opus999

I was only able to do a few odds and ends last night. I put decals on the prop and painted the tires. I also finished assembling the engine Finally, I decided to do a little weathering. I feel that the color is a little too light. I got Nick Millman's "Painting the early Zero" and the color of factory-fresh "light colored" Zeros was likely darker and a little more green than what this paint turned out to be. I think this paint is a better example of what a weathered, oxidized paint would look like. So, with that in mind I added some even lighter highlights to the paint to make it look more weathered. It's a little hard to see right now because of the gloss coat. After I do my oil weathering, I plan to do a semi-gloss, but then tone that down with some dull coat to match the more dull look of an oxidized paint. I also found that my cowl is probably too light, so I will repaint that tomorrow. There are a couple other details I've learned that I will be painting tomorrow as well. After that, it's weathering and final assembly. I hope I can finish tomorrow.

Yes! We might have a quorum soon! Thank you! Nice to see you here Ventsislav! Thanks Chris. Yeah... 4 weeknights on the cockpit and an evening and a morning on the rest of assembly. Probably a grand total of 4 hours of bench time to get to the painting stage? Of course it helps not having to do a bunch of sanding and filling! Thank you! Most of the credit goes to Tamiya for molding such intricate detail. Same goes with the aircraft surface... Wow!

Thank you! Glad you like it! Well... I'm not giving away my age, but let's just say that Hasagawa in the last picture was a new purchase in my first year of college... and I remember the Ford administration! Thank you, I appreciate that! Thanks! Yeah, I've always been surprised that it was a high performing aircraft, when it looks so bulky. But I suppose the same could be said for the P-47 as well... 🤔

Many thanks! I completely agree, it's so unusual it just needs to be on my model shelf! I was able to get all the decals on last night with some gloss coat on top this morning before work. Tonight was just painting a few details here and there, which wasn't really worth taking pictures of. Hopefully, I can start weathering tomorrow night. I was doing some research last night and found it hard to find examples that had good clear pictures, so a lot of it will be guess work.

Here's some photos of the cockpit in place. Mainly for posterity since it won't be easily seen with the canopy on! I usually use Mr. Surfacer 1500 black as a primer, but I have been unable to find any at my usual haunts on the internet. Locally I can get 1500 gray so I bought a can of that and some Mr. Color flat black to put over it. Mr. Surfacer worked great as always. The Mr. color black though.... I love Mr. Color Lacquer because it always gives a great finish and the colors seem to be pretty accurate. Not so with the black... I don't know if it's a bad batch or what, but it gave me the worst finish I've had in a long time. First, mixing it with Mr. Levelling thinner made it curdle in the paint cup -- which is odd because the levelling thinner seems to behave with everything I've tried. Once I got it all mixed, it left a rough pebbly finish. I had to sand with a super fine micro mesh, which was dangerous becuase of all the fine surface detail. Still, I got there in the end even if the finish wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. Next I sprayed Insignia red and white for the tail stripes and Hinomaru. I try to paint rather than use decals whereever possible and these were obvious choices. I would've done the blue stripe on the fuselage, but matching that color was difficult. Finally I was able to use the new MRP paint. Its performance was superb as usual. The color seemed a bit lighter than I expected though. I don't know if it would match a factory-fresh Hamp's color, but it certainly would match one that has seen the paint oxidize a bit. So, I'm not sure if I'm a little disappointed or not. i used Mr. Color C11 gull gray for the control surfaces and a bit of fading. It is really close to the Olive gray, so I don't know if you can see it that well. Since this subject is about 1942, I didn't want to make it too faded, so maybe the contrast is right? The cowl was painted with Mr. Color C14 Navy Blue, which is the US Navy early WWII dark blue. I think it's OK for the blue-black. Right now, the 2nd clear coat is curing....

My next "Big box, small aircraft" build is the Tamiya A6M3 Hamp. I didn't know there was a clipped wing version of the Zero until just a few years ago. It seems fascinating to me because it looks like a Zero with generic USN fighter wings on it. There were only a few hundred of the clipped wing versions (Model 32) before they went to a rounded-tip wing of the same span in the Model 22. I'm a little excited about building this because it's my first "light colored" Zero, and I'm using a new paint from MRP: IJNAF Olive Green (Mitsubishi). I read somewhere that they worked with the aviation of japan blog to develop the color. I hope that's true (I can't find that statement now, so I don't know the source). When I was a kid theses were white or light gray, but we know know that they were a light olive. I was inspired by @TonyOD's build of a Tamiya A6M2b where he used Humbrol Hemp for the color and it was the first time I got to see a light-colored Zero in something close to what we know was its real color. So, yeah.... can't wait to paint. Here's the sprue shot: Not a ton of parts. I can say this may be one of the finest kits I've looked at. The detail on Eduard's Bf-109F blew me away, and this is a very close 2nd. I say 'Very close" because all it is missing is the super finely detailed rivets that the Bf-109F had. They're so fine you really only can see them with magnifiers. I started with painting cockpit parts FS34087, which is pretty close to, but a little darker than the color called out at aviation of Japan. Most of the past week was devoted to the cockpit. I hate cockpits. I feel compelled to do a high quality job on them, but then am disappointed when you can't really see them in the finished product. And yet... I can't do anything halfway. It's worse with a cockpit like this because the detail is so incredible, that I want to leave it out and display it on its own. Plus there's so many parts that I devote a week of weeknight just working on the cockpit. But enough of my complaining... here's some photos of this gem of a cockpit. It really is stunning -- Bravo Tamiya. And to think it consists of a third of the kit's parts. 🤔 Once that was done, I did some careful fitting and gluing and everything went together very quickly The fit of the cockpit in the fuselage was incredible. Similarly, the seam in the fuselage will only need a couple swipes of a fine grit sandpaper. There are two gaps that need filling in places where I cut a little too deep trying to clean up where the sprue connected. Also the wings are so finely molded that they snapped into place with no wing root work needed. wow. I found that the Pacific Wrecks website has an entry on this aircraft: https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/a6m3/3032.html It lists it as a Mitsubishi airframe, so I will be going against Tamiya's painting instructions and will be painting the gear bays the underside color and the cowl blue/black.

Thank you. I can see how redundant Japanese aircraft can seem. Thanks Russ!

Thank you Alistair, you're too kind! Thanks! I agree with you about the La-7. I didn't really know a lot about it until recently and read a lot about it during my build. It was a fine airplane. Thank you! Thanks Mark! I am so much happier with this one... It helps to actually get the right colors, and to have the seat in the right location! Many thanks!

Thanks Alistair! Been there... Done that.... Thanks Mark! It was a fun challenge after all to fix the cockpit. I thought it would be fun to do a scheme you don't see too often! Thank you Giampiero!

Maybe that's the issue that I can't figure out!

I got around to doing RFIs for these. The Soviet La-7 is here: The Czech La-7 is here:

Finally got around to an RFI

Boy... 3 years. I'd forgotten about this one. I'm excited to see you working on it again.

The ordnance looks great. That spinner is terrific! nice work.

That's a terrific scheme and you did a wonderful job on it!

Beautiful bare metal finish! This is one of their better kits -- how much did you cut off the nose gear to get the right stance?

Terrific! I sure like the SEA scheme.

Wow, another beautiful build Russ!

Very nice! I like the suitable weathering.

Wow, this looks terrific! Such an elegant plane too I've got this kit in the stash -- sorry to hear it was a bit dodgy. Can't tell by looking at your build though, you really did wonders with it!

Beautiful work!

That is fantastic! A neat plane design and tremendous work on a kit that takes a lot of skill! I wouldn't have guessed this was a vacuform kit. I sure don't have the courage to attempt one of those!

I've always liked the look of the MiG-3 and I'm eager to see how this turns out. It looks like its shaping up nicely. I never considered a Frog MiG-3 kit -- it looks like it has an accurate shape (?).

Bill, this is fantastic! I've never done a figure and it seems like a black art to get them looking good, but you sure hit the mark on this one!

Thank you! I haven't looked the kit up to see when it was first released, but there were some differences between it and other Tamiya kits I've worked on. Not in a bad way, just simpler.