I didn't care. I then super glued the Jake to the catapult carriage and took the pictures. As I was taking pictures I realized that I had forgotten to add the wire bracing between the front and back float struts. Oh well, too late to go back and do it now. So all in all the model is full of problems but if you want to add this E13A1 Jake to your collection, this is the only way I know of to go. Thanks to the fine folks at Dragon U.S.A. for making this kit available to the IPMS/USA Reviewer Corps.